Dynamic Local Mode for the AMD Ryzen Threadripper WX Series Processors

cageymaru

cageymaru

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In a new blog post, AMD's Robert Hallock has announced Dynamic Local mode for the 2nd Gen Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX and 2970WX processors. Dynamic Local Mode is a new piece of software that automatically migrates the system's most demanding application threads onto the Threadripper 2990WX and 2970WX CPU cores with local memory access. In other words: the apps that prefer local DRAM access will automatically receive it, and apps that scale to many cores will be free to do so. Dynamic Local Mode operates on-the-fly without a reboot to toggle between modes. It ensures that demanding threads are executed on dies with local memory. And it does not fundamentally change how the operating system sees the processor's resources.

Dynamic Local Mode is implemented as a Windows 10 background service that measures how much CPU time each thread on the system is consuming. These threads are then ranked from most to least demanding, and the top threads are automatically pushed to the CPU cores that contain direct memory access. Once these cores are consumed by work, additional threads are scheduled and executed on the next available CPU core. This process is continuous while the service is running, ensuring the most demanding threads always get preferential time on cores with local memory. (As a corollary, insignificant threads are pushed to other dies.)

What is the benefit of Dynamic Local Mode? In the applications we have tested to date, AMD has observed performance improvements of up to 47% with Dynamic Local Mode enabled. The diagram shows a variety of games and applications aided by the new feature, and AMD expects other applications that we have not yet analyzed may also benefit. But we also want to be clear about the fact that not every application will see a benefit, as not every application demonstrates the threading behaviors that Dynamic Local Mode is designed to assist.

Dynamic Local Mode available starting October 29th

Beginning October 29th, Dynamic Local Mode will be a new package included with the latest version of AMD Ryzen Master. Downloading AMD Ryzen Master on or after the afternoon of 10/29 will automatically configure Dynamic Local Mode on your system if it contains an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX or 2970WX processor (also available starting 10/29). Looking further ahead, AMD also plans to open the feature up to even more users by including Dynamic Local Mode as a default package in the AMD Chipset Drivers.

 
I wish they would include a way to dynamically turn SMT on and off.
 
I've been pretty much a die hard Intel fan for many years. AMD has been making great strides in processor technology the last year or so. If they continue on their path then I may just switch over since Intel has been dropping the ball quite a bit over the past few months.
 
Keep it up AMD, keep it up!

However, it's interesting to see that the OS is not working well for anything other than Intel CPUs, which seem to need very little 3rd party drivers and applications to work properly.

These kinds of optimizations really should be done at the OS level, independent of hardware manufacturer, and at the Kernel level, but Microsoft was always an Intel shop, and probably always will be.
 
I think my next upgrade maybe to go to an AMD build instead of a 2080 ti...
 
Wonder if this could also be done to some extent for regular ryzen cpu's?
 
I know the article said it monitors CPU time, but does it only use CPU time or does it also analyze memory and IO demand? There are many apps out there that, while computationally demanding, don't need a lot of memory bandwidth. So they wouldn't benefit from a CPU demand based approach. On the other hand, memory and IO constrained apps that don't really tax the CPU would actually suffer because they're always kicked off to the non-local cores.
 
So Civ 6 would love me long time swapping 6700k/Z170 for 2970WX instead of 1080Ti to 2080Ti. ;)
 
Y'know, the "WX" processors are not the only ones that could benefit of this. The "X" are every bit as susceptible to Local vs unified memory access too. I really hope AMD doesn't forget their enthusiast HEDT class of users rather than only "creator" users.
 
Would like to see this +47% performance on BFV at 4k. . .yeah right. graphs are fun when they are as vague as humanly possible.
 
Chris_B said:
Wonder if this could also be done to some extent for regular ryzen cpu's?
Click to expand...

If I understand it correctly, it's a moot point.

Only the 2nd gen Threadrippers have cores which don't have direct RAM access.

EDIT: I may be wrong.
 
oldmanbal said:
Would like to see this +47% performance on BFV at 4k. . .yeah right. graphs are fun when they are as vague as humanly possible.
Click to expand...

Well DLM is not going to make your GPU 47% faster as that would most likely be the bottleneck at 4k.
 
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