AMD vs. Intel HEDT Platform Showdown Editorial

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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AMD vs. Intel HEDT Platform Showdown Editorial

I’ve spent quite a bit of time with AMD’s Threadripper and X399 chipset and I thought I’d give our readers my impression of it and talk about the platform as well as giving interested consumers a general overview of the platform and what it has to offer. We compare it to Intel’s HEDT platform and give our take on this match up.
 
I enjoyed the article. I'd really like to see more of this type of content on [H]. Too bad I don't think I'll ever be able to afford either TR or x299.
 
Nice read, not that I'm on the market for any of those but interesting none the less.
 
I am excited to finally see some competition again where things are close. It has been far to long where Intel was the only float in the parade. Hopefully this spurns further progress and development on better platforms/cpus.
 
I liked the conclusion. Like Stoly there is not going to be a X399 for me any time soon. I welcome the shift that AMD made if that can rub of to the gaming sector it might pay of well for AMD if at least they can keep improving upon what they have done now things are interesting for consumers.
 
Since X399 was nabbed by AMD, is the successor to Skylake X going to be the Gruntmaster 6000 chipset?

Actually, will Intel bother with Kabylake and Coffeelake HEDT releases because there is no real IPC gains or other changes and Intel was just forced to add the cores they otherwise were going to slowly dole out over the next two to four release cycles...
 
I really appreciate the variety of tests in the article and reasoning behind them. It's almost inconceivable that with Intel's R+D Budget that is probably more than AMD's net worth isn't able to surpass them in all aspects of these platforms. There are just too many equal or better examples that clearly establish AMD as incredibly resilient with implementation and engineering. I'm in full agreement with the conclusion that these are exciting times for pc enthusiasts. After building my son a threadripper setup for his streaming and content creation, I'm considering putting another one together for myself to take advantage of the tremendous power from a well performing platform. This article has all but made up my mind for me.
 
Loved the conclusion.

I have no reason to really upgrade my current platform but man, I might be ready for the next generation of Ryzen and Threadripper, I'm really excited to see these hot new contenders from AMD mature for a generation.
 
I would like to smack the product managers at both companies for releasing platforms with such similar names. How silly.
 
Correction on page 1 - the X299 chipset doesn't have any native USB 3.1 Gen2 ports according to the Intel site.
 
I want to say I ca afford the Intel platform but I can’t. With that said it’s not really cheery on the AMD side as I’ve hit many issues, mainly with the chipset itself.

With that said I’ll be going with an x399/499 when the next one releases.
 
Correction on page 1 - the X299 chipset doesn't have any native USB 3.1 Gen2 ports according to the Intel site.

Correct. The chipset doesn't, but the platform often does. The word native doesn't really apply as a companion chip, the Alpine Ridge controller has to be used for this. It was a typo / error on my part.
 
Great article I couldn't agree more with your summation. It's a great time to be an enthusiast and AMD deserves our attention.
I'm also looking forward to your follow up. I believe as GCN and Zen mature we will all be amazed. Their outside the box thinking has already yielded great results.
 
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Holding off for one more round, but appreciate the article guys! love that there is competition at the HEDT space and really shows the merit of having two rather than one milking that segment. We still see Intel's milking ways, but at least AMD made them drive the core count up to where it should have been. I will be looking at TR part deux for my next build, Intel is off my list...greed and laziness, two things id rather not tolerate from any company. Ill vote with my wallet, and hope others do as well. Cheers AMD, glad to see ya back in the thick of it
 
I think the missing part of this comparison to this whole thing is the xeon-w processors. You can pick up 44 pci-e lanes at ~ $300 or so & have a decent processor (less threads) and hopefully better maturity than the HEDT platforms.

I guess it's not really missing since AFAIK it's a paper launch and you can't buy them anywhere :(
 
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While AMD is going to struggle (while putting up a good fight) with Intel in the consumer sector, HEDT is one area where Intel's pride will probably let AMD shine!
 
great write up, can't wait to get this deployment done and then jump on the TR train come 2019, prices should be better and all the kinks will be worked out by then. Better sell my 5820k while it's still worth more than shipping lol
 
Great article, It reinforces my choice to wait with X99 in my rig for now, and move to a Ripper system later when I upgrade next year.
 
Good on AMD forcing themselves back into talks of this kind, I think many years of hard work paid off, though there is plenty more mountain to climb.
 
Only gripe is:

USB connectivity seems to favor AMD on paper as all its ports are native USB 3.1 instead of USB 3.0 as is the case with Intel.

It isn't even a paper improvement, since most of AMD's are "USB 3.1" are Gen 1, as are Intel's. "USB 3.1 Gen 1" is just a rebranding of USB 3.0. There is no technical difference at all between USB 3.0 and "USB 3.1 Gen 1". Only "USB 3.1 Gen 2" are actually different. And both chipsets have the same number of those ports.

I still think it's hilarious that Intel includes "Up to 14 USB 2.0 ports" - what motherboard has more than 2 USB 2.0 ports any more? Hell, for the "14 USB 3.1" ports, what motherboard has more than eight on the back panel, and two headers?

I'm more annoyed that nearly all motherboards only include a single USB Type-C port. FFS, I don't need 14 Type-A ports, I want future-proofing, give me at least four Type-C ports with all those extra ports the chipset provides!
 
This was a really nice-to-read, sane, level-headed editorial, thank you!
 
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Whatever ssdS you are testing, are way off the samsung 960 pro norm, of 3500MB/s seq read per drive, & ~exact multiples of that on amd native raid0. Intels' native ports however, would be useless for raid0 using sensible nvme drives. Even cheaper sm961/Evo 256GB ssdS are 3200GB/s.

"Intel is limited, not by its lanes but by the DMI 3.0 link. DMI 3.0 limits you to roughly 4,000MB/s. This is, in theory somewhat problematic as M.2 and U.2 devices go through the PCH and do not access the CPU directly. This can limit faster SSDs, especially when these are utilized in a RAID configuration. Network controllers and other devices go through the PCH, leaving even less bandwidth for NVMe drives. One NVMe device is fine and two are usually OK, although you’ll find the reads capped on the newer drives."

i.e. - one modern ssd saturates the entire chipset bandwidth, in your own convoluted words.

Why on earth treat the matter using half speed ssdS? Yes two can run in native intel raid0, but will not even match a single standard samsung nvme ssdS speed. The point of that is what exactly?

We can only assume this strange treatment is to show intel in a better light.
 
Awesome read.

Wish I did not already have a "HEDT" build so that I could get into the X399/X299 dilemma.
 
See, this is EXACTLY the kind of article that has kept me over on tha [H] for more years than I can remember. Precisely the type of information, testing, and relayed personal experiences that I'm looking for. Really appreciate the work and time that goes into shit like this. 2017 has been a really damn interesting year so far. Too bad the market wasn't like this back in 2014 when I built my last system. Buying today, I probably would have ended up with an X399/Threadripper system. I'm glad that Summit Ridge and then Coffee Lake finally brought more than 4 cores to the mainstream segment, though. Long overdue, if you ask me. I hadn't heard about a dual-core CPU coming to X299, are you fucking kidding me?! How expensive are the drugs they are ingesting over there at Intel? Must be copious amounts of the stuff. X99 was the one time I broke my rule and bought a new platform at launch, but you can bet my ass won't be doing that again. Learned my lesson. Always gotta give time for new platforms to mature, and X299, X370 and X399 are great examples of this. Gawd damn, it has been so long since AMD has been such a viable option on the CPU and platform side. Long have I dreamed of this day. A breath of fresh air after living in a choking cloud of no competition for too many years. A world where our wallets and bank accounts drop the soap in the prison showers. Judging by some of those Skylake-X prices and paywall practices, Intel still trying to get people to bend over. Definitely gonna be interesting to see where things go in 2018 and beyond. The HEDT segment has come alive. I've wanted to see that for years.
 
Only gripe is:



It isn't even a paper improvement, since most of AMD's are "USB 3.1" are Gen 1, as are Intel's. "USB 3.1 Gen 1" is just a rebranding of USB 3.0. There is no technical difference at all between USB 3.0 and "USB 3.1 Gen 1". Only "USB 3.1 Gen 2" are actually different. And both chipsets have the same number of those ports.

I still think it's hilarious that Intel includes "Up to 14 USB 2.0 ports" - what motherboard has more than 2 USB 2.0 ports any more? Hell, for the "14 USB 3.1" ports, what motherboard has more than eight on the back panel, and two headers?

I'm more annoyed that nearly all motherboards only include a single USB Type-C port. FFS, I don't need 14 Type-A ports, I want future-proofing, give me at least four Type-C ports with all those extra ports the chipset provides!

Actually, Intel allows for up to 14 USB ports total. You can allocate them as any combination of USB 2.0 or USB 3.1 Gen1. Your right though, you normally only see two ports on the back panel. The rest are usually only available via headers.
 
Great article and its good to see competition again I also agree both platforms were released unfinished.

Typos on the first page:
As a result, we can’t really talk about AMD X399 motherboards without talking a about thee AMD Ryzen Threadripper itself.

And one additional comment:
So far, I’ve only seen ASUS actually provide the necessary UEFI BIOS update to enable NVMe RAID on AMD’s X399 platform.

I think Asrock has as well:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X399 Taichi/index.asp#BIOS
 
I wrote this last week. At that time, I was only aware of ASUS having the UEFI BIOS update to enable NVMe RAID on X399. That's of course, not necessarily all inclusive, but it's the only one I knew of for certain.
 
One word: MORE! :)

I'm looking forward to NVME tests with multiple drives. I'm also looking forward to someone repeating Linus Tech Tips' demonstration of 16K gaming with 4x4x 4K monitors running off 4 Quadro cards with an additional sync card. That should really show if AMD's extra PCIe lanes are useful. Though for cabling simplicity I might use 4x 8K monitors. I wonder if [H] are sufficiently in AMD's good graces now for them to fund this?
 
One word: MORE! :)

I'm looking forward to NVME tests with multiple drives. I'm also looking forward to someone repeating Linus Tech Tips' demonstration of 16K gaming with 4x4x 4K monitors running off 4 Quadro cards with an additional sync card. That should really show if AMD's extra PCIe lanes are useful. Though for cabling simplicity I might use 4x 8K monitors. I wonder if [H] are sufficiently in AMD's good graces now for them to fund this?
Why would we spend the resources to do that?
 
One word: MORE! :)

I'm looking forward to NVME tests with multiple drives. I'm also looking forward to someone repeating Linus Tech Tips' demonstration of 16K gaming with 4x4x 4K monitors running off 4 Quadro cards with an additional sync card. That should really show if AMD's extra PCIe lanes are useful. Though for cabling simplicity I might use 4x 8K monitors. I wonder if [H] are sufficiently in AMD's good graces now for them to fund this?

I will definitely be testing NVMe RAID on X399 once I've got a board with the feature enabled in hand. However, the rest of it, in my opinion is of no value. Intel and AMD both give you enough lanes for 16x16 SLI or Crossfire. It's been shown that there is little to no difference between x8 and x16 lanes for gaming. Therefore, both give you enough lanes for 4-Way SLI or Crossfire. The advantage, is being able to use more devices with AMD's offering with less bandwidth restriction because you have fewer lanes behind the PCH. At the PCH,
 
yea, no one actually wants to see a review of a $40,000+ setup when instead we could get reviews of things we could actually want. That linus thing was done so shitty that only linus could have done it. It made for an amusing 2-3 minutes of browsing on youtube and that's all. I'd much rather that time be spent on a review I can sink a half hour or more into going through and then I'll be refrencing back to it for weeks or months to myself and friends about that hardware, something I can actually use when planning a build.

Guess how many people or how man times I've returned to that stupid linus video? never
 
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