AMD, Why is multi CPU architecture reserved for servers??

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Dr. Righteous

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The BIGGEST gain with a multi core CPU is in rendering. The codecs for these tasks love more cores to spread the load across. Be this with 3D graphics rendering for development or for HD video rendering. More cores, more time saved. Now with 4K cameras 8 cores is just not enough for fast rendering times. So what we need is a 32 core CPU right? Well, how about making multi CPU motherboards for something other than servers. Make these boards in standard ATX form factors and build them to handle the requirements.

BEFORE you say "Multi CPUs is for servers" ask yourself WHY. Yeah, AMD and Intel don't want their desktop market overlapping their server market. But that is an apples to oranges comparison to some degree.
True there is LITTLE gain for GAMERS, most games still don't take full advantage of multi core CPU behind a couple cores. But that is only a single aspect to desktop PCs.
People like myself spend a lot of time editing audio and video and leaving the PC to CHEW on the rending for hours while I wait for the end result. THIS is the market for multi CPU systems.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
The BIGGEST gain with a multi core CPU is in rendering. The codecs for these tasks love more cores to spread the load across. Be this with 3D graphics rendering for development or for HD video rendering. More cores, more time saved. Now with 4K cameras 8 cores is just not enough for fast rendering times. So what we need is a 32 core CPU right? Well, how about making multi CPU motherboards for something other than servers. Make these boards in standard ATX form factors and build them to handle the requirements.

BEFORE you say "Multi CPUs is for servers" ask yourself WHY. Yeah, AMD and Intel don't want their desktop market overlapping their server market. But that is an apples to oranges comparison to some degree.
True there is LITTLE gain for GAMERS, most games still don't take full advantage of multi core CPU behind a couple cores. But that is only a single aspect to desktop PCs.
People like myself spend a lot of time editing audio and video and leaving the PC to CHEW on the rending for hours while I wait for the end result. THIS is the market for multi CPU systems.
Click to expand...

You can make 36 core/72 thread systems now with relative ease. Yes you must use server parts. This market is already addressed though the server market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25FfiS9JWD8
 
True there is LITTLE gain for GAMERS, most games still don't take full advantage of multi core CPU behind a couple cores.
Click to expand...

I say there is no gain for GAMERS. High core count CPUs tend to be clocked much lower and since games (and most other applications) will never ever be optimized for these high core counts you will end up paying more for a system that is slower for nearly everything that does not make use of the high core counts.

People like myself spend a lot of time editing audio and video and leaving the PC to CHEW on the rending for hours while I wait for the end result. THIS is the market for multi CPU systems.
Click to expand...

This is a small market of users compared to all users.
 
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drescherjm said:
I say there is no gain for GAMERS. High core count CPUs tend to be clocked much lower and since games (and most other applications) will never ever be optimized for these high core counts you will end up paying more for a system that is slower for nearly everything that does not make use of the high core counts.



This is a small market of users compared to all users.
Click to expand...

Mantle DX12 Vulkan all will have the same feature of allowing each core to talk to the gpu.
If you remember the Star swarm demo where cpu with 8 cores would get higher scores when using Mantle.

But the drawback is that gaming has not yet pushed beyond 40K batches where you would "need" 8 cores for pushing well over 100K batches.
 
You'd probably get better bang for your buck if you can split rendering tasks over multiple inexpensive machines than going to a server platform.
 
toast0 said:
You'd probably get better bang for your buck if you can split rendering tasks over multiple inexpensive machines than going to a server platform.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was going to suggest. For rendering what you really want is a cluster of cheap computers.

Intel and AMD are protecting their bottom line by restricting the higher-core CPUs to the lucrative server market. If you could get a 2.0Ghz 16-core chip for $500 then you'd better believe that a lot of people building servers would buy them, even without ECC support (a lot of servers don't need ECC).
 
Mantle DX12 Vulkan all will have the same feature of allowing each core to talk to the gpu.
Click to expand...

I expect that to have minimal benefit for high core counts.
 
drescherjm said:
I expect that to have minimal benefit for high core counts.
Click to expand...

not a lot maybe but it will have some varying degrees of benefit. Again having the ability to talk to the gpu with multiple cores at once is far better than waiting for one to get done before the other can. Either way you look at it, it will see an increase.
 
Quix said:
That's exactly what I was going to suggest. For rendering what you really want is a cluster of cheap computers.

Intel and AMD are protecting their bottom line by restricting the higher-core CPUs to the lucrative server market. If you could get a 2.0Ghz 16-core chip for $500 then you'd better believe that a lot of people building servers would buy them, even without ECC support (a lot of servers don't need ECC).
Click to expand...

Here is a dual socket board, CPUs and memory.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-OPTERON...111?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2801046537

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151576766787?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

http://www.ebay.com/itm/231539346926?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&
ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131368741192?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
 
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Companies build render farms for this exact reason now.

That being said, I can go on newegg and find a muli-cpu motherboard right now.
 
You can pick up 3+ year old dual CPU workstations pretty cheap.

I picked up a mint 2008 Dell T5400 dual Xeon box for just $125.00 about 18 months ago.

Got 8x3.33GHz cores with 16GB of ECC ram and HD7870 in it. Does everything I throw at it.
 
TC, there's nothing stopping you from buying a workstation board and several Opterons to put into them. Prosumers like yourself make up a very very very tiny percentage of an already ultra-niche market, which is why you don't see multi-socket mobo's anywhere close to the mainstream anymore. Even Intel's E-series desktop platform is single-socket only. AMD tried a multi-socket enthusiast platform before (enthusiasts nicknamed it the "Quadfather", lol) and it pretty much was a fail.
 
EVGA made the SR-2 dual socket 1366 for the xeon 56xx series CPPUs and it was a very popular board.
Worth a small fortune today still.

I just built two dual socket 1366 Intel with Xeon E5620 for under 300$
You can do an AMD quad socket F hexcores, 24 core for around the same price.
I do folding at home and BOINC
My Asus dual socket 1366 with X5650 hexcore has a R9-280x, sound card and handles anything I throw at it no problem,

Big problem with more than 2 processors, you have to use Linux or a server ver. of windows.
And the server versions are not cheap at all.
But win7 can see 2 CPUs and as many cores as it has, so dual is the way to go if you want to use win7 or win8
 
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