Threadripper or 3900X - mixed use.

I do love it when people assume. Maybe you are gods gift to virtualisation. Pretty big board though so it’s a bit presumptive. I know there is an AWS level 7 from ec2 product team for example. I’ve done VMware since 2005, had vExpert, have done kvm for years but I honestly don’t know what he’s talking about if he gets on that shit.
Fair - I used to work at a company that has VM in the name, and last I checked, some of my code is still in use, and many of the docs I wrote have been revised but still are. Now I work for one of the other companies in that group. :)
Anyway, don’t really know what you’re doing, it looks like you’ve got some pretty niche stuff. I’d have thought those would guide you anyway, demoing nvmeof I’d assume you use nvme pass through on a guest and just map it as a target through a vswitch. Point being drive for that, drive for your vms (make sure you need nvme) If you had graphics in there too you’re gonna be pushing it on lanes so maybe headroom does make sense
That's the one part I'm debating. I'm tearing down the home lab where I used to farm some of this stuff out to and hoping to consolidate everything but the serious gaming down to one machine. I'm thinking 4x NVMe drives (boot/games/video/VMs), but only one or two of those would be doing major IO at a time, I ~think~. The rest will be pretty idle - not going to play a game, run a demo, and compile video all at once.
ECC works fine with threadripper btw, just depends on degree of critically whether it’s worth it. Farm machines we use it as a job can take more than 24 hours and one app in particular is a single context, non-distributable monstrosity. Bit slower vs losing a day is an easy calculation
Less criticality, more I have a crap ton of it I technically can't resell, but could use myself. Like, 768G of the stuff
Standard workstations we don’t. Just test them when they come in and if someone gets a crash they’ll lose nominal time unless they’ve been stupid.

It sounds like you want someone to say yes, (we’ve all been there), speaking for myself I went with it for home PC (am waiting for my water block)
Trying to justify it? Sure. Yeah, I am. But I'm also not an idiot, and I'll admit that trying to justify it doesn't necessarily mean it really is justifiable, and sometimes having someone call you out on your bullshit is useful to really narrow down what you need. I NEED 4 NVMe drives and a mass store of some kind - that is sane. But any of the good x570 boards will do that dance. I need 8 USB ports - same. I don't NEED 24 cores - and even the demo really can be fudged without it - I need 12-16. I need 64G of ram, but I don't really need 128 or 256 - and if I do, I still have access to a monster farm that could do it, I just have to carry the source material in and let it rock on that for a bit (network transfer in and out is miserable). It's an annoyance if I ever got there, but not a show-stopper.
For me I know I’m right on the borderline of it making sense and the stuff running is pretty...hefty

Host
Gaming VM
Multiple windows client vms (otherwise pita when you have logins for lots of companies)
K8s Cluster (utilities, maven cache, remote development containers etc)
Pytorch w/gpu
Database server, uses 90gb of ram. Fuck you very much jvm.
Got a K8s cluster on actual hardware, and LOL at the JVM
I already know 16 cores is enough for that as I don’t use everything together, 4:1 ratios are fine as my workflow doesn’t drive contention and I just switch shit off if I need to run ‘big’ and don’t want the cpu queue issues that big vms cause. Plus big stuff can just take a bit longer if needed. I need 128gb, 32gb dimms get me there, I need 10gbe which is a factor but solvable on an x570.
Yep. Hell, I'm debating the 10Gbe need myself - I've got it, but the storage devices hooked up don't anymore - got tired of the squirrel fans.
In the end it just came down to the fact I’m buying this for a 5 year machine and want a single box to replace a couple, plus I’m pretty sure I’ll hit the lane limit on Ryzen by the time I get the updated optane etc. Supported by the fact that whilst I’m not one to spend needlessly, it’s not a problematic amount of money.

Of course my real preference would be to not have shit internet so I could just pay a few bucks an hour for the times I need most of that :)

We can rationalise anything to ourselves with time but Threadripper very much does not make sense for almost everyone. There’s no getting round that. Its basically “do you earn money from it”, and then “does it make you more money”, if answer is no, you don’t need it. You just want it, which is good and what [H] is about but it’s not rational.

So if you want it, go for it. If you’re still not sure, flip a coin. If you’re disappointed with the answer then you’ll know.

The shit internet is a valid point. I used to run 10 ESXi servers and two storage arrays locally; now, with the net being as slow as it is, and them getting older - wasn't worth the power cost. Still have the work farm, but I have to hand-carry the raw data in if I need to do something there. Stopped hosting my own shit because it just wasn't worth it.

To quote you:
“do you earn money from it” - Nope, not really.
“does it make you more money” - ehhhh..... schmaybe?

I don't think I can justify it right now. And it's not like a 3950 or 3900 will suck that much for the moment. If I do need TR in reality, next year I can figure that out and build a loop for the first time in 15 years. Which I'm really not looking forward to - I freaking hate the idea of water cooling.
 
Just to be clear iopoetve, in one thread you’re saying you want to get rid of ryzen for a 9900k because of lots of stability issues (like I did, for the record), then in this thread you are saying you want Ryzen/TR..
 
Just to be clear iopoetve, in one thread you’re saying you want to get rid of ryzen for a 9900k because of lots of stability issues (like I did, for the record), then in this thread you are saying you want Ryzen/TR..

Check dates :p. Fixed the issue; video card weirdness with Polaris.
 
Check dates :p. Fixed the issue; video card weirdness with Polaris.

Seemed pretty punchy about it

If someone gave me a Ryzen Gen3 proc I'd consider it, but otherwise I'm not giving AMD any more of my money right now. Once is happenstance, twice coincidence... but three times is enemy action, and this is three in a row of problem AMD children. If I'm replacing the motherboard and CPU, I'm going Intel this time. I've got 4 of those around right now, and not a single one has ever given me the slightest bit of trouble. Every AMD system I've build since my 3800X2 has been a problem (that 3800 was stupid stable for me, and for the guy I sold it to afterwards, as were all the others before it - I was an AMD guy for 15 years).
 
Seemed pretty punchy about it

I spent almost three months with phantom crashes. Damn right I was punchy about it, especially after the mess my FX-8350 was. :p.


Also had a really bad experience with their virtualized FirePro cards, but that was first gen MxGPU, and part of it was “read the fine print too.”

the hilarious part is the card that caused the problem works fine for the guy I sold it to, and the 5700XT I bought (and waited a month for) also works fine. It just hated the mix.
 
I spent almost three months with phantom crashes. Damn right I was punchy about it, especially after the mess my FX-8350 was. :p.


Also had a really bad experience with their virtualized FirePro cards, but that was first gen MxGPU, and part of it was “read the fine print too.”

the hilarious part is the card that caused the problem works fine for the guy I sold it to, and the 5700XT I bought (and waited a month for) also works fine. It just hated the mix.

this is why my rig is intel/nvidia
 
this is why my rig is intel/nvidia

And that's why I was leaning towards rebuilding the workstation with Intel as well; my gaming system is Intel based. But, I got it fixed, and now I've got the itch, so I'm debating.
 
I spent almost three months with phantom crashes. Damn right I was punchy about it, especially after the mess my FX-8350 was. :p.


Also had a really bad experience with their virtualized FirePro cards, but that was first gen MxGPU, and part of it was “read the fine print too.”

the hilarious part is the card that caused the problem works fine for the guy I sold it to, and the 5700XT I bought (and waited a month for) also works fine. It just hated the mix.

I bought the card...lol. And it works like a champ (y).

Anyway, IIRC, it was a random combination of 1st gen Zen with an MSI X370(?) board. I had a lot of random issues with 1st gen Ryzen in general that are no longer present with Zen 2. I don't find any of them to be any less stable than an Intel system per se.

I think after using a mix of both in the past month, the best way I can sum it up is to say that they are "different." Ryzen tends to be more memory sensitive and any flaw with the memory speed/timings is going to throw it off. In my experience, I find Intel silicon to vary widely in terms of overclocking capability, so the tweaking is more directly related to the CPU rather than the memory. Generally, a CPU blue screen or crash is easier to diagnose and fix because it's a matter of whether or not the CPU is capable or not at certain speeds/voltages. With AMD memory tweaking, it could appear completely stable and then crash for no apparent reason. The memory controller on Zen 2 is significantly improved compared to 1st gen.

AMD/Nvidia graphics? That's a whole different ball game ;).
 
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I had an Asus prime pro x370 for my Ryzen 1700 I gotta say I was very unimpressed with it.

I need 64 gig of ram on my platform, it meant that I needed to sacrifice cpu performance for memory size as 32 gig sticks weren’t out yet.

I also had a lot (comparatively) of random niggles with software that the majority of users don’t use, eg atmel studio.

I don’t regret the purchases, getting 8 cores on intel at the time was just unattainable for me, but conversely I have no regrets about the 9900k which I bought when the 2800x was the direct competitor.

The one misgiving I had there was that the 9900k needs a very solid VRM platform, so it meant spending more than I would have liked on a motherboard. That said, I am very happy with the current motherboard I have, it is by far the best motherboard I have used, bar none.

People pay out Gigabyte a lot on the net, but I have nothing but praise for this particular model
 
I will find out this weekend. Picking up a 3900X and X470 board from a friend... I also belong to the camp of selling my 1600/B350 combo for an intel box. So we shall see.
 
Should have it mostly running this weekend it will be end of next week before its at full speed. I live in BFE and shipping times are a bit long right now (cooler and GPU are lagging)... I can pull the 5700XT out of game rig and use the stock cooler worst case. Like OP this machine is going to be my workstation.
 
You know what? Let’s flip this around. Between now and this time next year, let’s say I’m going to rebuild both systems.

1700+X370 -> ?

6700K+Z170 mATX -> ?

one is a workstation, used as above. The other is a gaming system, 1440P@165hz and VR.

ONE of the two should be a balls out, fuck it all type of build. Not 3990X type of hardware, but the dream system you’d always want to build for that use case. The other should be high end but reasonable (like what I have now). Assume over clocking on one, not on the other (0probably not on the workstation).

Would prefer one Intel and one AMD, but willing to listen to alternatives.

Assume RTX 3XXX for the gaming system at 165hz 1440p

Workstation needs 8-10 USB and 4x NVMe, and at least 16 threads.

AIO on one, water or AIO on the insane box

Which would you spend the cash on? Monitors and graphics cards are picked. Gaming box gets 32G, workstation 64.
 
Workstation needs 8-10 USB and 4x NVMe, and at least 16 threads.

4x nvme... like an array or singles?

20191212_211426.jpg

Not many platforms support bifurication like threadripper and on intel side hedt.
 
For me at least workstation gets the big box. I would ideally have the 24/32c threadripper with 128gb of ram and something like the 10900K with the 3080ti. I've been doing a lot of software builds and AI/DL/ML experimentation. It will do some video editing/encoding too.

I was going to go threadripper with a 10600K and whatever next gen card comes out in the fall. As of now we will see how I feel about the 3900X before I build the new game rig this fall. For as much as I game the 6700/5700XT combo is good enough for the moment.
 
Well, if you’re prepared to wait, I would see what AMD comes out with in Q3-Q4, and pair it with nvidia’s rtx 3xxx
 
4x nvme... like an array or singles?

View attachment 250749

Not many platforms support bifurication like threadripper and on intel side hedt.

Singles. Most of the x570 boards I'm looking at can handle that. Will also be a 4x SATA-SSD array for longer term storage, and then I have the two NAS arrays for even longer/NL-SAS speeds. One for Boot, one for games, one for VMs, and one for either video or possibly linux (debating if the video can even use the NVMe).
 
Singles. Most of the x570 boards I'm looking at can handle that. Will also be a 4x SATA-SSD array for longer term storage, and then I have the two NAS arrays for even longer/NL-SAS speeds. One for Boot, one for games, one for VMs, and one for either video or possibly linux (debating if the video can even use the NVMe).


Dumb question, why not just go a large sized optane and be done with it? (as in pci-e)
 
Singles. Most of the x570 boards I'm looking at can handle that. Will also be a 4x SATA-SSD array for longer term storage, and then I have the two NAS arrays for even longer/NL-SAS speeds. One for Boot, one for games, one for VMs, and one for either video or possibly linux (debating if the video can even use the NVMe).

It's not going to be so easy... cuz most boards only have 2 nvme slots. Even if they slap more on there are only so many lanes. It's not a free lunch.

c81f7216-a8d9-4df5-8fb1-d865518fde20.png
 
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It's not going to be so easy... cuz most boards only have 2 nvme slots. Even if they slap more on there are only so many lanes. It's not a free lunch.

View attachment 250916

The ones I'm looking at have 2 or 3, and the MSI ones come with their PCIE expander with 2 more (for either 4 or 5 total slots). :) If I end up with a 3-slot system, I'll add a PCIe based blob.
 
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