New workstation :New Threadripper 3960X or 3970X or Ryzen 3950X

[baastyan]

Can you tell some more about your experience with 2990wx?

I bought 2990WX last year. It was suppossed to be my workstation, but after few weeks of testing 2990WX I went back to my older WS which is i9-7980XE. And I need to say I am more than happy with my decision.
2990wx workstation was really, really anoying. Basically it was feezing much more often than 7980XE (not only in heavy 3Ds max scenes) and had a lot of other bugs while working in WIN10. As said really anoying stuff.
So I was so surprised when 2990wx got such a great review when it was launched last year. I had the feeling that people were really tired with Intel dominance in the marked for so many years and they really wanted to see the new king in this market.

So for over 1 year I am using 2990WX as a render node only and it works really well. The renderings is 15-25% faster (dependeing on the scene) than 7980XE. The machine is reliable. I am glad with it. Well, forgot about one thing 2990WX is absolutely disaster when it comes to denosing. It can be 10-20 time slower than on 3900X!!

Now I am about to build a new rig with 3970x. My main workstation is stil i9-9960X now I am not sure if I will be using 3970x as a workstation or as render node. Will need to figure it out.

One more thought ... I am always surprise when I hear: "This CPU is 100% more expansive and it performes only 50% faster... not worth it" ... I means ... guys .. it is not only the cost of one single CPU, you need to compare the cost of whole machine! (including software licenses and power consuption). And the most important. We have a small render farm here at our office and need to say that it saves so, so much time to maintaine fewer but faster machines. It really matters.

[AC5L4T3R]

7m 07s on Vray GPU with 1080ti and 3960x as CUDA devices vs 9m 58s on Vray CPU. The CPU render had one bucket rendering for a minute and a half at the end. Default settings for both engines were used.

[Karol.Osinski]

Karol.Osinski - 2990wx stability issue is not a CPU/AMD architecture issue.

1.W10 internal scheduler not handing multi numa cpu properly
2. Crippled memory IO of TR2 architecture, where only 2 of 4 dies are connected directly.

In case of Windows, and light loads, like benchmarks or simple scenes with little mem bandwith usage, 2990wx will behave as expected. With with heavy scenes, with lot of IO, performance can drop significantly to levels of 2950x even. This was(at the release time) and still partially is the issue of Windows.

Our systems supplier has explained our issues with 2x 2060SUPER not being connected in the right order + he forgot to switch ON or OFF (can't remember exactly) the CPUBoost option in bios which we did ourselves and nothing has changed. Machine is extremely unstable, after working on i myself for 2days I noticed the crashes even on small 8gb ram size scenes. Viewport performance is much worse than on i9 7900X. Almost every time we launched few 4k frames to render during a night the job failed after 1st one. Now we are waiting for the new build so we can send back that shitty machine.

baastyan I have to admit that, as for you, the machine works very well as a render node though I don't get why because it seems the load is still 100% + V-Ray standalone process takes up pretty much the same amount of ram.

Tbh I don't expect the new workstation to work much better, however I heard that intel's 10th generation i9 is a dead end of the platform without significant performance boost over previous gen.

I really wish we have waited some time to get 3rd gen TR...

[AC5L4T3R]

My 3960x currently has a vray bench mark score of 37,078 which seems to be as far as I can push the OC without it crashing. I tested identical scenes with Corona and Vray IPR and Corona is almost realtime in how quick it renders.

[Vizioen]

Oh boy I ordered a 3970x, my first new workstation in 6 years (coming from a dual xeon x2950 V2), it was time for an upgrade. Will post my findings here but looking at the benchmarks this thing is insane Can't wait!

[fraggle]

Oh boy I ordered a 3970x, my first new workstation in 6 years (coming from a dual xeon x2950 V2), it was time for an upgrade. Will post my findings here but looking at the benchmarks this thing is insane Can't wait!

It should score arround 45 000 - 50 000 (rank 20 to 30). What is the score of your dual X2950 V2?

[Vizioen]

It should score arround 45 000 - 50 000 (rank 20 to 30). What is the score of your dual X2950 V2?

Made a typo it's a dual Xeon E5-2695 v2 and the bench mark is around 8000. Didn't have the time to benchmark this one and test it against other scenes. This beast is around 4-5 times faster judging by my feeling. But I think my quite slow NAS, is bottlenecking the lightcache, which takes forever sometimes.

[CRD]

What cpu cooler are you guys using on your threadripper builds? I'm researching a build and most of the AIO coolers don't have full coverage, except the Enermax that has the gunk problems. Is a big air cooler like the Dark Rock or Noctua enough for sustained renderings?

[Digital Magic]

What cpu cooler are you guys using on your threadripper builds? I'm researching a build and most of the AIO coolers don't have full coverage, except the Enermax that has the gunk problems. Is a big air cooler like the Dark Rock or Noctua enough for sustained renderings?

That is a good question I was wondering about too as mine will render for days probably.
Here's my order which is about to be assembled:

128GB 3200MHz RAM (4X32GB)

CAS: Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Full Tower Gaming Case W/ Full-size Tempered Glass Panel Window + RGB 10 Color LED Light Strip

CPU: AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper 3970X 3.7GHz [4.5GHz Turbo] 32Core 64Threads 144MB L3 Cache 280W Processor

CS_FAN: 3X 120mm Thermaltake Riing 12 Series High Static Pressure 120mm Case/Radiator Fan

FAN: Asetek 570LC 120mm (Fatboy) Liquid CPU Cooling System w/ Copper Cold Plate (2x CyberPowerPC 120mm Dual Light Loop ARGB 1200RPM Fans w/ Hub + Remote (Push-Pull)

MOTHERBOARD: ASUS Prime TRX40-Pro ATX w/ RGB, Intel LAN, 3 PCIe x16, 1 PCIe x1, 8 SATA3, 3 M.2 SATA/PCIe

OVERCLOCK: No Overclocking

POWERSUPPLY: 1000Watts - Enermax Revolution87+ 1000W 80 Plus Gold Certified Modular Power Supply

VIDEO: GeForce RTX™ 2080 Ti 11GB GDDR6 (Turing) [VR Ready] (Single Card)

[Alex_M]

That is a good question I was wondering about too as mine will render for days probably.
Here's my order which is about to be assembled:
...
FAN: Asetek 570LC 120mm (Fatboy) Liquid CPU Cooling System w/ Copper Cold Plate (2x CyberPowerPC 120mm Dual Light Loop ARGB 1200RPM Fans w/ Hub + Remote (Push-Pull)
...

Is this is the CPU cooler you want to install on that 32-core 280W CPU? If yes, this cooler will be super inadequate. 1st, the cold plate of the cooler doesn't cover the whole heat spreader of the CPU. And 2nd, it is only 120mm radiator so extremely small cooling surface area. Only consider coolers that cover the whole heat spreader of the CPU, because the cores in Threadripper are spread out and not in the exact center of the chip as most CPUs.

[Vizioen]

This is my build for anyone wondering. I've had it configured by a hardware specialist. Pretty happy about it so far.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X 4.5GHz - 100-100000011WOF
ASUS ROG STRIX TRX40-E GAMING - 90MB12E0-M0EAY0
Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H150i Pro - CW-9060031-WW
1e Kit : Corsair 64 GB DDR4-3200 (2x 32 GB) - CMK64GX4M2E3200C16
2e Kit : Corsair 64 GB DDR4-3200 (2x 32 GB) - CMK64GX4M2E3200C16
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB, SSD (PCI-E & M.2) - MZ-V7S1T0BW
Corsair Corsair AX1600i PSU - CP-9020087
ASUS GF RTX 2080 Ti ROG STRIX GAMIN OC - 90YV0CC0-M0NM00
GPU Brace Support-Videocard
Fractal Design Define R6 Black, Tower - FD-CA-DEF-R6-BK

[Digital Magic]

Is this is the CPU cooler you want to install on that 32-core 280W CPU? If yes, this cooler will be super inadequate. 1st, the cold plate of the cooler doesn't cover the whole heat spreader of the CPU. And 2nd, it is only 120mm radiator so extremely small cooling surface area. Only consider coolers that cover the whole heat spreader of the CPU, because the cores in Threadripper are spread out and not in the exact center of the chip as most CPUs.

Oh no. Thanks for sharing. It's the only option the builder gives. Apparenly due to the case offered? http://www.phanteks.com/Enthoo-Luxe-TemperedGlass.html
Not sure what to do now as it's being built

[Alex_M]

I've just checked the product page of this case. If you are going with water cooling, it appears that it supports up to 420mm radiators at the top of the case (which is plenty even for Threadripper 3970x) and 240mm at the front. You can ask the seller for confirmation and more info about radiator support. For the 32-core Threadripper I would not get less than 280mm radiator. I think 360mm is preferable for this CPU.

[100%indifferent]

As I'm currently in the market for a new workstation/render node, I'm curious as to why Puget, who builds very good systems, doesn't even offer liquid cooling for their Threadripper line.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/recomme...ay-199/Buy_240

I've bought 2 of their dual xeon workstations over the years, their stuff is incredibly well built & their knowledgeable about current procs, trends, etc. Seems these chips have cooling issues according to this thread & others, so I'm wondering what's up if they don't even offer liquid cooling. Thoughts?

[Alex_M]

I can assure you that these new Threadrippers don't have any cooling issues. Not sure where you got this from. The 7nm manufacturing process of these CPUs is nothing short of spectacular in this regard. I have two of these 32-core 3970x Threadrippers and while rendering they run at a pretty cool 60-65*C with a simple single tower air cooler Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3. At 100% load in complex renders they boost all 32 cores to 3.80 Ghz. Again, this with the little Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3. You don't need a water cooler for these new Threadrippers, you might want one, but that's only if you are into the hobby of overclocking and you like to push your hardware to the limit. Not that you'll gain any notable performance from overclocking, maybe 5-10% more at the cost of 20-40% more power consumption and a lot more cooler noise. Is this trade-off worth it? For me, definitely not. That's why I didn't get an expensive custom water loop for my Threadripper systems. BTW, I'm able to run my 3970x'es overclocked to 4.00 - 4.10 Ghz on all 32-cores fine with the aforementioned air cooler. However, I like running them stock at the moment because the performance gain is minimal and I lose the pretty sweet 4.50 Ghz single-core boost which makes everything quite snappy.