Could a Quanta Windmill match ThreadRipper for less $?

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Twice_Shy

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So i'm contemplating all future workstation options at the prodding of others and I come across this - 16-Core ThreadRipper 8K Video Editing Workstation for Premiere Pro CC and DaVinci Resolve - which makes me wonder how close one could come (or could you run 12 cores per socket and even exceed?) for potentially alot less scratch (even if performance is not identical, superior value) if someone really does need to plan into eventual 8k video editing.

It's cool that a $900 cpu and $400 mobo can do this - i'm just curious how close one gets otherwise and for how much less money if willing to accept a plateau of performance a few notches down but still very high for the money.

I've been previously considering notably older used workstations but now that i'm seeing things here showing ppl getting the WindMill boards up and online (further along than when I had last looked at things awhile ago) i'm now very interested... with how cheap you can get 16 cores up and substantial amounts of RAM... i'm willing to work around certain other limitations like not having the newest features and no newer than Windows 7 natively and such. Or expecting to run some kind of virtualization which might allow even newer guest OS's to be run and might actually improve compatibility via the virtualization layer.
 
Patrick

Patrick

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I swapped from a dual E5 V3 workstation to a Threadripper.

The good is that you have more modern I/O like USB 3.1, m.2 slots, better audio, and single thread performance is great.

The bad is that you use expensive 16GB UDIMMs rather than cheap 16GB (and more) DDR3 RDIMMs.

While Threadripper at stock clocks uses quite a bit of power, it will be less than high core/ high clock E5 chips with lots of RAM. Overclocking Threadripper and that changes.

The one bit to remember is that an E5 V1 core is a good amount slower clock for clock than AMD's first generation Zen so 2.9GHz E5 V1 is not 2.9GHz Threadripper. I use 15-20% IPC improvement from Sandy Bridge-EP to Zen1 but it can be more or less depending on the application.
 
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Twice_Shy

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Patrick said:
I swapped from a dual E5 V3 workstation to a Threadripper.

The good is that you have more modern I/O like USB 3.1, m.2 slots, better audio, and single thread performance is great.

The bad is that you use expensive 16GB UDIMMs rather than cheap 16GB (and more) DDR3 RDIMMs.

While Threadripper at stock clocks uses quite a bit of power, it will be less than high core/ high clock E5 chips with lots of RAM. Overclocking Threadripper and that changes.

The one bit to remember is that an E5 V1 core is a good amount slower clock for clock than AMD's first generation Zen so 2.9GHz E5 V1 is not 2.9GHz Threadripper. I use 15-20% IPC improvement from Sandy Bridge-EP to Zen1 but it can be more or less depending on the application.
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Thanks for the specific analysis... so in LIFO order :) (or GIGO)... the Threadripper is about 15-20% rule of thumb clock-for-clock faster than the older Xeons? Any guesstimate how much more power use the Xeons might be doing for the same workload, i'm guessing about half? (i'm aware other things are not the same, like total system idle watts and such)

I mean a Threadripper looks like 180w for 16 threads at 3.4ghz base to 4.0ghz boost (comparable to 4.0-5.0ghz of Xeon power then or so)... compared to say a pair of E5-2670 8 cores with 2.6ghz to 3.0ghz boost on 230w combined TDP giving maybe 60% of the power (which i'm content with, since that's not the fastest cpu yet either) but more importantly I can upgrade to faster setups over time and cpu prices will be dropped by the time I need faster. I might not be able to do 8k raw realtime, but i'd certainly hope I could do 6k let alone 4k with impunity.

I super-like the cheaper RAM fact - its maybe the top ram but a random search for threadripper ram showing nearly $2k to kit out 128gb?!? That's always going to still be my top bottleneck more than cpu speed, and I can totally accept if I start doing 8k with any regularity at some point the power will pay for itself - but at 8c/kwh where I am thats quite alot of power, and that's always the case with what else will be out new in a couple years I would think. I'm just trying to get into a couple of seats that can 'punch above their weight' for a few years, dealing with crunchtime project needs with deadlines and intermittent use rather than 24/7 workloads to justify their use.




Does anyone have a cpu compatibility list with lowest and highest CPU's supported by the WindMill for reference or is it just the full line of v1 and v2 cpus? Also anything like a RAM support list? I'm half tempted to just get motherboards to get started running on low power (4 cores/24gigs similar power to what I run now - or/and I mean if I go for 3 dual board setups/6 seats I don't have to kit them ALL out to higher specs right away even if one I give more, i'm happy just to have backup PC's to avoid the XmasNightmare again) just to have the backup computers built and working to only upgrade later as the need kicks in. Such mobos probably wont be available forever I mean, I regret not stockpiling 'cheap' X58's back in the day before it was discovered many would run Xeons and OC them.
 
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wildpig1234

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wildpig1234 said:
UserBenchmark: 1st CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2680 v2 vs AMD Ryzen TR 1950X

e5-2680v2 x2 gets you 82% of 1950x for 38% of 1950X price. add in the much cheaper ddr3 ecc ram as well and it's a no brainer...
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+1..

I bought in on 2x 2696 v2 when that was still around for $300 each... so $600 for 2x 2696 v2 you get the same multithread performance as 1950x... and obviously the super cheap ddr3 ecc ram... you can get 16x 16gb ddr3 ecc for $500 or less...

So yeah... 2011 v2 xeon is still pretty relevant to a certain degree.... the bad new is that you dont have any further upgrade after 2696 or 2680 v2.... thats the end of the road for 2011 v2 MB
 
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Joel

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Twice_Shy said:
...can they work in the Quanta Windmill? I thought they were limited by TDP or design somehow. (based on random readings elsewhere which may be incorrect)
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Some of the Quanta windmills are limited to E5-V1 support. I think some of the Wiwynn chassis do support V2, but not sure which.

I'm liking the Supermicro dual 2u chassis better though. It's about $450 all in, but then you get standard rack sizing, hotswap hard drive bays, and 120v compatible redundant PSUs.
 
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