CPU generation question

Hi All,

I got talking to a guy yesterday whilst handing out cards.
He started expounding on how he built his own computer
and from what I saw, he did a pretty good job. He was
able to move 3D graphics in real time.

The thing he was the most proud of was the "generation"
of the processors he picks. I presume he means Intel's
processors.

Now, to me the generation of the processor does not mean a
lot. When building a customer computer, I first find the
motherboard I want and then look at the specs to see what
processor it takes. Then I check my suppliers stock to see
what is in stick and what is the best value for what is
needed. This usually is the current generation and one back.

As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption. I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows. And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

As far a performance goes, the big bottleneck it the hard
drive. I adore using NVMe drives ans they make a YUGE difference.
Next would be the memory bus speed. Last of all would be
the generation of the processor.

I go for the motherboard that meets the customer's needs.
To me the generator of the processor is what fits on the
motherboard.

Am I missing something? Does the "generation" of the processor
really make that much difference?

-T

T wrote:
Hi All,

I got talking to a guy yesterday whilst handing out cards.
He started expounding on how he built his own computer
and from what I saw, he did a pretty good job. He was
able to move 3D graphics in real time.

The thing he was the most proud of was the "generation"
of the processors he picks. I presume he means Intel's
processors.

Now, to me the generation of the processor does not mean a
lot. When building a customer computer, I first find the
motherboard I want and then look at the specs to see what
processor it takes. Then I check my suppliers stock to see
what is in stick and what is the best value for what is
needed. This usually is the current generation and one back.

As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption. I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows. And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

As far a performance goes, the big bottleneck it the hard
drive. I adore using NVMe drives ans they make a YUGE difference.
Next would be the memory bus speed. Last of all would be
the generation of the processor.

I go for the motherboard that meets the customer's needs.
To me the generator of the processor is what fits on the
motherboard.

Am I missing something? Does the "generation" of the processor
really make that much difference?

-T


You would need to be keeping careful notes, for
the "generation number" to make a difference.

Intel and Moores Law and brick walls and all.

TSMC claims to be working on 3nm right now, but of
course that "dimension thing" isn't exactly all that
honest, and I fully expect someone to claim
their geometry is "zero" any day now...
(Zero, plus or minus a 14nm error bar.)

Imagine how long it's going to take to do lithography
at 3nm. Chip manufacture takes around 3 months as it is.
(Ninety days, for sixty to seventy process steps.)
And that's why, when the power failed the last time
at the fab, they lost 3 months worth of production.

For all the "power saving" these chips provide,
the top of the line keeps setting records (like 400W).

The best way to compare generations, is try a single
threaded benchmark on Passmark. That takes core count
out of the mix, and should simplify the math to bring
them all to a common clock.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Three times the clock gives seven times the performance,
so the IPC seems to have increased. You really need
details about the benchmark itself, to determine whether
it's excessively tied to memory or cache bandwidth.
Some of the processors in that chart, only had 300MB/sec
memory bandwidth. A significant impediment if CPU cache
isn't big enough.

Paul

On 7/26/19 4:21 PM, Paul wrote:
T wrote:
Hi All,

I got talking to a guy yesterday whilst handing out cards.
He started expounding on how he built his own computer
and from what I saw, he did a pretty good job. He was
able to move 3D graphics in real time.

The thing he was the most proud of was the "generation"
of the processors he picks.Â* I presume he means Intel's
processors.

Now, to me the generation of the processor does not mean a
lot.Â* When building a customer computer, I first find the
motherboard I want and then look at the specs to see what
processor it takes.Â* Then I check my suppliers stock to see
what is in stick and what is the best value for what is
needed. This usually is the current generation and one back.

As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption.Â* I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows.Â* And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

As far a performance goes, the big bottleneck it the hard
drive.Â* I adore using NVMe drives ans they make a YUGE difference.
Next would be the memory bus speed.Â* Last of all would be
the generation of the processor.

I go for the motherboard that meets the customer's needs.
To me the generator of the processor is what fits on the
motherboard.

Am I missing something?Â* Does the "generation" of the processor
really make that much difference?

-T


You would need to be keeping careful notes, for
the "generation number" to make a difference.

Intel and Moores Law and brick walls and all.

TSMC claims to be working on 3nm right now, but of
course that "dimension thing" isn't exactly all that
honest, and I fully expect someone to claim
their geometry is "zero" any day now...
(Zero, plus or minus a 14nm error bar.)

Imagine how long it's going to take to do lithography
at 3nm. Chip manufacture takes around 3 months as it is.
(Ninety days, for sixty to seventy process steps.)
And that's why, when the power failed the last time
at the fab, they lost 3 months worth of production.

For all the "power saving" these chips provide,
the top of the line keeps setting records (like 400W).

The best way to compare generations, is try a single
threaded benchmark on Passmark. That takes core count
out of the mix, and should simplify the math to bring
them all to a common clock.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Three times the clock gives seven times the performance,
so the IPC seems to have increased. You really need
details about the benchmark itself, to determine whether
it's excessively tied to memory or cache bandwidth.
Some of the processors in that chart, only had 300MB/sec
memory bandwidth. A significant impediment if CPU cache
isn't big enough.

Â*Â* Paul

Ya, that is what I though.

Thank you!

T wrote:

Hi All,

I got talking to a guy yesterday whilst handing out cards.
He started expounding on how he built his own computer
and from what I saw, he did a pretty good job. He was
able to move 3D graphics in real time.

The thing he was the most proud of was the "generation"
of the processors he picks. I presume he means Intel's
processors.

Now, to me the generation of the processor does not mean a
lot. When building a customer computer, I first find the
motherboard I want and then look at the specs to see what
processor it takes. Then I check my suppliers stock to see
what is in stick and what is the best value for what is
needed. This usually is the current generation and one back.

As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption. I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows. And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

As far a performance goes, the big bottleneck it the hard
drive. I adore using NVMe drives ans they make a YUGE difference.
Next would be the memory bus speed. Last of all would be
the generation of the processor.

I go for the motherboard that meets the customer's needs.
To me the generator of the processor is what fits on the
motherboard.

Am I missing something? Does the "generation" of the processor
really make that much difference?

-T

There are some Windows requirements that require a minimum generation of
Intel processor. See:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...r-requirements

Once you know what software (OS and apps) you want to run on the
platform is when you'll know the hardware requirements for that
software. In addition, when looking at motherboards that meet my
hardware specifications, the candidates kept being 8th generation
minimum Intel CPUs that the mobo supported. Once a mobo meet my
hardware criteria, it only supported 8th or 9th generation Intels.

Then there is the converse: you need to know what is the minimum version
of Windows that supports a generation of Intel i3/i5/i7 processors.
Windows 10 is the only version of Windows that supports Intel 7th
generation processors.

Your premise of getting the latest generation, or maybe one back, means
you'll be paying a super high price premium for the latest generation.
I couldn't afford the 9th generation CPUs, so I got an 8th generation
(i7-8700 non-K). It is highly unlikely that I would experience any
performance boost of the 9th over the 8th generation. I also picked the
non-overclocked version to reduce the power consumption: 65W for the
i7-8700 (non-overclocked) versus 95W for either the i7-8700K
(overclocked) or any of the i7-9xxx. This wasn't to reduce the size of
the PSU (which I get way over the required VA) but to reduce heat while
keeping the fan RPMs low for reduced noise.

Most customers have no clue what are their OS or hardware needs. They
can only give you some vague description of their expectation in usage
and perhaps a list of software that is critical to them. Based on that,
rarely are the last 2 generations of Intels (or AMDs) needed to satisfy
those customers needs ... while also significantly reducing the cost of
over building the platform. Unless they are planning for an 8-year
lifespan for the computer, there is little need to go latest
generations. Most users replace their computers a lot sooner, so they
would never achieve ROI on their investment with an overbuilt platform.

On 7/26/19 4:49 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Your premise of getting the latest generation, or maybe one back, means
you'll be paying a super high price premium for the latest generation.

You misunderstood me. I pick the motherboard first, then look and
see what processors go on it. Usually there is two. You mistook
me saying the latest that goes on the motherboard as the latest
generation that is sold.

And you are correct. the latest sold is way too expensive and as
far as I can tell, gives no describable improvement in
performance. Your take too?

Excellent write up, by the way. Thank you.

They guy was just being condescending. "I built these computers,
why would I need a computer consultant." So you are good at
assembling pop beads. It is only a tiny part of I.T.. If
he ever calls me, and I think hell will freeze over first,
I will just make a polite excuse as to being too busy at the moment.

T wrote in :


As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption. I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows. And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

I know I will probably catch some flack for this, but the only reason for
more than four cores would be if the user is going to run a specially
written massively parallel program. An example would be the simiulation
programs urn at Los Alamos, et el, when they do things like simulate
nuclear explosions, or when NOAA and others are doing weather forcasts.
There are really very few truly parallel processes required in the programs
most run on their desktop PCs.

On 7/26/19 9:01 PM, lonelydad wrote:
T wrote in :


As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption. I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows. And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

I know I will probably catch some flack for this, but the only reason for
more than four cores would be if the user is going to run a specially
written massively parallel program. An example would be the simiulation
programs urn at Los Alamos, et el, when they do things like simulate
nuclear explosions, or when NOAA and others are doing weather forcasts.
There are really very few truly parallel processes required in the programs
most run on their desktop PCs.


I have to agree. So no flack from here. And I have not seen
Windows being able to take advantage of more than four real
cores either. Linux does, but that is a totally different
technology.

T wrote:
On 7/26/19 9:01 PM, lonelydad wrote:
T wrote in :


As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption. I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows. And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

I know I will probably catch some flack for this, but the only reason for
more than four cores would be if the user is going to run a specially
written massively parallel program. An example would be the simiulation
programs urn at Los Alamos, et el, when they do things like simulate
nuclear explosions, or when NOAA and others are doing weather forcasts.
There are really very few truly parallel processes required in the
programs
most run on their desktop PCs.


I have to agree. So no flack from here. And I have not seen
Windows being able to take advantage of more than four real
cores either. Linux does, but that is a totally different
technology.

What does your statement mean exactly ?

Here's a quick 7ZIP compression run.

All cores in use.

https://i.postimg.cc/852B2nd2/compression.gif

Paul

On 7/26/19 11:26 PM, Paul wrote:
T wrote:
On 7/26/19 9:01 PM, lonelydad wrote:
T wrote in :


As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption.Â* I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows.Â* And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

I know I will probably catch some flack for this, but the only reason
for
more than four cores would be if the user is going to run a specially
written massively parallel program. An example would be the simiulation
programs urn at Los Alamos, et el, when they do things like simulate
nuclear explosions, or when NOAA and others are doing weather forcasts.
There are really very few truly parallel processes required in the
programs
most run on their desktop PCs.


I have to agree.Â* So no flack from here.Â* And I have not seen
Windows being able to take advantage of more than four real
cores either.Â* Linux does, but that is a totally different
technology.

What does your statement mean exactly ?

Here's a quick 7ZIP compression run.

All cores in use.

https://i.postimg.cc/852B2nd2/compression.gif

Â*Â* Paul


I mean just in "observing" how fast things run, I am not observing any
improvement over 4 real cores. Well, in Windows.

T wrote:
On 7/26/19 11:26 PM, Paul wrote:
T wrote:
On 7/26/19 9:01 PM, lonelydad wrote:
T wrote in :


As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption. I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows. And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

I know I will probably catch some flack for this, but the only
reason for
more than four cores would be if the user is going to run a specially
written massively parallel program. An example would be the simiulation
programs urn at Los Alamos, et el, when they do things like simulate
nuclear explosions, or when NOAA and others are doing weather forcasts.
There are really very few truly parallel processes required in the
programs
most run on their desktop PCs.


I have to agree. So no flack from here. And I have not seen
Windows being able to take advantage of more than four real
cores either. Linux does, but that is a totally different
technology.

What does your statement mean exactly ?

Here's a quick 7ZIP compression run.

All cores in use.

https://i.postimg.cc/852B2nd2/compression.gif

Paul


I mean just in "observing" how fast things run, I am not observing any
improvement over 4 real cores. Well, in Windows.


So you're looking for a linearity test of some sort ?

I already know how that works on my processor. It's an
Intel issue (a hardware issue), not the OS as such.

My 6C 12T processor scales to 5 cores of performance
or so. That means the ring bus is starving out on average,
about one core of performance at full load. (If there is
good locality of reference, performance could stay
at 6 cores, but any real world loads tend to give
about 5 cores or so.)

These effects were also seen on inferior schemes. The
first dual socket consumer motherboards (and likely
Intel Xeon multi-socket offerings as well), they
were using a shared bus with snoop traffic running
over it for cache coherency. For example, you could
take two E8450 silicon dies and put them on a
common substrate, and call that the 9650. From
the outside, it looked like a quad core. But the
shared bus held that back, and it would give
"3.5 cores" of performance, and you would lose
half a core of potential performance, because
the shared bus was clogged (and the memory
controller was on another chip at the time).

Intel tried counterrotating rings on processors like
mine, and tried that up to a fairly high core count.
That means people who spent a lot more money than
I did, lost multiple cores of potential performance
on their high core count processors. The rings can't
keep up.

Later generations switched to a mesh of parallel
buses, where I presume traffic would go along a
horizontal bus, then along a vertical bus, to go
from one core to another. I've not seen
any comparisons of performance loss on those
due to the bus scheme. The aggregate bandwidth
of the mesh in that case, should be quite a bit
higher than the handful of serially chained
counterrotating rings.

Other than that, Windows would do little to screw up
the resources. It sees cores ready-to-run, the scheduler
schedules stuff to run on them. It does all the
stuff that schedulers do. Every developer who gets
a CS degree, is taught how to do these things, so it's
not like there are secrets or something.

In terms of visual output, everything has scroll throttles
and the OS does not look like Temple OS. The graphics on
Temple OS are frenetic and abrupt, because there is no
throttling at all on visuals. Does that look nice ?
Not particularly. If I was on meth, I'd want to
scratch myself.

Because of throttling, you can take low-resource hardware
products, and while you can "feel" the slow in them, the
graphics molasses is about the same on all of them. Think
of it as making the graphics on a Windows 10 desktop, look
like a jolly big smartphone.

If I had a 64-core processor, my 7ZIP run would
exhibit a higher speed rating on the processing rate
field in the display. In the example I showed, it
was compressing at 103MB/sec. If I had more cores,
I would expect a higher number, until the system
memory performance (which isn't very good), prevents
it from going faster. 7ZIP is one of the few benchmarks
that benefits from CPU cache (the more you can keep
cached, the faster it runs).

Intel memory implementations don't buy you much.
Intel made dual channel, triple channel, and quad
channel systems. The user is supposed to "believe"
the quad channel one is twice as fast as the
dual channel one. However, that's not how it works.
and while Intel has invented CPUs with a multitude
of channels, it's hard to say whether they're doing
a better job than an extrapolation of what came before.
I don't own anything like that to test. My quad
channel system is not really any faster than a
dual channel system (bus efficiency is below 25%).

If you do scaling testing with Cinebench, you should
find linear speedup behavior, implying scheduling
isn't a problem. Cinebench is pretty lame, in terms
of the problem it is solving, and that's what
gives the linear speedup (the task of computing
a graphic, is not related to any other graphic,
except when the results are plunked on the screen).
When a core comes free, the next graphic calc starts.
And that's in the figurative sense, since during the
time a single calc runs, it can be moved from core to
core at the whim of the scheduler. On Windows 10,
on an AMD processor, the graphics calc should stay
on the same CCX and not migrate, for best
efficiency. I saw a claim about a week ago, that
AMD was aiding Microsoft (somehow) in tuning
like that (especially for the just-released
silicon). Microsoft was claiming maybe three
or four OSes ago, that this was a solved problem,
but arch analysis still seems to be done by
hand, and tuned by hand (if tuned at all).
The more whacky an AMD arch, the more tuning it
needs (or even needs new code written).

And this is so so challenging, we can't backport
it to Windows 7 :-/ So so challenging. If I was
on meth, I'd want to scratch myself.

*******

Summary: I've seen nothing on the two platforms that
I would call a "unique advantage". Windows *is*
reserving some CPU, as part of the weakness
in its design (Vista+), but once you know how that works,
you can select conditions (oversubscription) to
rip the reservation away from the OS. I did that
for the compression picture, which is why that
one is running at 100% in task manager. And doing
these things, is a natural part of using any OS,
doing whatever is necessary to get the very best
overall performance.

I know where some of the weaknesses are. NTFS
handles about 4K file operations per second, while
on Linux, TMPFS can do 186K file operations per second
equivalent to that. If I were to set up a 7ZIP
test involving compressing a million 4KB files,
7ZIP wouldn't even hit 40%, because it would be
waiting on the file system all the time. Even
loading the entire file set into System Read Cache
does not help on Windows. The same 4K file per second
cap applies.

But if we're interested in "only showing the scheduler
at its best", I will construct a test to show that the
scheduler gives me 100% CPU (multicore) when I ask
for it. I could do that with Cinebench, but that would
take me longer to do. The 7ZIP picture takes no time
at all to set up.

Paul

On 2019-07-26 11:08 p.m., T wrote:
On 7/26/19 9:01 PM, lonelydad wrote:
T wrote in :


As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption.Â* I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows.Â* And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

I know I will probably catch some flack for this, but the only reason for
more than four cores would be if the user is going to run a specially
written massively parallel program. An example would be the simiulation
programs urn at Los Alamos, et el, when they do things like simulate
nuclear explosions, or when NOAA and others are doing weather forcasts.
There are really very few truly parallel processes required in the
programs
most run on their desktop PCs.


I have to agree.Â* So no flack from here.Â* And I have not seen
Windows being able to take advantage of more than four real
cores either.Â* Linux does, but that is a totally different
technology.

Prime 95 uses all 6 real cores and all 6 virtual cores at 100 % CPU
usage, I'm sure there are others.

Rene

On 7/27/19 6:10 AM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
Prime 95 uses all 6 real cores and all 6 virtual cores at 100 % CPU
usage,Â*I'mÂ*sureÂ*thereÂ*areÂ*others.

Sounds like it is well written. The 64 thousand dollar question
would be is there any real noticeable difference over a four core
machine?

Most applications do not thread worth beans.

I instead put my money towards NVMe drives and fast
memory buses. Now that makes a YUGE difference.

On 2019-07-27 3:14 p.m., T wrote:
On 7/27/19 6:10 AM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
Prime 95 uses all 6 real cores and all 6 virtual cores at 100 % CPU
usage,Â*I'mÂ*sureÂ*thereÂ*areÂ*others.

Sounds like it is well written.Â* The 64 thousand dollar question
would be is there any real noticeable difference over a four core
machine?

Most applications do not thread worth beans.

I instead put my money towards NVMe drives and fast
memory buses.Â* Now that makes a YUGE difference.



Yep, fast M.2 NVMe drives like my two AData SX8200pnp drives reading at
3450 MB/s and writing at 2370 MB/s and 3200 MHz Ram coupled with my
Intel i7 8700 Turboing at 4.28 GHz on an Asus z390 prime motherboard can
sure turn over a lot of ground in a hurry.
It also plays a hell of a game of Chess.

Rene
:

Someone wrote:
Most applications do not thread worth beans.
I instead put my money towards NVMe drives and fast
memory buses. Now that makes a YUGE difference.

The monitor, graphics card, and monitor arm
are the hardest to get right, I think.

The Apple monitor cost 6000$, and the stand is 1000$.
Compared to that, the motherboard is chump change.

Scary UFO Tests:
http://TestUFO.COM

lonelydad wrote:
T wrote in :

As far a generation of processors goes, the higher the generation,
the better the power consumption. I haven't seen more than four
cores making any practical difference with Windows. And
multi-threading doesn't seem to matter on Windows after
four real cores (Linux does make a big difference).

I know I will probably catch some flack for this, but the only reason for
more than four cores would be if the user is going to run a specially
written massively parallel program. An example would be the simiulation
programs urn at Los Alamos, et el, when they do things like simulate
nuclear explosions, or when NOAA and others are doing weather forcasts.
There are really very few truly parallel processes required in the programs
most run on their desktop PCs.

How are we to play Fritz chess and make a decent opponent ? :-)

At some point on high core count systems, you have to learn
how to fork multiple jobs, and that's a way to get some
usage from the excess cores.

7ZIP scales to some extent, but it really needs better memory
bandwidth to use a lot of cores. I would think the best core
count machines available today, could keep up with the bandwidth
offered by an eight year old hard drive. I don't know whether
spanning 7ZIP across two sockets works as well as it might
(like say, 128 cores).

Here's a machine at Microsoft, with a terabyte of memory and
a good number of cores. I think there is another picture with
maybe 192 cores on the machine. They need stuff like that to
prove the limits of the OS actually work (that it can manage
that many cores).

https://d2rormqr1qwzpz.cloudfront.ne...y_3e37e697.png

The other technique is the "heat map" which shows core usage.

https://d2rormqr1qwzpz.cloudfront.ne...ger_teaser.jpg

Paul