Octocore cpu i7 3.0ghz 5960x

[Brucifer]

The i7-5960X is a beast of a (consumer) CPU: 8 cores, 16 threads, 20 MB of L3 Cache, 40 PCI Express lanes and support for 8 DIMMS of DDR4 RAM -but at the expense of a 140 Watt TDP
(which is quite respectable, considering the eight cores).

You might want to change your CPU in the future for the Xeon E5-2648L v3, a 75 Watt TDP CPU with 12 cores, 24 threads, 30 MB of L3 cache, 40 PCI Express lanes and a max of 768 GB RAM -provided your motherboard will take the CPU and the needed ECC RAM, you'll need eight 96 GB DIMMS to get to 768 GB (and a small fortune).

Lol, well can sure tell it's sucking the 140 watts!!! Naw the MB wouldn't cut the ram, nor would the wallet. :-)

[Nflight]

This thread is showing its worth with all the heat from the conversation about the high outputs of potential, if only the wallets could handle so much. Some day, maybe some day soon

[Dirk Broer]

Keep your gun powder dry untill the 32-core AMD Zen comes out...

[Brucifer]

Wellllllll....... As the saying goes there's no free lunch. If there's much output there's gonna be heat. Today I farted around and stuffed a GTX970 in a system and have it running off some work units from asteroids@home. Takes roughly a half hour to process one. I don't know yet whar kind of credit will be granted them. Hopefully it's more than the 480 from the cpu ones. Otherwise it won't be worthwhile to grind them out from the gpu compared to what the octocore can put out in 24hours. Will see.

That 32 core puppy will be a pricey little devil. lol

edit: Well the gpu workunits get the same credit as the cpu. So the reality is that it's pretty much a wash, either the GTX-970 or the octocore 5960X.

[Dirk Broer]

That 32 core puppy will be a pricey little devil. lol

And those 32 cores are said to deliver 64 threads...Imagine a mobo holding four of those puppys....

[Nflight]

I feel the chatter, I am beginning to see some serious heat trails and burners set on low even though the gun powder is stored in a col dry place I can't help imagine a world where Intel is squeemish!

From CERN - The 32 cores and eight-channel DDR4 memory interface are about double what Intel offers now in its high-end Xeon processors, and the move to 14nm will put it on par with Intel. Currently, AMD's server chips are built on a 28nm manufacturing process.

[Dirk Broer]

As I now have the data (to be taken with a pinch of salt):

Socket old	Cores/threads old	Socket new	Cores new	Threads new	Use	RAM prediction
AM1	2-4 (Sempron) 4 (Athlon)	FM4	2	4	'essential'	two slots dual channel
FM2+	2 A4 & A6 4 A8 & A10	FM4	2-4	4-8	'mainstream'	two to four slots dual channel
AM3+	4 FX-4xxx 6 FX-6xxx 8 FX-8xxx	FM4	8-16	16-32	'enthusiast'	four to eight slots quad channel
C32	up to 2x 4-8	FM4	16-32 per cpu	32-64 per cpu	'light server'	8 to 16 slots per cpu quad channel
G34	up to 4x 4-16	FM4	16-32 per cpu	32-64 per cpu	'heavy server'	16 slots per cpu octa channel

The real progress is in the server and enthusiast user groups, the question is e.g. whether a two-core Zen chip needs eight-channel RAM. Sixteen RAM slots do not fit an iTX board either.

[Brucifer]

And those 32 cores are said to deliver 64 threads...Imagine a mobo holding four of those puppys....

I'm sure that you would love to pay the electrical bill for it!!! lol

[Dirk Broer]

Well, I hope for the 32-core/64-thread model to have a TDP of at max 140 Watt, which would mean for a -as yet hypothetically- quad mobo 4x140=560 Watt (TDP)
And I hope you can start with just one CPU on that board, later adding more as budget permits. A dual setup is only 280 Watt (TDP) and still 128 threads.
BTW: 8-channel RAM means each CPU/Mobo ought to have at least 8 RAM DIMMS...Socket 1366 Nehalem had six RAM slots for triple channel RAM, Socket 2011 eight RAM slots for quad channel, remember? So expect sixteen RAM slots per Zen-Opteron, that's 64(!) RAM slots to fill for a quad Zen-Mobo.....
560 Watt (TDP) for 256 threads is slightly more than 2 Watts (TDP) per thread. I think a quad Zen is cheaper to run than a 'classic' farm:
560 Watt can easily be reached with some 125 Watt FX CPUs, 95 Watt FX CPUs, 100 Watt APUs or 65 Watt APUs.

In my case, x86-64 farm:
i7-3770: 77 Watt
A10-5700: 65 Watt
A8-3870K: 100 Watt
A8-3820: 65 Watt
C2Q8200: 95 Watt
Athlon 5350: 25 Watt
Athlon 5350: 25 Watt
Athlon 5350: 25 Watt
A8-3850: 100 Watt (decommissioned in favour of a 25 Watt 5350, now part of Emergency only reserve)
A6-3500: 65 Watt (decommissioned in favour of a A10-5700, long-time part of Emergency only reserve)

ARM farm
Raspberry Pi 3 Cortex-A53: 5 Watt (inactive yet, just bought)
Raspberry Pi 2 Cortex-A7: 4 Watt
Raspberry Pi 2 Cortex-A7: 4 Watt
Raspberry Pi B+ ARM11: 3 Watt
BeagleBone Black Cortex-A8: 3 Watt
Cubieboard 4 Allwinner A80: inactive, because I can't get video from it -seems to be working right further, all lights function. Even get different shades of black-grey on screen while booting.
Banana Pro Allwinner A20: inactive, because I can't get video from it -not sure whether it even boots, only one red light blinking. May have defective SD-card reader...

[Brucifer]

Well I sorta am inclined to think that I won't be purchasing any more high wattage systems. I'm currently more into smaller sized stuff so that I can move it easily between Oregon and Washington. The NUC works out really well for me in that regard, and I will be picking up one of the latest releases shortly. I see on your list you have a raspberry 3. :-) That should be a fun one. Been playing with Chrome on the compute stick, it works well and I'm impressed with it. :-)