WEBVTT 00:00:00.800 --> 00:00:04.760 Zeon W, 00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:12.320 Zeon scalable. 00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:16.240 You know, they're both called Xeon, 00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:20.640 but these things are really different. 00:00:16.240 --> 00:00:24.720 One of them is basically a Core i9 with 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:29.039 ECC memory support and the other one is 00:00:24.720 --> 00:00:32.079 a server CPU that I fanled all over 00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:34.480 because I love super high-end expensive 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:43.360 tech toys. Now, in the past, you needed multiple 00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:45.520 CPUs in one multi-socketed motherboard 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:52.480 in order to handle intensive multi-threaded workloads. But is that 00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:55.920 still the case today? Do you still need 00:00:52.480 --> 00:01:02.960 two of these given that a single Xeon 00:00:55.920 --> 00:01:06.400 Platinum 8180 is 28 cores and 56 threads 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:09.840 on a single chip? Well, I don't know 00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:12.640 what is the purpose today of a dual 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:18.320 socket machine like this one and how much have single high core count CPUs 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:31.119 eroded the market that they used to enjoy? Let's find out, shall we? 00:01:31.119 --> 00:01:37.200 All right, there's a lot more room down here and we are going to need it for 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:44.880 this honking, not to mention heavy test bench. On this 00:01:40.479 --> 00:01:48.880 test bench, you will find the ASUS C621E 00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:54.960 Sage. This is a dual socket motherboard 00:01:48.880 --> 00:01:59.439 rocking two LGA 3647 sockets for Intel's 00:01:54.960 --> 00:02:02.159 Xeon scalable lineup of CPUs. And setups 00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:09.200 like this have actually been around as far back as the 486 in 1989 00:02:06.880 --> 00:02:14.400 with the resulting secondhand hardware giving enthusiasts the ability to get 00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:16.640 multiple physical cores in their homes 00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:25.520 over the years with the peak being somewhere in the mid 2000s or so. But 00:02:21.680 --> 00:02:28.879 that was then and this is now. Now you 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:32.400 can get multiple processing cores in a 00:02:28.879 --> 00:02:35.200 single chip. So 00:02:32.400 --> 00:02:41.760 to see how far things have come, what we're going to do is pit this machine 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:44.239 against the fastest single CPU that 00:02:41.760 --> 00:02:48.879 we've tested to date. We're going to try to keep the number of variables to a 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:54.160 minimum in order to gauge the impact that these extra CPU cores will have on 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:59.680 our setup. Though, it should be noted that there aren't many options when it 00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:02.720 comes to aftermarket LGA3647 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:05.360 coolers because most of the folks 00:03:02.720 --> 00:03:09.760 selling these kinds of systems would figure out their own solution. So, that 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:13.599 means that our dual socket workstation will run a little bit toasty, but we 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:18.080 didn't observe any thermal throttling, so it shouldn't affect our performance. 00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:22.640 Let's start off then with good oldfashioned 00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:30.360 Cinebench. I mean, we've we've seen this run before, but it's always fun to see 00:03:25.519 --> 00:03:30.360 it finish that quickly. 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:38.239 So, in a surprise to no one, the dual 00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:41.760 socket machine is faster. But 00:03:38.239 --> 00:03:44.720 considering its 56 00:03:41.760 --> 00:03:51.599 processing cores, not all of our workloads scale in the way that we might 00:03:48.159 --> 00:03:53.599 expect. 7zip, for example, shows a 00:03:51.599 --> 00:04:00.959 smaller thanex expected gain over our Core i9 Extreme Edition, and YC Cruncher 00:03:57.200 --> 00:04:03.599 even finds itself losing ground. ASUS 00:04:00.959 --> 00:04:08.879 Realbench demonstrates this, though, with that said, the encoding benchmark 00:04:05.519 --> 00:04:11.439 ees out a lead over our Core i9 7980XE. 00:04:08.879 --> 00:04:17.359 and then Blender. Well, here we actually get a victory for our dual CPU system 00:04:14.239 --> 00:04:21.120 again, showing this platform's potential 00:04:17.359 --> 00:04:23.199 for expanding render farms. 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:29.759 But what is really going on here? Well, 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:37.440 something you guys have to realize is that there is more to a dual socket 00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:40.960 configuration than just more cores. Do 00:04:37.440 --> 00:04:44.560 you remember when AMD managed a 3% 00:04:40.960 --> 00:04:47.919 improvement in IPC with second gen Ryzen 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:50.880 just by improving cache latency? So on 00:04:47.919 --> 00:04:59.280 this motherboard, we've got two separate CPUs with two separate sets of cache and 00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:02.160 memory. See, these six banks go to this 00:04:59.280 --> 00:05:07.919 one and these six banks are wired into this one. And that means a lot of 00:05:04.880 --> 00:05:11.280 latency for compute tasks that require 00:05:07.919 --> 00:05:13.039 the same data sets. This latency is a 00:05:11.280 --> 00:05:18.880 necessary evil in the design of multiprocessor systems because of the 00:05:15.520 --> 00:05:22.240 need for nonuniform memory access or 00:05:18.880 --> 00:05:24.000 NUMA for short that allows these two 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:29.520 processors to efficiently share resources or as efficiently as they can. 00:05:27.440 --> 00:05:34.560 So the short version of this is that it works by transparently allocating 00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:38.880 devices and memory to each CPU which means they can more easily avoid 00:05:36.479 --> 00:05:43.600 interrupting each other while accessing those resources. This in turn reduces 00:05:41.600 --> 00:05:48.639 the amount of waiting around that they have to do for those resources to become 00:05:45.840 --> 00:05:54.639 available. So that's what we're seeing during our testing like in Yunchruncher 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:57.919 for example where both CPUs are working 00:05:54.639 --> 00:05:59.520 on the same data but it's not really the 00:05:57.919 --> 00:06:05.759 intended use case for this kind of thing. What if we could use different 00:06:02.960 --> 00:06:10.800 data sets? Then we should be able to find this kind of setups true calling. 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:17.280 And how better to do that than to effectively turn this system into two 00:06:14.319 --> 00:06:23.600 independent computing machines using virtualization. So let's fire up on 00:06:20.240 --> 00:06:26.160 which uses Red Hat KVM as a hypervisor 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:33.280 to see what kind of results we get splitting these resources into multiple 00:06:29.759 --> 00:06:36.880 independent machines. Immediately, we 00:06:33.280 --> 00:06:40.080 see worse results from our VMs than our 00:06:36.880 --> 00:06:45.120 original 56 core testing. 00:06:40.080 --> 00:06:49.120 But look closer at how much lower it is. 00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:52.000 It's not a whole lot. In every test, 00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:57.759 it's basically the same story here. And we are still way out ahead of the Core 00:06:55.039 --> 00:07:04.479 i9 Extreme Edition, particularly when it comes to Blender. Now if we consider the 00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:07.520 fact that we are getting simultaneous 00:07:04.479 --> 00:07:10.240 work done that gives us a good look at 00:07:07.520 --> 00:07:16.240 what an optimized workload might look like. I mean or heck uh virtualization 00:07:13.039 --> 00:07:20.080 itself is a legitimate task too. I mean 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:22.240 this thing could be so many gamers in 00:07:20.080 --> 00:07:26.960 one PC. But I digress. I mean, nobody is going 00:07:24.720 --> 00:07:31.360 to buy something like this for their personal rig anytime soon, given the 00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:39.280 $10,000 per CPU price tag, which puts it 00:07:35.280 --> 00:07:41.039 squarely in the territory of big the 00:07:39.280 --> 00:07:47.520 size of the check doesn't matter business. What they care about is 00:07:43.840 --> 00:07:50.080 density. The more processing power a 00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:55.840 single computer can manage, the more processing power that can be physically 00:07:52.880 --> 00:08:01.280 fit into a building. And this is perhaps most important for data centers and 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:07.199 render farms in particular. The less those guys have to spend on setting up 00:08:03.919 --> 00:08:10.240 the electricity and cooling management 00:08:07.199 --> 00:08:14.479 for a data center versus the amount of 00:08:10.240 --> 00:08:16.160 performance they can get, the better. 00:08:14.479 --> 00:08:20.800 So, will multiple sockets make a comeback in 00:08:18.400 --> 00:08:26.319 the proumer space? Outside of, you know, oil and gas 00:08:23.440 --> 00:08:31.039 exploration where there are still workloads that can benefit from this 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:36.959 kind of thing, the chances look pretty slim if you ask me. But I don't 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:42.880 necessarily think that it's Intel's intent to sell these chips in the 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:45.519 proumer space. And for that matter, even 00:08:42.880 --> 00:08:51.279 in the enterprise space, I don't think they move a ton of them. For me, I look 00:08:48.800 --> 00:08:57.200 at a product like this as more of like a a future crafting exercise where it is 00:08:54.480 --> 00:09:02.880 available today, but it's more of a representation of what actually might be 00:08:59.839 --> 00:09:05.440 attainable a generation or two from now, 00:09:02.880 --> 00:09:10.800 just like the 22 core processors that we were playing around with a couple of 00:09:07.040 --> 00:09:13.519 years ago. Nowadays, those are much more 00:09:10.800 --> 00:09:18.640 affordable and businesses are using them to power your cloud computing services. 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:22.640 So, thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But 00:09:20.640 --> 00:09:26.000 if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out the link 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:29.120 to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. Also, linked down 00:09:27.839 --> 00:09:33.760 there is our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one, and our community 00:09:31.040 --> 00:09:41.360 forum, which you should totally join. Now I'm off to finally put this to use 00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:46.760 for the reason that I obtained it. 00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:46.760 Many video editors, one CPU.