2950X vs 7940X

[Blindsay]

Hey all,

 

So right now my unraid box runs on a 2700X and is 90% a plex box.

 

I want to expand this and start running some additional VM's (A DC, Exchange server, CentOS box so i can learn linux (we use a lot of REHL at work) and a minecraft server).

 

on a side note: I am considering a GPU for plex transcoding but lets set that aside for now.

 

On the cpu front the 2950X is very tempting at $899 but i see the 7940X at $1129. Passmark appears to have them pretty much even - https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-2950X-vs-Intel-Core-i9-7940X/3316vs3094

 

Normally id just go for the $200 savings on the 2950X but i am a bit concerned about some of the stuff i have read with infinity fabric and how the dies are connected to everything (https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_threadripper_2950x_review,4.html) Given that it is basically 2x 8c/16t dies active on it each die has direct access to 2 memory channels, but what if i wanted to assign more than 8c/16t to a single VM, would i see weird latency issues since it is crossing the infinity fabric at this point? Also in general wouldnt applications handle the 7940X since it is a monolithic die and not NUMA like the AMD chip or am i just splitting hairs here?

 

Also i had heard some reports of hardware passthrough being more difficult with AMD vs Intel

 

 

Thoughts?

Edited October 22, 2018 by Blindsay

[Tybio]

I'm not an expert on the chips you mentioned, so I'll leave that for those who are.  However, if you are considering Plex transcoding, the only real option for 4k content is the current generation intel iGPUs.  I've not heard of anyone getting AMD addon card transcoding to work (Not that I've looked hard) and Nvidia is gimping their GPUs to prevent people from using them in encoding farms (2 streams only).

 

The only "Easy" answer is an intel proc with the iGPU...there may be other solutions and I'm sure they will expand over time...but right now the transcoding options are amazingly limiting.

 

I just mention this as it's "too late" for most people once they build around other requirements and then try to solve for transcoding

Edited October 22, 2018 by Tybio

[Blindsay]

Just now, Tybio said:

I'm not an expert on the chips you mentioned, so I'll leave that for those who are.  However, if you are considering Plex transcoding, the only real option for 4k content is the current generation intel iGPUs.  I've not heard of anyone getting AMD addon card transcoding to work (Not that I've looked hard) and Nvidia is gimping their GPUs to prevent people from using them in encoding farms (2 streams only).

 

The only "Easy" answer is an intel proc with the iGPU...there may be other solutions and I'm sure they will expand over time...but right now the transcoding options are amazingly limiting.

 

The GPU would be a Quadro P2000 but i wanted to just focus on the CPUS in this thread