Build machines

Build machines

[Achim Gratz]

Since I've impulse-bought a new mini-PC which came with Windows 11 Pro
pre-installed, I did some benchmarking against the other two machines I
regularly run Cygwin builds on:

| Processor      | HW         | TDP |  Base | Turbo | aTurbo | L1i/L1d+L2 |    L3 |     Mem |  comp |  inst |  pack |  test |   tot |
|                |            | [W] | [MHz] | [MHz] |  [MHz] | [kiB]      | [MiB] | [GiB/s] | [min] | [min] | [min] | [min] | [min] |
|----------------+------------+-----+-------+-------+--------+------------+-------+---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------|
| Xeon E3-1276v3 | 1S/4C/8T   |  84 |  3600 |  4000 |   3800 | 32/32+256  |     8 |    25.6 |   101 |    15 |     9 |   445 |   570 |
| EPYC 7252      | 2S/16C/32T | 240 |  3100 |  3200 |   3200 | 32/32+512  |   128 |   170.6 |   123 |     9 |    10 |   200 |   342 |
| Ryzen 7735HS   | 1S/8C/16T  |  54 |  3200 |  4750 |   3850 | 32/32+512  |    16 |    75.0 |    68 |    32 |     7 |   200 |   307 |

The kicker is that it is running at around 9W idle and 70W under full
load (measured on primary side), so it's also a lot more energy
efficient.  It was even cheaper per-core than the used machines I was
buying before.  Extensibility is of course limited, but works for what
I'm going to use.

The original plan was to make this my new Linux desktop and replace the
9 year old Haswell I'm using right now and wait until the 16-core
Phoenix processors are finally available, but I'll probably have to
re-think that.


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

SD adaptation for Waldorf microQ V2.22R2:
http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#WaldorfSDada

Re: Build machines

[Achim Gratz]

Achim Gratz via Cygwin-apps writes:
> The original plan was to make this my new Linux desktop and replace the
> 9 year old Haswell I'm using right now and wait until the 16-core
> Phoenix processors are finally available, but I'll probably have to
> re-think that.

I misremembered the code names.  The direct successor to the 7735HS
(Rembrandt Refresh) are the 7840HS / 7940HS (Phoenix-H at 8 cores and
upgraded to 4nm Zen4/RDNA3 and about 15% better performance per Watt);
the upcoming 16 core is the 7945HX (Dragon Range, 5nm Zen4/RDNA2).

Anyway, I just ordered another of one these to become my new Linux
desktop, the first one will stay with Win11 Pro and Cygwin and become my
new build box in the coming weeks.  I added a 4TB SSD for archival
storage last weekend, for now I'll keep the 500GB NVMe it came with for
OS and builds as it seems to not limit anything in any meaningful way
for now.  If it turns out later that it does I'll just switch to a
speedy 2TB NVMe later on (I already had one, but that will go into #2 as
system / home drive as per the original plan).


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

Factory and User Sound Singles for Waldorf Q+, Q and microQ:
http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#WaldorfSounds

Re: Build machines

[ASSI]

Achim Gratz via Cygwin-apps writes:
> I misremembered the code names.  The direct successor to the 7735HS
> (Rembrandt Refresh) are the 7840HS / 7940HS (Phoenix-H at 8 cores and
> upgraded to 4nm Zen4/RDNA3 and about 15% better performance per Watt);
> the upcoming 16 core is the 7945HX (Dragon Range, 5nm Zen4/RDNA2).

The Phoenix mini PC are starting to appear right now, about 15%…20% more
performance for about 150€…200€ higher price (about 40…50%) right now.
Still waiting for Dragon Range, first teasers have popped up, so I think
it'll be available before the end of the year.


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

SD adaptations for Waldorf Q V3.00R3 and Q+ V3.54R2:
http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#WaldorfSDada

Re: Build machines

[ASSI]

ASSI via Cygwin-apps writes:
>> I misremembered the code names.  The direct successor to the 7735HS
>> (Rembrandt Refresh) are the 7840HS / 7940HS (Phoenix-H at 8 cores and
>> upgraded to 4nm Zen4/RDNA3 and about 15% better performance per Watt);
>> the upcoming 16 core is the 7945HX (Dragon Range, 5nm Zen4/RDNA2).
>
> The Phoenix mini PC are starting to appear right now, about 15%…20% more
> performance for about 150€…200€ higher price (about 40…50%) right now.
> Still waiting for Dragon Range, first teasers have popped up, so I think
> it'll be available before the end of the year.

I've finally got my hands on that Dragon Range mITX motherboard, paired
it with 96 GiB memory, 2×4TB NVMe and built it into a nice small
form-factor case.  I've decided to run it under Linux for now and
virtualize Windows via KVM.  Running the gcc compilation test as before,
but with a different version of gcc to be built and the objdump
improvements, so not directly comparable.  I'll see if and when I can
re-do the older tests with the current versions later.

   | Processor      | HW         | Core    | TDP |  Base | Turbo | aTurbo | L1i/L1d+L2 |    L3 |     Mem |  comp |  inst |  pack |  test |   tot |
   |                |            |         | [W] | [MHz] | [MHz] |  [MHz] | [kiB]      | [MiB] | [GiB/s] | [min] | [min] | [min] | [min] | [min] |
   |----------------+------------+---------+-----+-------+-------+--------+------------+-------+---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------|
   | Xeon E3-1276v3 | 1S/4C/8T   | Haswell |  84 |  3600 |  4000 |   3800 | 32/32+256  |     8 |    25.6 |   101 |    15 |     9 |   445 |   570 |
   | EPYC 7252      | 2S/16C/32T | Zen2    | 120 |  3100 |  3200 |   3200 | 32/32+512  |   128 |   170.6 |   123 |     9 |    10 |   200 |   342 |
   | Ryzen 7735HS   | 1S/8C/16T  | Zen3+   |  54 |  3200 |  4750 |   3850 | 32/32+512  |    16 |    75.0 |    68 |    32 |     7 |   200 |   307 |
   |----------------+------------+---------+-----+-------+-------+--------+------------+-------+---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------|
   | Ryzen 7845HX   | 1S/16C/32T | Zen4    |  75 |  3000 |  5200 |   4000 | 32/32+1024 |    64 |    81.2 |    43 |     2 |     4 |   122 |   171 |

Efficiency wise this (expectedly) doesn't quite reach the level of the
miniPC for low and medium load, hovering around 23W at idle under Linux
and 60W with the Windows VM started and idling, peaking at about 130W
under full load, which makes it slightly more efficient than two miniPC
for this scenario.  Virtualization seems to consume around two cores
with high filesystem activity, so maybe bare-metal via dual-boot would
help a bit.  I can't test direct hardware passthrough for disks at the
moment, which might also help.


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

SD adaptations for KORG EX-800 and Poly-800MkII V0.9:
http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#KorgSDada