Threadripper 3970X owners.

mbabigian · Post by **mbabigian** » Fri Feb 28, 2020 8:24 pm

I originally wanted at least 128GB of RAM for my build but was unable to find any sticks with fast timings in the larger capacities. I put 64GB of memory into my build as a place holder as I waited for availability. I know Dann Corbit and others had interest also in having more than 64GB.

A few days ago I ordered https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-128gb-28 ... 6820232334 from Newegg.

When ordering large sticks (16GB and 32GB) there is no guarantee your machine will handle low latency or higher clocks unless your motherboard manufacturer specifically lists the RAM as "approved." High density modules stress the system in ways the smaller modules don't. It is also a lot harder to get high clocks if you fill more slots. Four slots are harder to push high clocks than 2, 8 slots harder than 4, etc.

I want those that are interested to know, I installed these yesterday and they work flawlessly at 3200Mhz 14-14-14-34. I may test later pushing to 3266mhz to see if they are stable at this speed like the old 64GB kit was. I run the ASRock Taichi sTRX4 motherboard. I will run them at 3200Mhz, the test is only to know how much headroom I have running at 3200.

So if you are looking for more memory, these are in stock and have passed memtests on my motherboard.
YMMV,
Mike

Dann Corbit · Post by **Dann Corbit** » Fri Feb 28, 2020 9:39 pm

I bought an additional 64 GB of Corsair RAM:

and it worked fine in the box.

mbabigian · Post by **mbabigian** » Fri Feb 28, 2020 9:56 pm

Cool.

I wasn't very happy with the Corsair timings and didn't consider them as an option. I think there may be some kits that may clock faster than 3200 later this fall, but pushing those speeds on big kits is very difficult and gets very tough at a CAS 14 level.

MikeB · Post by **MikeB** » Sat Feb 29, 2020 6:38 am

mbabigian wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 8:24 pm I originally wanted at least 128GB of RAM for my build but was unable to find any sticks with fast timings in the larger capacities. I put 64GB of memory into my build as a place holder as I waited for availability. I know Dann Corbit and others had interest also in having more than 64GB.

A few days ago I ordered https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-128gb-28 ... 6820232334 from Newegg.

When ordering large sticks (16GB and 32GB) there is no guarantee your machine will handle low latency or higher clocks unless your motherboard manufacturer specifically lists the RAM as "approved." High density modules stress the system in ways the smaller modules don't. It is also a lot harder to get high clocks if you fill more slots. Four slots are harder to push high clocks than 2, 8 slots harder than 4, etc.

I want those that are interested to know, I installed these yesterday and they work flawlessly at 3200Mhz 14-14-14-34. I may test later pushing to 3266mhz to see if they are stable at this speed like the old 64GB kit was. I run the ASRock Taichi sTRX4 motherboard. I will run them at 3200Mhz, the test is only to know how much headroom I have running at 3200.

So if you are looking for more memory, these are in stock and have passed memtests on my motherboard.
YMMV,
Mike

I can't do 3200Mhz 14-14-14-34 , but I can do 3266 Mhz 14 16 16 34. The default in the BIOS after applying DOCP was 3200 16 18 18 36, so I picked up a little bit. I tried using Dram Calculator for Ryzen, but even the safe mode was way too aggressive. Did you increase the voltage at all ?- Mine is still at 1.35.

cma6 · Post by **cma6** » Sat Feb 29, 2020 7:13 pm

I was looking at building a AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3 3960X system. For you 3970X guys, how much faster is the 3970X for the extra $500?

Also, do you guys also have a fast GPU card in the system for Lc0?

mbabigian · Post by **mbabigian** » Sat Feb 29, 2020 7:42 pm

Look at Ipman's benchmark list here http://ipmanchess.yolasite.com/amd---in ... -bench.php

The 3960x ranges from 60million nps to 87 million.

The preliminary "under Windows" bench I sent Ipman has not been updated from 105 million. Most of these faster scores are under Linux. I hadn't installed Linux yet. Since that bench was done I had one bios motherboard update that improved speed and got Linux up and running. I have submitted a new score of 117+ million that is in the noise of Michael Byrne's score. I am not doing any manual overclocking. I run with PBO enabled only. So if you take the top 3960 and 3970 score you are looking at about 34.5% faster in raw nodes.

Since Ipman doesn't distinguish OS, you see a wide range of scores for the same processor. Windows sucks up a lot more overhead and I believe the Linux asmFish build is better also.

Hope that helps,
Mike

MikeB · Post by **MikeB** » Sat Feb 29, 2020 7:59 pm

cma6 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 29, 2020 7:13 pm I was looking at building a AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3 3960X system. For you 3970X guys, how much faster is the 3970X for the extra $500?

Also, do you guys also have a fast GPU card in the system for Lc0?

I have dual RTX 2060 Super - but in hind sight, if you're going with two GPUs , get the blower versions.

This does about 35k/nps using mulitplexing under Fat Fritz.

mbabigian · Post by **mbabigian** » Sat Feb 29, 2020 8:28 pm

I run a single Asus Rog Strix 2080TI OC, but I pulled the heatsinks and fans off and replace them with a full coverage water block. I did not want a 2080TI and as soon as the 3080TI's ship, I will water block two cards and build the 2080TI into a computer for my wife. Although it is great to see the performance of two cards together, one reason I am going two, is I have other GPU needs and having a massively parallel machine that gets crippled to doing one thing when I turn up LC0 drives me nuts.

MikeB · Post by **MikeB** » Sat Feb 29, 2020 8:35 pm

MikeB wrote: ↑Sat Feb 29, 2020 6:38 am
mbabigian wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 8:24 pm I originally wanted at least 128GB of RAM for my build but was unable to find any sticks with fast timings in the larger capacities. I put 64GB of memory into my build as a place holder as I waited for availability. I know Dann Corbit and others had interest also in having more than 64GB.

A few days ago I ordered https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-128gb-28 ... 6820232334 from Newegg.

When ordering large sticks (16GB and 32GB) there is no guarantee your machine will handle low latency or higher clocks unless your motherboard manufacturer specifically lists the RAM as "approved." High density modules stress the system in ways the smaller modules don't. It is also a lot harder to get high clocks if you fill more slots. Four slots are harder to push high clocks than 2, 8 slots harder than 4, etc.

I want those that are interested to know, I installed these yesterday and they work flawlessly at 3200Mhz 14-14-14-34. I may test later pushing to 3266mhz to see if they are stable at this speed like the old 64GB kit was. I run the ASRock Taichi sTRX4 motherboard. I will run them at 3200Mhz, the test is only to know how much headroom I have running at 3200.

So if you are looking for more memory, these are in stock and have passed memtests on my motherboard.
YMMV,
Mike
I can't do 3200Mhz 14-14-14-34 , but I can do 3266 Mhz 14 16 16 34. The default in the BIOS after applying DOCP was 3200 16 18 18 36, so I picked up a little bit. I tried using Dram Calculator for Ryzen, but even the safe mode was way too aggressive. Did you increase the voltage at all ?- Mine is still at 1.35.

Quick update - DRAM Calculator for Ryzen did say 3400 Mhz was my fastest frequency - so I tried 3400 Mhz with 16 -18 - 18 -36 (default DOCP) and it works and stable and is my fastest setting. I increased the DRAM volts to 1.43 - which is safe for both MB and the memory I have. I was able to boot up with 3600 Mhz , 16 18 18 36 , but it was unstable and I got the dreaded blue screen.

mbabigian · Post by **mbabigian** » Sat Feb 29, 2020 9:03 pm

Did you increase the voltage at all ?- Mine is still at 1.35.

My ram is rated at 14-14-14-34, so I just loaded the XMP profile in bios, nothing more (1.35v). On the old 64GB kit, I could safely push 3266Mhz at 14-14-14-34, but honestly, I didn't spend any time seeing how far I could overclock the RAM. I didn't anticipate running overclocked so it seemed like a lot of work for no gain.

Unless I could hit 3600Mhz, increasing CAS to 16 doesn't make sense to me. 3200 / 14 = 228.6. 3600 / 16 = 225. I'm barely back to breakeven at 3600. I don't run high bandwidth apps. Most of my apps move/read tiny amounts of memory, not megabytes at a time. Even one of the AMD Threadripper architects in an interview said the Threadripper is not data starved and that increasing memory bandwidth is only of limited help. Pushing higher clocks at CAS 14 or getting to 3450+ at CAS 15, might help, but based on everything I've read, pushing 128GB of memory to 3600Mhz is going to be very tough unless you do it with 4 sticks, not 8.

To go substantially faster, I think that will be something for the computer that one day replaces this computer.