[Libre-soc-dev] maybe get ryzen 7950x for faster compilation and avx512

[Jacob Lifshay]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 09:38 Jacob Lifshay <programmerjake at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 09:24 Timothy Pearson <
> tpearson at raptorengineering.com> wrote:
>
>> Why would you want to use non-free hardware (AMD PSP, a "ring -3" closed
>> source signed binary) to work on a libre chip?  More importantly, why would
>> libre-soc want to use its resources to purchase this type of non-free
>> hardware for its developers?
>>
>
> 3 reasons:
> * POWER9 would need to be around 2x the cost to get comparable
> multi-threaded performance (the 18-core cpu just by itself is more than the
> price of the whole amd-based upgrade, that's not even counting the
> motherboard or ram or new ssd for server)
> * the 7950x waay outdoes the POWER9 in single threaded performance (very
> important for silicon layout, hardware simulation, formal proofs, etc.
> where we can be running code for multiple hours, taking 1/2 the time can
> save a huge amount of time)
> * avx512 would be very useful to be able to compare against.
>

another reason:
* it comes with an integrated gpu with hardware raytracing support, that's
something we'll want to test against in the future.

Jacob

>