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

[Timothy Pearson]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jacob Lifshay" <programmerjake at gmail.com>
> To: "Timothy Pearson" <tpearson at raptorengineering.com>
> Cc: "Libre-Soc General Development" <libre-soc-dev at lists.libre-soc.org>
> Sent: Monday, September 26, 2022 11:53:09 AM
> Subject: Re: [Libre-soc-dev] maybe get ryzen 7950x for faster compilation and avx512

> On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, 09:44 Timothy Pearson <tpearson at raptorengineering.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> We may be able to offer some degree of discount / sponsorship for LibreSoC
>> in this area.
>>
> 
> Thanks!
> 
>>
>> > * 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)
>>
>> If we're looking purely at performance vs. ownership, why should hardware
>> be purchased at all vs. leasing a single powerful CPU from a cloud provider
>> for the specific simulation runs you are talking about?
>>
> 
> because cloud providers generally use server hardware which has much lower
> clock rates than the 7950x (up to 5.7GHz vs. around 2-3GHz) which causes a
> very substantial single-threaded performance gap of 2x. also, cloud
> providers are often pretty expensive for nearly daily use of a powerful
> server.

I think I'd want to see the numbers on that...I doubt you'd be loading the machine 100% 24/7, for example,  The larger cloud providers also tend to have access to the hardware at a relative discount, so depending on overall workload (and since security / data integrity is mostly equivalent at the "untrustworthy" level due to the PSP etc.), it may actually be cheaper to go cloud.  Cloud also means that over time you will get access to newer hardware as part of the overall rental costs vs. having to purchase another machine.

Just my $0.02. :)