Comments on: AMD Threadripper Pro 5000 Series Goes DIY Market

By: BitGryph

BitGryph — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 06:48:06 +0000

AMD should not be praised for this release.
It should be berated for providing those CPUs only to Lenovo up to this point, effectively giving it a monopoly for so long. And for PSB. Both are extremely anti-consumer practices.

By: James Collins

James Collins — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 20:08:48 +0000

Intel’s returning to the HEDT market by the end of this year. In the meanwhile I built a couple of 12900K based ‘workstations’, and have been fairly pleased with the results. After what AMD pulled with x399-TRX40 then abandoning TRX40 after 1 series of CPUs, I’m done with them, especially in the light of vendors platform-locking CPUs. AMD would have been far more successful had they been less greedy and more forward-looking.

By: domih

domih — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 21:39:37 +0000

2950X and 3960X user here. The latter is my primary workstation, the former is my backup workstation in case the primary has issues and I don’t have time to fix them right away due to job-related emergencies.

I do not mind have to upgrade from mobo/socket/chipset to mobo/socket/chipset. These two machines are going to be used for many years. So upgrading the processor is relatively unimportant to me.

What I do mind about is the rising prices for HEDT: 2950X ($899.99 MSRP)(*) to 3960X ($1399.00 MSRP) to 5965WX ($2,537)(**)

(*) Where the needs are for around 16C32T or 24C48T. Starting with the 3rd gen, the 16C32T version was demoted to desktop, the 3950X and 5950X, kneecapped in terms of PCIe lanes and memory. AMD had finally decided how to segment its HEDT market.

(**) According to https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ryzen-threadripper-pro-5000-cpus-will-hit-the-diy-market-later-this-year

The non-PRO Threadripper was a gift for DIYer who wanted to build a powerful workstation while limiting cost (and I could not believe my luck when I got a used 2950X well under MSRP on eBay.)

The second thing I do mind about is Lenovo and Dell abusing AMD PSB to lock the 5000 TR processors to their brand. This means the second hand market is going to be kind of SNAFU if vendors do not track the CPU origin. Also using a used Lenovo or Dell workstation mobo? No thanks.

Because INTEL was (and still is) MIA in the HEDT market, AMD spent 3 generations searching for the most profitable way to sell HEDT processors. It looks like the Threadripper PRO is the answer they were looking for. Good for AMD, not so good in terms of pricing for DIYer, bugdet restricting start-up, SOHO power user, etc.

The non-PRO Threadripper series is dead. AMD marketing calls it “simplifying and unifying the platform”:

Ref: https://community.amd.com/t5/business/design-build-accelerate-on-the-ultimate-workstation-processor/ba-p/530661

It’s always interesting to witness how marketing spins bad news in a positive way.

The conclusion is that when a DIYer builds a 16C32T or 24C48T workstation, he or she will spent roughly $1500 more.

By: John Walker

John Walker — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 20:32:16 +0000

Sad that AMD have essentially shafted the TRX40 buyer the same way as the first generation TR buyer. Would of been classy to release a Zen3 based SKU for the TRX40 crowd before deprecating the non PRO platform.

By: Tristan

Tristan — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 16:47:50 +0000

Nice to see this gigabyte board out on retail. Unfortunately, the first release of this board’s bios did not have support for 5000 series cpus. Does the server board have QFlash which allows users to flash bios without CPU like the non-server x570 boards?

By: Will

Will — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 16:11:27 +0000

Do we have more details on what CPU overclocking looks like? If it’s properly unlocked or at least full PBO+CO similar to Ryzen 5000, then that might explain the discontinuation of the TRX40 platform.

The new ASRock WRX80 board mentions memory OC, but I haven’t seen it on any other board. Anyone know more on that?