On November 14, 2019, the review embargo for the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X mainstream desktop processor expired. As a result, there were a flood of written and video reviews of AMD’s new flagship processor for the mainstream market segment. This 7nm processor has 16C/32T with a base clock speed of 3.5GHz, a max boost clock of up to 4.7GHz, a 64MB L3 cache, a 105W TDP, and PCIe 4.0 support. The SRP is $749.99.

It is essentially the same Zen 2 processor as the 12C/24T AMD Ryzen 9 3900X (with two CCX) with four more cores and slightly different base and max boost clock speeds that has a SRP of $499.99. One important difference is that the 3900X comes with an included Wraith Prism CPU cooler, while the 3950X does not include a CPU cooler. AMD actually recommends an all-in-one liquid cooler with a 280mm radiator (or greater) for the 3950X.

This is actually a strange recommendation, since according to several reviews, the 3950X runs cooler than the 3900X (in an otherwise identical system). I suspect that you would also be fine with a high quality, large air cooler from Noctua. This apparent paradox is due to better binning of the chiplets used in the 3950X, which lets them run at lower voltage at the same clock speeds compared to the 3900X. This reduces energy usage and reduces the heat output.

Figure 1: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X

My Analysis

After reading and watching multiple reviews of the Ryzen 9 3950X, I am very impressed, more so than I thought I would be. It’s single-threaded performance is comparable to the 8C/16T Intel Core i9-9900K and 9900KS on most benchmarks, while its multi-threaded performance is far superior to those two flagship Intel desktop processors on nearly every benchmark. To make matters worse for Intel, the 3950X has significantly better single-threaded performance than Intel’s much more expensive current  Skylake-X HEDT processors and comparable or better multi-threaded performance on most benchmarks.

The Ryzen 9 3950X also dominates the existing 12nm 16C/32T AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X HEDT processor in both single and multi-threaded performance. It does have less memory capacity (two memory channels and four DIMM slots vs. four memory channels and eight DIMM slots), but it supports faster memory. It has fewer PCIe lanes, but PCIe 4.0 lanes have twice the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0 lanes.

Intel really doesn’t have a viable competitive response in the mainstream or HEDT segments available now, or on the short-term horizon (meaning the next six to twelve months). About all Intel can do to try to minimize the damage is to reduce their prices pretty significantly. They have the financial resources to do that if they want to, and I predict they will. If you simply must have an Intel processor, I suggest you wait a month or two to take advantage of this.

Who Is This Processor For?

Despite AMD’s marketing, you don’t really need an AMD Ryzen 3950X for gaming. If all you do is game, you can use a less expensive AMD or Intel processor, and spend the savings on a better video card. If you are a hard-core content creator, where rendering and encoding time is a really big deal, where time is literally money, then you would be better off waiting for the upcoming 3rd Generation AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors that will have more cores, more memory channels and capacity, and more PCIe 4.0 capacity.

The target audience for this processor is someone who does some content creation, some development, perhaps likes to run multiple VMs or containers, and also likes to do some gaming. It is a versatile, relatively affordable mainstream consumer processor (compared to an HEDT system) that has the performance and capacity to handle most common workloads very well.

To be clear, most people don’t really need to go this high up in the desktop stack to get great general purpose desktop performance. You can use something like an 8C/16T AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or even a 6C/12T AMD Ryzen 5 3600 for a lot less money. If you are running an older Intel 4C/8T desktop processor including as new as a Core i7-7700K, moving to even a lower-end AMD Zen 2 processor system is going to be a substantial upgrade.

Selected Reviews

Here are some reviews to watch and read.

Intel Could Take YEARS to Catch Up… – Ryzen 9 3950X Review

Ryzen 9 3950X Review, The New Performance King!

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review & Benchmarks – The Intel Destroyer

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: Premiere, Blender, Overclocking, & Gaming CPU Benchmarks

Ryzen 3950X Review & Benchmarks: 16-Core Dominance!

RYZEN 3950X vs. TR 2950X, i9-9900KS – Gaming, Rendering, OC

Ryzen 9 3950X review: AMD’s 16-core CPUs is an epic end-zone dance over Intel

The AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: 16 Cores on 7nm with PCIe 4.0

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: 16 Cores Muscles Into the Mainstream

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: A 16-Core Zen 2 Powerhouse

The post AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Processor Released appeared first on Glenn Berry.

With the older SpeedStep technology, it would typically take 100-150ms for a processor core to fully ramp up its clock speed in response to a lower P-state. With Speed Shift, this delay goes down to 30-35ms to fully ramp up.

Figure 1: Intel Speed Shift

This technology has been in Intel desktop and mobile processors since Q3 2015 (although you couldn’t use it until Microsoft patched Windows 10 in November 2015). It showed up in Intel server processors in the Skylake-SP family and in the current Cascade Lake-SP family. Figure 2 shows a current Intel Xeon Gold 6244 processor which has Intel Speed Shift support (although you can’t actually tell from CPU-Z).

Figure 2: Intel Xeon Gold 6244 in CPU-Z

Remember, you need a new enough processor (Skylake or newer) and operating system support in order to enable Intel Speed Shift. This means a new enough build of Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2019.

One way to confirm whether Intel Speed Shift is enabled is to use the free HWiNFO64 utility. On the main HWiNFO screen, in the CPU section, there is a Features section that shows various AMD and Intel processor features. They will be green if that feature is enabled on your system, and greyed out if it is not.

The one for Intel Speed Shift is SST, at the bottom right of the section. You can see this feature enabled in Figure 3.

Figure 3: HWiNFO64 Showing Intel Speed Shift Enabled

SST is something you want to have enabled on your database server if at all possible. If you have the two main prerequisites, you may still have to poke around in your BIOS settings to make sure this ends up being enabled. If you don’t see it enabled in HWiNFO64, you might want to bug your server vendor to find out what combination of BIOS settings are required your your model server.

The post Checking To See If Intel Speed Shift Is Enabled appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Useful Utility/Benchmark Software Updates

Samsung has released a new version of Samsung Magician, which is now version 6.0. This release has a completely new user interface, and quite a bit of additional functionality. I have noticed that it takes longer to startup and scan your drives compared to the previous version. If you have any Samsung SSDs in your system, you really should have their Magician software, especially for obtaining and installing firmware updates.

Figure 1: Samsung Magician 6.0

CrystalDiskMark 7 Beta 4 is available, with many new features along with additional testing and display modes. These include displaying IOPS and latency information in the main GUI.

You can also choose from different testing profiles, which essentially let you do similar testing compared to running Microsoft DiskSpd natively. This is going to make CDM a much more useful tool.

Figure 2: CrystalDiskMark 7.0 Beta4 – Default Profile

Figure 3: CrystalDiskMark 7 Text Results

This is one of the new testing profiles.

Figure 4: CrystalDiskMark 7.0 Beta4 – Peak Performance + Mix Profile

2nd Generation Intel Optane DC SSDs Coming in 2020

I’ve been very impressed with the 1st generation Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X “Coldstream” storage devices that use two-layer 3D XPoint media. They have been available since mid-2017, and they are extremely well-suited for certain types of SQL Server I/O workloads. One prime example is write heavy tempdb workloads.

Now, Intel is starting to reveal more details about the 2nd generation devices in this family. These are code named “Alder Stream”, and they will use Barlow Pass 3D XPoint media with four layers. It is also probable that they will have PCIe 4.0 support, and a new, faster controller. They are due for release in 2020, and they will have up to double the capacity and significantly better performance than the current generation.

One key advantage of these devices is that they will work with legacy versions of SQL Server and legacy hardware. As long as you have PCIe 3.0 x4 hardware support and your OS supports NVMe drivers, you can use them.

Figure 5: Intel Memory and Storage Roadmap

The post Glenn’s Technical Insights For September 26, 2019 appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Any desktop machine is going to need these basic components from seven different categories, broken down below.

• CPU and cooler
• GPU
• Motherboard
• Memory
• Storage
• Case
• Power supply

High-End 4K AMD Gaming PC Build

This is intended to be a high-end mainstream desktop machine that can easily play nearly any modern game at 4K (3840×2160) resolution using very high graphics quality settings in the game at high frame rates. It also has enough CPU/memory capacity and storage performance to handle much more demanding desktop usage scenarios with very good performance. It should be significantly faster than nearly any high-end mainstream desktop machine from years past. Here are the main components:

AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12C/24T Processor

This is currently the high-end processor in the mainstream 7nm AMD Ryzen 3000 series line. It has 12C/24T, and has a TDP of 105 watts. Even though the base clock speed is 3.8 GHz, most of those cores will spend most of their time running at a significantly higher clock speed. This is especially true if you do all of the right things to help your CPU boost speeds, such as having the latest BIOS, AMD chipset drivers, and Windows 10 Version 1903.

You also want a case with good thermal performance and possibly an aftermarket CPU cooler. The temperature of your CPU cores is one of the variables that helps determine your max boost clock speed. This processor does come with a Wraith PRISM cooler, which does a good enough job that you probably don’t really need an aftermarket cooler. If you do want an aftermarket cooler, I really like Noctua air coolers. They are reliable and easier to install than most liquid coolers. They also do a better job of cooling the CPU than many AIO water coolers.

If you can wait until November, AMD will release the 16C/32T AMD Ryzen 9 3950X, with a slightly lower base clock speed of 3.5GHz. This will give you more total CPU capacity for non-gaming tasks, but won’t help your gaming performance in most games. One notable exception would be Civilization 6, where turn times are reduced with higher core counts. One downside of this processor is that it so popular that it is hard to find at most retailers.

Noctua NH-D15 SE AM4 CPU Cooler

This is just an example of a higher-end Noctua cooler. Depending on what case you choose, and how tall your RAM is, you might have to choose something different, to make sure that everything fits in the case and over your DIMMs.

ASRock X570 Creator ATX AM4 Motherboard

This is a pretty high-end X570 motherboard that has some additional features that are suitable for a high-end gaming rig and also for workstation usage. These include an onboard AQUANTIA 10G LAN port, Intel Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax, three PCIe 4.0 x16 slots, two M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 ports, and two Thunderbolt 3 Type–C ports. PCIe 4.0 support is nice to have as a future-looking feature, but it is not that useful right now.

Video cards don’t yet actually need the extra bandwidth from PCIe 4.0, and the first generation M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage cards are limited by the Phison controller they use to “only” about 5000MB/sec for sequential reads. Sequential read performance is not super important for a gaming PC, but it can be very useful for content creation work.

G.Skill Trident Z Royal 64 GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-3600 Memory

This is faster memory with tighter timings that helps AMD Ryzen 3000 processors perform better. There are plenty of detailed articles and videos that show that DDR4-3600 memory with tight timings (low CL numbers) are another sweet spot where you get a decent performance boost without spending significantly more money.

To be honest, most games I am aware of don’t need more than 16GB of memory. If you are going to do other work besides gaming, you might want to have more memory depending on your needs and budget. Officially, these processors only support 64GB, but I have seen people running 128GB with four 32GB DIMMs. Luckily, DDR4 RAM is very affordable now compared to a couple of years ago.

Intel Optane 905P Series 960GB PCIe NVMe SSD

Despite the SSD designation, this is not the same as conventional NAND-based flash storage. It uses 3D XPoint technology for non-volatile storage, which has many advantages over NAND-based flash storage. These include higher endurance, much lower latency, higher throughput at low queue depths, and steady performance under a heavy load. You will see noticeably faster performance for many common tasks, like installing software, loading games, booting, and shutdown. These drives are more expensive per GB than NAND-based flash, but they are much faster for many workload types.

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 NVMe SSD

This is the largest capacity drive from the 970 EVO Plus line. This would give you enough space quite a few different games and enough space for some video editing work.

I am a big fan of Samsung for consumer storage. Their products consistently do well in benchmarks, and they are not much more expensive than other brands. The Samsung 970 EVO Plus is the latest generation of their budget-friendly EVO line that actually beats the 970 PRO models in some benchmarks, for a lot less money. As always, make sure to get a model that is at least 500GB in size or larger.

Larger capacity NAND flash drives have more NAND channels, so they usually perform much better than smaller capacity drives from the same family. If you are used to SATA flash drives, you will be pleasantly surprised by how much better M.2 PCIe NVMe drives can perform. One weak point of M.2 drives is thermal throttling.

If you do a series of large sequential reads, back-to-back with no breaks, M.2 drives will get hot enough to severely throttle their performance. This is more of a problem in a laptop compared to a desktop, but it can still happen in a desktop machine. Some motherboards come with heatsinks for the M.2 slots, and you can buy aftermarket M.2 heatsinks that usually help.

ASUS GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB ROG Strix OC Video Card

This component is the single most expensive part in this build, which is usually the case for a gaming PC. Once you go to 2K or 4K gaming, your video card becomes your bottleneck for getting high FPS in most games. Once you get below 40-50 FPS, most people tend to notice that the game seems slow. On the other hand, unless you have a good gaming monitor that supports 144 FPS or more (and has G-SYNC or FreeSync), you won’t get the full benefit of extremely high frame rates in your games.

The NVidia RTX 2080 Ti line is the current “top of the line” for gaming performance, with pricing to match. If you want high frame rates at 4K resolution on the latest games, you will want this level of performance. If you are playing at lower resolution with older games that are not as demanding, you can save quite a bit of money with a lower-end video card.

Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case

I left this case as is from the mid-range gaming build. You can obviously go with a larger, fancier case with more tempered glass and RGB lighting if that is your thing. I would caution you that the thermal performance of a case will become more important with a higher core count CPU and a higher-end video card.

Since this case has a mesh front panel (rather than tempered glass) and lots of ventilation in the rest of the case, it has very good thermal performance. This is very important if you want to avoid thermal throttling from your components. The downside with mesh and lots of ventilation and fans can be increased noise.

You can minimize this by picking components that have better passive cooling features such as heat pipes and heat sinks. You can also add additional case fans and/or replace the stock case fans with better case fans if you so desire. This case has gotten many great reviews from sites that I respect like GamersNexus.

Seasonic PRIME Ultra Titanium 750W 80+ Titanium ATX Power Supply

In my opinion, Seasonic is the Tesla of power supply makers. Their high-end models get great reviews, and Seasonic is the actual OEM for some power supply lines from other brands, such as Corsair. Unless you are running multiple video cards, you probably don’t need an 850W or 1000W model.

This is a quiet, high capacity 80+ Titanium certified power supply that has gotten great reviews. It is fully modular, so you can minimize your cable clutter. This model has two EPS connectors (which are required with some X570 motherboards). I have used this power supply in a couple of my machines, and I have been very happy with the results.

Other considerations

This machine has a total price (as of this writing) of about $5100.00. That does not include sales tax or an operating system. If you live near a Micro Center, and buy all of the parts at one time, you can usually save around $100 with their bundle discounts (which is not as significant at this budget level)!

I’m not saying that you need to spend $5100.00 on a gaming computer, but you certainly can easily spend that much, or even more if you so desire. I think most people would be very satisfied with the level of performance they would get from my Mid-Range 1440P AMD Gaming Build. This guide is just a small window into some upgraded components that you might add to a lower budget build, depending on your workload and budget.

Unless you are gaming at 1080P, your main performance bottleneck is going to be your video card (as long as you have a “decent” CPU). If you are doing other work besides gaming, then having more CPU cores, more memory, more PCIe lance and overall storage performance can be very useful.

I think you will want Windows 10 Home or Professional. If you do use Windows 10, make sure to get version 1903 so that you get the AMD scheduler and CPPC improvements. You also want to make sure you get the latest BIOS version and the latest AMD chipset and All-In-One Driver versions.

Please let me know if you are interested in more posts like this. Thanks for reading!

The PCPartPicker parts list for this machine is here.

The post High-End 4K AMD Gaming PC Build Guide appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Any desktop machine is going to need these basic components from seven different categories, broken down below.

• CPU and cooler
• GPU
• Motherboard
• Memory
• Storage
• Case
• Power supply

Mid-Range 1440P AMD Gaming PC Build

This is intended to be a relatively affordable machine that can easily play nearly any modern game at 2K (2560×1440) resolution using very high graphics quality settings in the game at high frame rates. It also has enough CPU/memory capacity and storage performance to handle more demanding desktop usage scenarios with very good performance. It should be significantly faster than most older high-end desktop machines from years past. Here are the main components:

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8C/16T Processor

This is currently what I consider to be the sweet spot in the 7nm AMD Ryzen 3000 series line. It has 8C/16T, but only has a TDP of 65 watts. Even though the base clock speed is only 3.6 GHz, most of the cores will spend most of their time running at a significantly higher clock speed. In most benchmarks, the Ryzen 7 3700X is very close to the higher priced Ryzen 7 3800X, close enough so that you won’t notice the difference.

I have one of these in my current gaming machine. Another bonus is that it comes with a Wraith PRISM cooler, which is the same CPU cooler that AMD uses on the 3800X and 3900X. This cooler does a good enough job that you probably don’t really need an aftermarket cooler.

ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX AM4 Motherboard

This is a budget X570 motherboard (so it has PCIe 4.0 support) that still has the basic features and ports to get the job done for a mid-range gaming rig. PCIe 4.0 support is nice to have as a future-looking feature, but it is not that useful right now. Video cards don’t yet actually need the extra bandwidth from PCIe 4.0, and the first generation M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage cards are limited by the Phison controller  they use to “only” about 5000MB/sec for sequential reads. Sequential read performance is not super important for a gaming PC, but it can be very useful for content creation work.

G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3600 Memory

This is somewhat faster memory with tighter timings that helps AMD Ryzen 3000 processors perform better. There are plenty of detailed articles and videos that show that DDR4-3600 memory with tight timings (low CL numbers) are another sweet spot where you get a decent performance boost without spending significantly more money. If you are going to do other work besides gaming, you might want to get two 16GB sticks or four 8GB or 16GB sticks, depending on your needs and budget. Luckily, DDR4 RAM is very affordable now compared to a couple of years ago.

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVMe SSD

I am a big fan of Samsung for consumer storage. Their products consistently do well in benchmarks, and they are not much more expensive than other brands. The Samsung 970 EVO Plus is the latest generation of their budget-friendly EVO line that actually beats the 970 PRO models in some benchmarks, for a lot less money. As always, make sure to get a model that is at least 500GB in size or larger.

Larger capacity NAND flash drives have more NAND channels, so they usually perform much better than smaller capacity drives from the same family. If you are used to SATA flash drives, you will be pleasantly surprised by how much better M.2 PCIe NVMe drives can perform. One weak point of M.2 drives is thermal throttling.

If you do a series of large sequential reads, back-to-back with no breaks, M.2 drives will get hot enough to severely throttle their performance. This is more of a problem in a laptop compared to a desktop, but it can still happen in a desktop machine. Some motherboards come with heatsinks for the M.2 slots, and you can buy aftermarket M.2 heatsinks.

Gigabyte Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB Gaming OC Video Card

This component is the single most expensive part in this build, which is usually the case for a gaming PC. Once you go to 2K or 4K gaming, your video card becomes your bottleneck for getting high FPS in most games. Once you get below 40-50 FPS, most people tend to notice that the game seems slow. On the other hand, unless you have a good gaming monitor that supports 144 FPS or more (and has FreeSync), you won’t get the full benefit of extremely high frame rates in your games.

The 7nm Radeon 5700 XT was released on July 7, 2019 as the higher end version of the Radeon 5700 series. This Gigabyte card uses three fans and a large heat pipe system so that it runs much cooler and generates a lot less noise than the original Radeon 5700 XT cards that used the reference single blower fan design from AMD. It is also mildly overclocked from the factory.

Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case

Since this case has a mesh front panel (rather than tempered glass) and lots of ventilation in the rest of the case, it has very good thermal performance. This is very important if you want to avoid thermal throttling from your components. The downside with mesh and lots of ventilation and fans can be increased noise.

You can minimize this by picking components that have better passive cooling features such as heat pipes and heat sinks. You can also add additional case fans and/or replace the stock case fans with better case fans if you so desire. This case has gotten many great reviews from sites that I respect like GamersNexus.

Corsair RMx 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

This is a quiet, high capacity 80+ Gold certified power supply that has gotten great reviews. It is fully modular, so you can minimize your cable clutter. This model has two EPS connectors (which are required with some X570 motherboards). I have used this power supply in a couple of my machine, and I have been very happy with the results.

Other considerations

This machine has a total price (as of this writing) of about $1460.00. That does not include sales tax or an operating system. If you live near a Micro Center, and buy all of the parts at one time, you can usually save around $100 with their bundle discounts.

I think you will want Windows 10 Home or Professional. If you do use Windows 10, make sure to get version 1903 so that you get the AMD scheduler and CPPC improvements. You also want to make sure you get the latest BIOS version and the latest AMD chipset and All-In-One Driver versions.

Depending on your budget, you can add more RAM or storage right off the bat. You also have a very good upgrade path going forward. For example, you could upgrade to a 12C/24T or 16C/32T 7nm AMD Ryzen 3000 series processor using this motherboard. If you really think you are going to get a higher core count AMD Ryzen 3000 series processor later, you might want to get a slightly more expensive motherboard with better VRMs than the one I have recommended at this price point.

You could also get a much more expensive discrete graphics card if you wanted to play games at 4K (3840×2160). You can also go up to 64GB of RAM with this system.

Please let me know if you are interested in more posts like this. Thanks for reading!

The PCPartPicker parts list for this machine is here.

The post Mid-Range 1440P AMD Gaming PC Build Guide appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Any desktop machine is going to need these basic components from seven different categories, broken down below.

• CPU and cooler
• GPU
• Motherboard
• Memory
• Storage
• Case
• Power supply

At certain price points, you may be able save some money by getting components that combine extra functionality into a single component. A good example is a CPU with integrated graphics that also has a decent CPU cooler included. Because of ongoing competition between Intel and AMD, combined with falling RAM and NAND SSD prices, you can build a very capable system for a lot less money than you might expect.

Entry-Level 1080P AMD Gaming PC Build

This is intended to be an affordable machine that can easily play eSports type games at 1080P (1920×1080) resolution. It also has enough CPU/memory capacity and storage performance to handle typical desktop usage scenarios with very good performance. Even though it is a budget machine, it may be faster than many older high-end desktop machines from years past. Here are the main components:

AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7 GHz 4C/8T Processor

Despite the 3400 series name, this is actually a 12nm Zen+ processor rather than a 7nm Zen 2 processor. Still, it does have 4 cores plus SMT, so you get eight threads total. It runs at a base clock speed of 3.7 GHz and has a Max Boost Clock of 4.2 GHz. It also has integrated Radeon RX Vega 11 graphics to handle 1080P gaming. It has an AMD Wraith Spire CPU cooler included in the box.

ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard

This is a relatively modest but still capable B450 chipset motherboard that has four RAM slots. It has four SATA3 ports along with one Ultra M.2 PCIe NVMe slot and one M.2 SATA3 slot. It also has a decent amount of USB 3.1 Gen2 and Gen1 ports and a Realtek Gigabit LAN port. A B450 motherboard can support most current and past generation AMD AM4 socket Ryzen desktop processors, so you have an upgrade path. You will need to have BIOS version 3.30 or later in order to use the latest AMD Ryzen processors.

G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory

Most games run perfectly well with 16GB of RAM, and I consider 16GB of RAM to be the bare minimum that you should have for general desktop usage. You also want to have at least two sticks of RAM so that you will be running in dual-channel mode. Since this B450 motherboard has four memory slots, you can add more memory later if you need it without having to replace your current memory.

AMD Ryzen processors are relatively sensitive to memory speed and performance, and this is especially true of Ryzen processors with integrated graphics that use system memory. G.Skill has a good reputation and seems to work pretty well with AMD Ryzen processors.

Samsung 860 Evo 500GB SATA3 Solid State Drive

I believe that a 500GB SATA SSD is pretty much the bare minimum you should consider in terms of capacity and performance when it comes to a boot drive. For NAND-based SSDs, you should avoid getting a drive that is smaller than 500GB, since you will give up a lot of performance while only saving a very small amount of money.

An entry-level system may get along just fine with a single 500GB drive, but you can always add additional drives or go to a larger size if you need more space. You can also step up to an M.2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive for more performance. Personally, I really like Samsung NAND-based SSDs, since they are just a known good product that I have a lot of experience with. The 860 EVO series gives nearly the same performance as the higher-priced 860 PRO series. The free Samsung Magician software is an added bonus that makes it easier to manage your drives and install firmware updates.

Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 5 ATX Mid Tower Case

The selection of a case can be fairly subjective. People often have quite strong opinions about the sort of aesthetic they are looking for. Depending on your preferences for thermal performance and noise, you have a huge number of cases to choose from.

The case I picked here is very affordable, and is relatively low key as far the stock appearance. It is possible to add some color to this case with RGB case fans. Adding additional case fans would also be a good idea if you want better thermal performance, since this case only comes with one 120mm rear case fan.

Seasonic 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Your power supply is not a good place to cut corners on. A good power supply is going to make your system last longer and use less electricity. I really like fully modular power supplies, so that I have less cable clutter inside the case (because you only install the cables that you actually need). SeaSonic is one of the best power supply makers out there, even though this is a lower-end model.

Having a lower watt capacity power supply for a system like this will actually save on electrical usage compared to a much higher watt capacity power supply, since efficiency is higher when the power supply has a slightly higher percentage of its rated output. A 520 watt power supply will still have some extra headroom so you will be able to add a mid-range discrete graphics card later.

Other considerations

This machine has a total price (as of this writing) of about $450.00. That does not include sales tax or an operating system. I think you will want Windows 10 Home or Professional. If you do use Windows 10, make sure to get version 1903 so that you get the AMD scheduler and CPPC improvements. You also want to make sure you get the latest BIOS version and the latest AMD chipset and All-In-One Driver versions.

Depending on your budget, you can add more RAM or storage right off the bat. You also have a very good upgrade path going forward. For example, you could upgrade to a 6C/12T or 8C/16T 7nm AMD Ryzen 3000 series processor using this motherboard. If you did that, you would have to get a discrete graphics card. You can also go up to 64GB of RAM with this system.

Please let me know if you are interested in more posts like this. Thanks for reading!

The PCPartPicker parts list for this machine is here.

The post Entry-Level 1080P AMD Gaming PC Build Guide appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Introduction

It may come as no surprise, but my fantasy SQL Server feature is related to hardware and storage. This is a general idea that I have had for many years, that I have brought up informally with some fairly senior people at Microsoft in the past.

Essentially, I think it would be very useful if SQL Server had some sort of internal benchmarking/profiling utility that could be run so that SQL Server could measure the relative and actual performance of the hardware and storage that it was running on. Then, the results of these tests could be used to help the SQL Server Query Optimizer make better decisions about what sort of query plan to use based on that information.

For example, depending on the actual measured performance of a processor core (and the entire physical processor) from different perspectives, such as integer performance, floating point performance, AVX performance, etc., it might make more sense to favor one query operator over another for certain types of operations. Similarly, knowing the relative and actual performance of the L1, L2, and L3 caches in a processor might be useful in the same way.

Going deeper into the system, knowing the relative and actual performance of the DRAM main memory (and PMEM) in terms of latency and throughput seems like it would be useful information for the Query Optimizer to know about. Finally, understanding the relative and actual performance of the storage subsystem in terms of latency, IOPs, and sequential throughput would probably pretty useful in some situations.

Windows Experience Index

A historical, consumer-facing example was the old Windows Experience Index in Windows 7, that would run a quick series of benchmarks to measure the processor, memory, graphics, gaming graphics, and primary hard disk performance of a system. The resulting scores (in Windows 7) could range from 1.0 to 7.9. The scores for my old 2012-vintage Intel Core i7-3770K desktop system are shown in Figure 1. The purpose of these scores (beyond bragging rights) was to help consumers make better decisions about possible upgrade choices for different system components or to simply understand what the biggest bottlenecks were in their existing system. It was also used as a quick way to compare the relative performance of different systems in a store.

Figure 1: Windows Experience Index Scores on Windows 7

Azure Experience Index

My idea is to have something similar from a SQL Server perspective, that could optionally be used by the SQL Server Query Optimizer (and any other part of SQL Server) to make better decisions based on the actual, measured performance of the key components of the system it is running on. This would be useful no matter how SQL Server was deployed, whether it was running bare-metal on-premises, in an on-premises VM, in a Container, in an Azure VM, in Azure SQL Database, or in SQL Managed Instance. It would also work in any other cloud environment, and on any supported operating system for SQL Server.

Despite what you might hear, the details of the hardware and storage of the actual hardware that your SQL Server deployment is running on, make a significant difference to the performance and scalability you are going to see. Low-level geeky things like the exact processor (and all of its performance characteristics), the exact DRAM modules (and their number and placement), the NUMA layout, the exact type and configuration of your storage, your BIOS/UEFI settings, your hypervisor settings, etc. There are so many possible layers and configuration options in a modern system, it can be quite overwhelming.

Based on source code-level knowledge of what SQL Server does in general and how the Query Optimizer works, along with all of the performance telemetry that is collected by Azure SQL Database, Microsoft should be able to determine some relationships and tendencies that tie the actual measured performance of the main components of a system (as it is currently configured as a whole) to common SQL Server query operations.

For example, as an imaginary possibility, perhaps the performance of a hash match is closely related to integer CPU performance, along with L1, L2, and L3 cache latency, DRAM latency and throughput. Different systems, based on differences in the exact CPU, BIOS settings, memory type and speed, etc. might have significantly different performance for a hash match, to the point that the Query Optimizer would want to take that into account when choosing the operators for a query plan. Perhaps it could be called Hyper-Adaptive Cognitive Query Processing…

Even if that level of tuning wasn’t immediately possible, having a deeper understanding of what specific performance characteristics were the most critical to common query operations for different query workloads would help Microsoft make better decisions on what processor, memory, and storage specifications and configuration settings work the best together for different workloads. This could potentially save huge amounts of money in Azure Data Centers. Microsoft can custom design/build hardware as part of the Open Compute Project, and they can get custom server processor SKUs with their desired performance characteristics from AMD and Intel to take advantage of this type of knowledge. They can also configure everything else in the system just as they desire for a particular workload.

Obviously, this is a complicated idea that would take significant resources to develop. I’m sure that Microsoft has other development priorities, but this is my fantasy feature, and I’m sticking with my story.

The post T-SQL Tuesday #118 My Fantasy SQL Server Feature appeared first on Glenn Berry.

Original Specifications

As originally configured, this machine had an 8th generation Intel Core i7-8565U (4C/8T) “Whiskey Lake” processor with a base clock speed of 1.80 GHz, a max turbo frequency of 4.60 GHz, and an 8 MB L3 cache. It had one 16 GB stick of DDR4-2666 MHz RAM (with one empty slot), which meant the memory was operating in single-channel mode instead of dual channel mode. For storage, it had a 128 GB SK Hynix BC501 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x2 NVMe drive for the operating system, and a 1TB Seagate ST1000LM035-1RK172 5400 rpm SATA hard drive for extra storage.

These general specifications are a pretty big improvement over a mainstream business laptop from a few years ago. It used to be that machines in this price range would have a 2C/4T processor and a single 2.5” SATA drive bay, probably with a conventional hard drive. Having a 4C/8T processor and two drive bays, one being M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe, makes a big difference!

Initial Storage Benchmarks

I wanted to confirm that the machine wasn’t DOA from Dell, so I unboxed it and plugged it in. Everything worked fine out of the box, so I collected some quick CrystalDiskMark results on the two OEM drives. First was the 128GB SK Hynix M.2 PCIe NVMe boot drive. As you can see below, this is quite miserable performance for an M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1585.788 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 287.443 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q=  8,T= 8) : 277.594 MB/s [67772.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q=  8,T= 8) : 255.548 MB/s [62389.6 IOPS]

Keep in mind that this is a M.2 2230 form factor drive that also only supports two PCIe 3.0 lanes, rather than the four PCIe 3.0 lanes that most M.2 PCIe NVMe drives support. This limits its sequential bandwidth to about 1600 MB/second. It is also a very small capacity drive, which further limits its performance because there are fewer NAND cells than in a larger capacity drive. You really should try to stay away from NAND SSDs that are smaller than 500 GB in size.

Just for comparison, here are the same CrystalDiskMark results for the 1TB Seagate ST1000LM035-1RK172 5400 rpm SATA hard drive that came in the system. Even with a 128 MB cache, these are not impressive results for a laptop hard drive. They are probably better than than the hard drives in many existing laptops, but really, using a conventional magnetic hard drive in a laptop is just a miserable experience that I would avoid unless you have no financial alternative.

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 139.031 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 133.234 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q=  8,T= 8) : 1.162 MB/s [283.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q=  8,T= 8) : 1.246 MB/s [304.2 IOPS]

Opening Up the Beast

Once I was done with this initial storage testing, it was time to open up the machine to make some improvements. Working with laptops for hardware modifications can be anywhere from easy to fairly difficult. Some “Ultrabook” style machines are virtually impossible to work on, with non-replaceable components or components that are soldered in place. Just getting them opened without breaking or damaging anything can sometimes be pretty challenging. I recommend that you download the service manual for your machine before you even buy it to make sure you understand what you will be dealing with. I also recommend having proper tools from IFixit.com.

I would rate the difficulty of opening up the Dell Inspiron 5480 as medium. There are three captive phillips screws, and seven removeable phillips screws that must be loosened or removed from the base. After that comes the fun part of getting the plastic base to pop off without breaking anything or damaging the plastic surface. IFixit has a number of “prying and opening tools” that are made of carbon fiber or plastic, so you can open things like this without damaging them.

Figure 1: Inside of Dell Inspiron 5480 with OEM Drives

Figure 2: Inside of Dell Inspiron 5480 with Samsung 970 EVO Plus

After opening up the case, I added a 16GB DDR4-2666 SODIMM that I had purchased for $64.99 at Micro Center. Next, I removed both OEM drives, and I installed the 500GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe drive. I had to move a small retaining clip to a different position because the new drive used the longer 2280 form factor (which means it is 80mm long rather than 30mm long). I purposely did not install the 1TB Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD at this time, because I was going to be installing a fresh copy of Windows 10. In my experience, Windows 10 will sometimes (without asking) install some things on a second drive if it is present during the initial installation, so I always have just a single physical or logical drive present at this point.

Figure 3: Installing Windows 10 (the first time)

As it turned out, I ended up having to install Windows 10 twice because of how Dell had the storage BIOS settings configured from the factory. They had the storage in RAID mode (which uses Intel storage drivers), which seemed to work and perform decently. The only problem with that was that this confused the Samsung Magician software, which claimed that the Samsung 970 EVO Plus was not supported (which prevented me from using Samsung Magician to check for and install firmware updates on the drive). Switching the BIOS to AHCI mode made Windows 10 refuse to boot, so I just reinstalled it from scratch rather than try to fix it. After getting Windows 10 Professional installed, patched, and upgraded to Version 1903, I was ready to continue.

Upgraded Storage Benchmarks

Once everything was installed, patched, and updated, I ran a fresh set of CrystalDiskMark tests on both new drives. First was the new boot drive, which is the 500GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus. As you can see, this was a huge improvement over the original 128GB SK Hynix drive, especially for write performance!

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 3561.355 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 3035.333 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q=  8,T= 8) : 710.060 MB/s [173354.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q=  8,T= 8) : 370.695 MB/s [90501.7 IOPS]

Next was the 1TB Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD that replaced the 1TB Seagate 5400 rpm hard drive. Again, this was a huge improvement over the OEM hard drive. It also shows how much better a good M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD is compared to a SATA AHCI SSD.

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 561.795 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 511.736 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q=  8,T= 8) : 398.251 MB/s [97229.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q=  8,T= 8) : 340.293 MB/s [83079.3 IOPS]

Conclusion

For less than $1200.00 (including the upgraded memory and storage), my friend has a pretty capable machine. It has good CPU performance with a relatively modern Intel 4C/8T processor, 32GB of RAM, and 1.5TB of flash storage. It could easily be upgraded to 64GB of RAM, and up to 6TB of flash storage in the future. It also has a modern 802.11ac WiFi radio and a decent amount of USB 3.0 ports and other connectors. This is not a “top of the line machine”, but it will give a good enough user experience for several years.

The post Dell Inspiron 5480 Laptop Review appeared first on Glenn Berry.

I previously promised some benchmarks on the new system, so one very quick and easy one is the CPU-Z benchmark. This test only takes about 15 seconds, and it is part of the very useful  CPU-Z utility, which requires no installation. This makes it very easy to run on a system, whether it is a gaming rig or a VM that will be running SQL Server. Figure 1 shows an example result on my AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X workstation.

Figure 1: Example CPU-Z Benchmark Results

Today, I decided to run the CPU-Z 1.89.1 CPU benchmark on eight different systems that I have around the house. Two of these are high-end desktops (HEDT), three are mainstream desktops, and three are laptops. The ST Score is the single-threaded score, while the MT score is the multi-threaded score.

The oldest system in the bunch is the 14nm Intel Core i7-6700K from Q3 2015, while the newest is the 7nm AMD Ryzen R7-3700X from Q3 2019. My AMD Ryzen Threadripper systems don’t quite have the same single-threaded CPU performance as the mainstream desktop systems, but they do have a lot more cores (and PCIe 3.0 lanes).

Figure 2: Comparative CPU-Z Benchmark Scores

None of these systems are the current “top of the line” anymore. The AMD Ryzen R7-3700X is roughly in the middle of the stack for the AMD Ryzen 3000 series. The value proposition of the AMD Ryzen 3000 series is that you get great multi-threaded CPU performance, and close enough single-threaded CPU performance for significantly less money than comparable Intel mainstream desktop processors. You also get PCIe 4.0 support with an X570 motherboard.

Rumor has it that AMD may introduce the 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper processors as soon as September 7, 2019, supposedly with new X599 motherboards to enable PCIe 4.0 support.

The post Some Comparative CPU-Z Benchmark Scores appeared first on Glenn Berry.

SQL Server Management Studio 18.2 Released

On July 25, 2019, Microsoft released SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 18.2. This is mostly a bug fix release, but there are a few new features. These include:

• Intellisense support for the new OPTIMIZE_FOR_SEQUENTIAL_KEY option for indexes
• Added a completion time in messages to track when a query completed
• Added a new attribute in QueryPlan when the inline scalar UDF feature is enabled (ContainsInlineScalarTsqlUdfs)
• Added SMO support for Feature Restrictions. For more information on the feature itself, see Feature Restrictions

It is becoming more obvious that Microsoft is pushing Azure Data Studio as their preferred tool over SSMS. I don’t think SSMS is going to be abandoned any time soon, but it is clearly getting less love than Azure Data Studio.

Figure 1: SSMS 18.2

The complete release notes are here. You can download SSMS 18.2 here.

SQL Server 2014 Cumulative Updates

Even though SQL Server 2014 fell out of mainstream support on July 9, 2019, there is actually one final set of Cumulative Updates for SQL Server 2014 that were released on July 29, 2019. These include:

SQL Server 2014 SP3 CU4 (Build 12.0.6329.1)

SQL Server 2014 SP2 CU18 (Build 12.0.5687.1)

There are four public hotfixes in SQL Server 2014 SP2 CU18, and there are nineteen public hotfixes in SQL Server 2019 SP3 CU4. If you are on SQL Server 2014, you should get on SQL Server 2014 SP3 CU4 eventually, since that is going to be the last released build (unless there are any security updates between now and July 9, 2024, which is pretty likely).

There are also probably going to be the latest round of Cumulative Updates for SQL Server 2016 and SQL Server 2017 later this week, so keep your eye out for that.

The post Glenn’s Technical Insights For July 29, 2019 appeared first on Glenn Berry.