I'm thinking of updating my computer. My current rig is a Dell XPS8700 with an Intel i7 4790k processor. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to which processor - Intel i9 or AMD Threadripper - is best suited for Rosetta. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

My previous experience with a Ryzen 1700 (Ubuntu 18.04) is that it does quite well with SMT disabled in the bios (so running on 8 real cores), but picks up errors with it enabled.
(I am building a Ryzen 2700 in a week or so, and will try it there also.)

My Intels do OK with hyper-threading enabled, though I like to limit the cores for most consistent output. My i7-8700 can do very well, but sometimes doesn't. It is not entirely a question of the CPUs, but the work units are inconsistent. I think the Threadripper should do very well, but you will probably have to experiment a bit.

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I'm also thinking of upgrading my computer, after almost 10 years. Old is Quad Q9550.

If thinking between i9 9700K and i9 9900K, would there be any benefit with Hyper threading on the latter?

It has always been difficult to benchmark on Rosy. I have always leveraged hyper threading on my Intel CPUs. You need to have enough RAM for all those threads, typically 1GB for each thread.

I would love to get a threadripper or an i9 running but no budget for that.

Good luck & please report back when you get these systems running.

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Thx!

Paul

There is lots of info on this website to help answer that question. I found this link that shows the highest performing systems.

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/top_hosts.php

The AMD 16 core 2950x is ranked #6 w/RAC of 29,826. The Intel i9 comes in at #18 w/RAC of 19,699. I built a system around the previous generation AMD - 1950x. It is just starting to produce numbers. I'm hopeful they will be a significant number. See thread :

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=12929

The Intel systems are a bit easier to find built. The BIG AMD systems are tough to find and better off building the system yourself. The ThreadRipper motherboards are more expensive than Intel, but have large memory options and very fast PCIe slots. I found the AMD 1950x processor on a Black Friday sale for $475. I was anxious to build a server class desktop and could not resist trying an AMD. I think they are very competitive and seem to be well suited for this work. Good luck with your decision. A lot of great options finally.

That threadripper has some units that are erroring out. Wonder if that's an issue at the computer end or the server end? If it continues, it might be worth running it without hyperthreading to narrow down the cause...

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