AMD Thread Ripper System for Maya - Is it compatible?

B

Bigfoot

Grand Master
I am slightly confused. If a scratch disk is used as an overflow when RAM is full, surely creating a scratch RAM disk won’t help in this situation, as you would just be swapping normal RAM for a RAM disk. Have I misunderstood?
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Bigfoot said:
I am slightly confused. If a scratch disk is used as an overflow when RAM is full, surely creating a scratch RAM disk won’t help in this situation, as you would just be swapping normal RAM for a RAM disk. Have I misunderstood?
Click to expand...
You misunderstand. When RAM is 'full' the pagefile is used (pagefile.sys). A scratch disk is used for temporary files that an application uses during processing. Photoshop and other image processing applications make good use of scratch drives. Having temporary files on a separate scratch drive improves I/O performance (because only one I/O can be in progress to each drive at a time). A RAM drive is the fastest drive you can get, the downside is that it's volatile when the power goes off - and that makes it ideal for a scratch drive. :)
 
Scott

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
Bigfoot said:
I am slightly confused. If a scratch disk is used as an overflow when RAM is full, surely creating a scratch RAM disk won’t help in this situation, as you would just be swapping normal RAM for a RAM disk. Have I misunderstood?
Click to expand...

Indeed, it depends on the reason for the scratch/cache disk. If it's for RAM overflow (basically video buffer) then it won't help. I think that's what @ubuysa was referring to when he stated the op has 64GB of RAM, there shouldn't really be a need for an overflow, it's just a nice to have. There are cases where it would even gobble up 64GB (4k editing with loads of effects)

The Scratch disk is used for other things as well though. Things that the software doesn't feel needs to go into the RAM as it's not efficient. When you're sitting on a project using 32GB of RAM with 32GB free and using stacks of files etc from all over the shop, a 10GB RAM disk as that cache/scratch would make a MASSIVE difference to any loading etc. I imagine this would be very useful in audio projects.
 
W

Wildnomad

Bronze Level Poster
This is all great guys. Thanks so much for you input. I chose so much RAM because I quite often have a multiple bits of hungry software open at the same time. For instance it's quite common for me to have Maya, aftereffects, Photoshop and premiere open all at once and I have had memory problems in the past using 32GB RAM. Any tricks to improve performance are always greatly appreciated.
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Scott said:
Indeed, it depends on the reason for the scratch/cache disk. If it's for RAM overflow (basically video buffer) then it won't help. I think that's what @ubuysa was referring to when he stated the op has 64GB of RAM, there shouldn't really be a need for an overflow, it's just a nice to have. There are cases where it would even gobble up 64GB (4k editing with loads of effects)

The Scratch disk is used for other things as well though. Things that the software doesn't feel needs to go into the RAM as it's not efficient. When you're sitting on a project using 32GB of RAM with 32GB free and using stacks of files etc from all over the shop, a 10GB RAM disk as that cache/scratch would make a MASSIVE difference to any loading etc. I imagine this would be very useful in audio projects.
Click to expand...
I just want to clarify that memory (RAM) management is handled only by Windows and not by applications. The paging file (pagefile.sys) is used by Windows memory management to hold RAM pages that are not currently being used by any process. How pages get moved into the paging file (and back) and how RAM is managed when it's becoming exhausted is handled entirely by the Windows memory manager. There is a fairly detailed explanation of how WIndows manages RAM here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/threads/understanding-ram-management-and-use.60067/.

Applications do not (and cannot) 'manage RAM overflow' because application code does not have the level of access to the necessary memory management routines. Only the Windows memory manager can mange RAM overflow situations.

What applications can do is manage their own data, either by requesting that it's kept in RAM (in which case it's subject to Windows memory management control) or by buffering it on a fast drive where it's quickly accessible to be loaded into RAM as needed. Because applications understand and manage their own data this offloading of large datasets to fast drives is considered within the application to be 'managing RAM overflow' but it's nothing of the kind, it's actually just application data management.

The advantage of scratch drives (and you can have many) is down to the fact that Windows can only have one read/write operation in progress per physical drive. If you place these large application datasets/buffers on a regular data drive then requests to read or write to these datasets/buffers will get queued behind all the other read/write operations to that same physical drive - this will result in very poor performance for these critical application datasets/buffers. Having a scratch drive (or drives) gives you a separate physical drive onto which you can write these application datasets/buffers, and because there are no other applications using that drive there is no queuing at read/write time and thus performance is as good as it can be.

Since these application datasets/buffers are transient and not required once the application has closed they make excellent candidates for a RAM drive - as long as you can spare the RAM.
 
W

Wildnomad

Bronze Level Poster
Hello,

I have configured this PC but have very little experience with over-clocked AMD Threadrippers.

I was wondering if anyone has an idea of how much air flow you need for these processors? The case comes with 3 fans (2 front, 1 back) and I wondered if i needed another one?

System:
Case
CORSAIR OBSIDIAN SERIES™ 750D FULL TOWER CASE
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked AMD Threadripper 3960X 24 Core (3.8GHz @ up to 4.3GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME TRX40-PRO (DDR4, 6Gb/s, CrossFireX/SLI) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3600MHz (8 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
10GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080 - HDMI, DP
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA 120 2.5" SSD, (up to 560MB/sR | 540MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
250GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6400MB/R, 2700MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W AX SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® TITANIUM
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
CoolerMaster MasterLiquid ML360 RGB TR4 High Performance Liquid Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [MUP-00003]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)
Delivery
 
Scott

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I'm not sure if the 5000 threadripper have been announced yet. It's certainly a different socket from the AM4 boards/chips as this is a TR4 board. I believe AMD have committed to supporting the socket in the next gen though :)
 
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