Gigabyte MZ01-CE0 AMD EPYC Workstation Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. MZ01-CE0 (rev. 1.0): Board Layout and Features3. MZ01-CE0 (rev. 1.0): UEFI BIOS4. Testing Methodology and Configuration5. Tests: Maxon Cinebench R156. Tests: SiSoft Sandra7. Tests: Blender Gooseberry8. Tests: SPECviewperf 139. Tests: Disk Performance10. Closing Thoughts11. View All Pages

Blender 2.79b: Gooseberry Production Benchmark

Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modelling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. The latest version at the time of writing, 2.79b, supports rendering on the GPU as well as the CPU. In GPU mode, it will render using OpenCL with AMD graphics cards, and CUDA with NVIDIA graphics cards.

For this test, we used the Gooseberry Production Benchmark. Project Gooseberry is the code name for the Blender Institute's 6th open movie, Cosmos Laundromat — a 10-minute short, the pilot for the planned first-ever free/open source animated feature film. The benchmark renders a single frame from this film in intermediate quality.

For this test, we used the Armari Magnetar S16T-RW850G2 and S18X-RD850G2, and Armari Magnetar S32-RD1000G2 for comparison.

These results are more promising for the EPYC 7551P, because this test takes much longer than the Maxon Cinebench R15 render and the CPU is likely to hit thermal peaks that cause throttling with the more aggressively overclocked systems. Where the EPYC was 32 per cent behind with Cinebench, it'is now just 22 per cent slower, although the Intel Core i9-7980XE isn't that far behind either.

However, in workstation and server multi-threaded workloads, brute performance isn't the only factor to consider. We also monitored power draw during this render. The AMD Threadripper 1950X-equipped Magnetar S16T-RW850G2 was consuming a peak of 470.3W, the Intel Core i9-7980XE-equipped S18-RD850G2 a peak of 458.3W, and the AMD Threadripper 2990WX-equipped S32T-RD1000G2 a peak of 530.1W.

But the Gigabyte MZ01-CE0 and AMD EPYC 7551P combination was maxing out at 238.2W. You're getting a lot more work per Watt than any of the comparison systems, which could save a lot on the power bill. Even the idle power draw is notably less.

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