Core Parking On The 7950X3D, Explained!

What's the deal with core parking? Wendell gives you the scoop, and explains how it can improve performance on AMD's newest CPU!

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[coltmarshmallow]

I love wendell's computing science videos explaining how stuff works and asking questions. Might not be as popular as performance reviews on x but really appreciate it dude!

[Dan-Simms]

Thanks for going over this stuff, I figured that's how it behaves but nobody else was talking about how the "core parking" worked.

[crudedev]

My first thought was how good would that extra L3 be for factorio, this is really interesting thank you!

[idhalaralbaiesh]

Now this is some gourmet content.
Another amazing video, great information explained so well that anyone can understand it.
Just love this channel.

[cobragt]

Thank you so much for breaking that down for us. That helps solidify my purchase of the 7950 X3 d

These deep dives make the difference. Thanks Wendell!

[Bare_Essence]

So, what I got out of this is that Windows is capable of Parkour.
Thanks for sharing. I actually did learn a lot from the content!

[chrisbullock]

AMD has mentioned the huge work they have done with Microsoft over the past 10 months to optimize the new cpus for windows 11. It has more to do with Windows than it does with the architecture of ZEN

[stefm]

Can you make an update video on this? if things have gotten better "out of the box" ?

[EliasRinghauge]

Great explanation! This also clearly establishes why there is a difference in price and value between the 3 models. It is fortunate that if you are primarily a gamer and don't need to compile a lot of code or do 3d work, then you can get a great product for just that. If you want both, with the additional performance per watt, the 7950x3d does a really good job at delivering a solution that can be versatile, and you can enjoy a smaller energy bill without too much inconvenience compared to the non 3D.

I think some reviewers misunderstands this usecase for 7950x3d because the parking concept was not well understood by all. And while it loses in multi core benchmarks to the non 3d, it is easier to cool -> lower fan noise -> happy wife. And saving 50-100$ on the energy bill per year is also a benefit in the long run (double for some power hungry Intel CPUs).
If the price rises again in Europe, it could end up saving its own cost on energy by one year.

[Whoadayson]

Great explanation! Good call on this video. The core parking thing was baffling me too

[Pbenter]

❤ you Wendell. Frantically awaiting UPS to drop off my 7950X3D today.

[benjaminlynch]

This is awesome Wendell. Any idea what the default Linux scheduler behavior is? Does Linux park cores for games or can is accurately identify if a game is running? Or will we have to go into BIOS to change the settings to “prefer cache” or “prefer frequency” based on what we’re doing?

[El_Croc]

Thanks for delving into these tests. Can I ask you to try running two instances of a multiboxer game that IS catered for by the game bar, if you've got a second screen available, and see whether it is a simple matter to specify each instance to inhabit a different CCD?
In games such as e.g. Eve online, I ran my main character screen on higher graphical settings than my alt screen, hence the thought that on a 7950x3d I'd want to run main toon on the vcache cores and the alt on the other cores.
My old EO box was a crossfire setup so dual gpus helped out a lot in making this work.

[JosiahBradley]

Thanks for the explanation. Waiting for stock back and this will help as I do love tweaking. I was thinking about doing a misaligned affinity mask to see the l3 hop latency but you've gone and tested this already. Which is why having third party reviews is so great for the industry. So excited for this level of power soon. I'm in the rare class of developers that needs gaming and compilation etc. performance.

[brandond]

Just came across your videos and wow, the way you explain things make it very easy to understand. Instant sub!

[pyrochemist]

11:48 Is that a hint of an upcoming video? Performance setting in windows when you're running more than just a game (eg: Is it better to be on Balanced vs Ultra?

[Jaabaa_Prime]

One missing concept was, IMHO, mentioning "Context Change", core/threads switching. Not just the caching advantage that 3D brings. Most single threaded processes really benefit from not being preemptively "core switched" for no reason. That is when the cache between the cores really comes into play, especially regarding high performance single threading gaming loads.

I might have missed something and glad to learn something new, but IMHO a parked core is something that the scheduler can pull in if it is really needed.

[Taurickk]

All we need now is a databasing website that lists games and whether that game prefers frequency or cache

[OptimizingNetwork]

Core parking also loves to core park wrong cores, and also loves to switch off cores during actual use of that core.
It's been an issue since 11+ years ago, and I always remove core parking
On AMD it may work, but turning cores of and on to save power (how it does it now) actually creates micro-stutter to begin with
Process lasso can easily fix that issue by putting cores that are needed to use, and letting Windows 11 scheduler to take a smoke break, like a long break, with lots of cigarettes