Core Principles

Cores. It's a major topic of conversation we have with customers on a daily basis. How many do you need? What speed do I need to be looking for?

I covered much of this back in september last year in the "Need For Speed" blog post (https://tinyurl.com/ybuovjzm) and "Cores For Concern" (https://tinyurl.com/ybuovjzm)

We are all about giving you the right tool for the job and giving you a choice of options to tailor your ideal system. So let's take a look at AMD....

Lately we are seeing a rapid increase in demand for powerful systems for AI and rendering and not all of the workflows ran on these systems use GPU based software. Many are purely CPU based workloads. For these tasks the Threadripper CPU family offers frankly RIDICULOUS bang for buck when you compare number of cores, core clock speed and price with an intel counterpart.

AMD's Zen+and Zen2 architecture is ideally placed for these types of heavily multitasked workflow. Masses of cores/ threads, high RAM speed support and highly secure due to AMD's onboard "ASP" (AMD Secure Processor) running SME and SEV. These stand for Secure Memory Encryption and Secure Encrypted Virtualization, and they both do what their names imply. These functions are based on a hardware security processor, a 128b AES engine attached to the memory controller. Simply put, encryption occurs in hardware at processor and memory controller level....in other words WAY before reaching any storage or networking. Even if data or code is compromised, it is encrypted.

From a pure performance, security and price point of view, if its cores you need you'll not be disappointed with AMD's latest offerings which are intuitively segmented for different systems.

 - Ryzen for standard systems

 - Ryzen Threadripper for high end systems and workstations

 - Epyc for server & data centre

Put simply, if your workflows are heavily CPU based and your CPU core requirements are "the more the merrier" then a CPU from the Zen+/ Zen2 family of processors definitely deserves your serious consideration.

As always, we are happy to discuss any custom build requirements you may have or, alternatively, supply barebone or complete solutions from our key partners such as Asus