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Yes, it is basically a prosumer version of the Epyc server CPUS, limit to a single socket, and with higher clocks. What frustrates me is that in the last 2 or

Yes, it is basically a prosumer version of the Epyc server CPUS, limit to a single socket, and with higher clocks. What frustrates me is that in the last 2 or so generations, you cannot simply buy a CPU. One has to buy an entire system from a vendor like Lenovo or HP. When I built my box in 2018, the 2990-WX was available for ~$1900. Which is a lot, but doesn't match the $5k->10k prices for the entire systems. There just aren't that many affordable, reasonably efficient ways to get >= 32c these days. (and by efficient, I'm excluding used server-class boxes from older generations that are power hungry).

zamadatix 3y ago
You can still just buy the pieces e.g. https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboards/server-boards https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboards/server-b... or https://www.serversupply.com/PROCESSORS/AMD%20EPYC%2064-Core/2.45GHz/AMD/100-000000799_368308.htm https://www.serversupply.com/PROCESSORS/AMD%20EPYC%2064-Core... or https://servers4less.com/cd8070604480301-intel-xeon-platinum-8380h-28-core-2-90ghz-6-00gt-s-upi-38-5mb-l3-cache-socket-fclga4189-processor/ https://servers4less.com/cd8070604480301-intel-xeon-platinum..., the same is true for the current Threadripper. Most searching for this stuff are expecting to buy a full system with support from the vendor though, so that's what shows up most of the time. The ratio of those trying to build an individual workstation has been decreasing, making piecemeal part builds the less prominent way to order. It's still around though. Price... now that's definitely a story :). The current 32 core Threadripper is around $3,000 itself now. It does have some advantages like the 8 memory channels but even just trying to build a low core count box with a lot of PCIe lanes is an extremely expensive endeavour. I think part of it has to do with the gap between the consumer and server markets widening over time, it becomes harder to justify doesn't something special for the HEDT market.
- tornato7 3y ago
  Indeed, I built a 3U Threadripper Pro server last year using the supermicro board. Works great!
stn8188 3y ago
Similar to what the sibling comment says, I was able to find a motherboard/CPU combo from Newegg 2 years ago when I built mine around a 3955WX. I'm not incredibly happy with the Supermicro board though and sort of wish I went with the Asus.
- ciupicri 3y ago
  What's wrong with the Supermicro motherboard?
  - stn8188 3y ago
    The boot time is long, the BMS programs are awkward (but maybe I'm not familiar with server-style BMS programs), and I can't get the DDR4 clock as high as it should be for my DRAM. There's a chance my UDIMM doesn't support the speed I want to run, but it hasn't been a big enough deal for me to look into.
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      How much total memory are we talking and what speed were you able to run it at?
      - stn8188 3y ago
        I have 4x16GB of 3200MT/s DDR4, but can't get the clock above 1055 MHz (which would be 2110MT/s). There's a chance that the cheaper/consumer grade G.skill memory isn't compatible with those speeds, but it hasn't been a blocker lately. I built the machine to be more basic for now but be able to upgrade over time into a powerful computer to run electromagnetic simulations.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      Yea, SuperMicro are not boot time optimized boards at all. In the style of systems I've always built them in we were talking systems that might only be rebooted once or twice a year. Though with CPU/firmware exploits commonly getting patched it does seem like there are a lot of reasons to reboot server style systems these days.
derefr 3y ago
> Yes, it is basically a prosumer version of the Epyc server CPUS Threadripper was, yes. Threadripper Pro wasn't. It was a workstation CPU. Threadripper was discontinued while Threadripper Pro wasn't, because workstation CPUs are profitable, while HEDT CPUs aren't. (AFAICT the HEDT "class" of CPUs only existed for a short time when CPU production was such that all the individual cores could perform really well, but the die as a whole could still fail validation as a server/workstation-grade CPU. I think, with chiplets, this just doesn't happen any more.)
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
I'm disappointed in the lack of I/O in consumer chips these days. I've had 3930k 4930k and now 1680v2 Xeon and I have memory channels and PCIe lanes coming out of my ears. Current consumer chips give you maybe 20 lanes.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  Things actually end up not that different in the I/O department. Yeah, there are only 20 lanes going direct to the CPU but the northbridge has the bandwidth to hang another true 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes off it (before running into contention). At this point you are still an honest 4 lanes short but half the lanes are 4x faster so things like your GPU or high speed NIC don't need to eat 16 lanes each in the first place. The story repeats on memory where, yeah, you don't have 4 memory channels anymore... but the actual memory bandwidth is significantly higher and the total capacity is about the same. I've got a 13900k NAS build with 14 NVMe drives in it and 25G network connectivity. If you do W680 for the motherboard instead of the typical boards you get to keep the ECC too. Saved me thousands compared to getting equivalent I/O and total CPU performance with a server board. Reminded me a lot of when I got a 1650v3 prior really, "oh, it's kind of just consumer stuff but fully loaded", but ran a lot faster (of course). The hardest part is finding a board which breaks out the things out into ports instead of trying to figure out how to cram 2 extra cheap "gaming" nics, wi-fi, 50 USB ports, or other useless things in statically instead.
  - ciupicri 3y ago
    What motherboard are you using and were you able to install 128+ GB of RAM running at full speed, e.g. 5600 MT/s?
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      Never said full speed because I'm running 192 GB at 5200 MT/s :p. Just the ASUS Z790 creator, like I said though I'd look into W680 and some ECC instead had I not had a steal of a deal on the memory at the time. 5600 MT/s booted but wouldn't pass memory tests. I've heard others with the same setup needed to go to 4800. That just happens to still be faster than the max memory bandwidth of the quad channel platform that was referenced anyways. Part of it might be that the early 48 GB kits (mine included) were themselves only rated for 5600. I'd be willing to bet mine would work at 5600 with one of these new better rated ~6800 kits helping things a little. I will say my experience with the memory controllers on modern Intel systems has been SIGNIFICANTLY better than my experience with them memory controllers on modern AMD systems. I could barely get my 7950X to do 64 GB at 6000, and that was one of the better experiences have had with the Zen memory controllers, but the Intel builds easily blow past that.

zamadatix 3y ago

You can still just buy the pieces e.g. https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboards/server-boards https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboards/server-b... or https://www.serversupply.com/PROCESSORS/AMD%20EPYC%2064-Core/2.45GHz/AMD/100-000000799_368308.htm https://www.serversupply.com/PROCESSORS/AMD%20EPYC%2064-Core... or https://servers4less.com/cd8070604480301-intel-xeon-platinum-8380h-28-core-2-90ghz-6-00gt-s-upi-38-5mb-l3-cache-socket-fclga4189-processor/ https://servers4less.com/cd8070604480301-intel-xeon-platinum..., the same is true for the current Threadripper. Most searching for this stuff are expecting to buy a full system with support from the vendor though, so that's what shows up most of the time. The ratio of those trying to build an individual workstation has been decreasing, making piecemeal part builds the less prominent way to order. It's still around though. Price... now that's definitely a story :). The current 32 core Threadripper is around $3,000 itself now. It does have some advantages like the 8 memory channels but even just trying to build a low core count box with a lot of PCIe lanes is an extremely expensive endeavour. I think part of it has to do with the gap between the consumer and server markets widening over time, it becomes harder to justify doesn't something special for the HEDT market.

tornato7 3y ago
Indeed, I built a 3U Threadripper Pro server last year using the supermicro board. Works great!

stn8188 3y ago

Similar to what the sibling comment says, I was able to find a motherboard/CPU combo from Newegg 2 years ago when I built mine around a 3955WX. I'm not incredibly happy with the Supermicro board though and sort of wish I went with the Asus.

ciupicri 3y ago
What's wrong with the Supermicro motherboard?
- stn8188 3y ago
  The boot time is long, the BMS programs are awkward (but maybe I'm not familiar with server-style BMS programs), and I can't get the DDR4 clock as high as it should be for my DRAM. There's a chance my UDIMM doesn't support the speed I want to run, but it hasn't been a big enough deal for me to look into.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    How much total memory are we talking and what speed were you able to run it at?
    - stn8188 3y ago
      I have 4x16GB of 3200MT/s DDR4, but can't get the clock above 1055 MHz (which would be 2110MT/s). There's a chance that the cheaper/consumer grade G.skill memory isn't compatible with those speeds, but it hasn't been a blocker lately. I built the machine to be more basic for now but be able to upgrade over time into a powerful computer to run electromagnetic simulations.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Yea, SuperMicro are not boot time optimized boards at all. In the style of systems I've always built them in we were talking systems that might only be rebooted once or twice a year. Though with CPU/firmware exploits commonly getting patched it does seem like there are a lot of reasons to reboot server style systems these days.

derefr 3y ago

> Yes, it is basically a prosumer version of the Epyc server CPUS Threadripper was, yes. Threadripper Pro wasn't. It was a workstation CPU. Threadripper was discontinued while Threadripper Pro wasn't, because workstation CPUs are profitable, while HEDT CPUs aren't. (AFAICT the HEDT "class" of CPUs only existed for a short time when CPU production was such that all the individual cores could perform really well, but the die as a whole could still fail validation as a server/workstation-grade CPU. I think, with chiplets, this just doesn't happen any more.)

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

I'm disappointed in the lack of I/O in consumer chips these days. I've had 3930k 4930k and now 1680v2 Xeon and I have memory channels and PCIe lanes coming out of my ears. Current consumer chips give you maybe 20 lanes.

zamadatix 3y ago
Things actually end up not that different in the I/O department. Yeah, there are only 20 lanes going direct to the CPU but the northbridge has the bandwidth to hang another true 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes off it (before running into contention). At this point you are still an honest 4 lanes short but half the lanes are 4x faster so things like your GPU or high speed NIC don't need to eat 16 lanes each in the first place. The story repeats on memory where, yeah, you don't have 4 memory channels anymore... but the actual memory bandwidth is significantly higher and the total capacity is about the same. I've got a 13900k NAS build with 14 NVMe drives in it and 25G network connectivity. If you do W680 for the motherboard instead of the typical boards you get to keep the ECC too. Saved me thousands compared to getting equivalent I/O and total CPU performance with a server board. Reminded me a lot of when I got a 1650v3 prior really, "oh, it's kind of just consumer stuff but fully loaded", but ran a lot faster (of course). The hardest part is finding a board which breaks out the things out into ports instead of trying to figure out how to cram 2 extra cheap "gaming" nics, wi-fi, 50 USB ports, or other useless things in statically instead.
- ciupicri 3y ago
  What motherboard are you using and were you able to install 128+ GB of RAM running at full speed, e.g. 5600 MT/s?
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    Never said full speed because I'm running 192 GB at 5200 MT/s :p. Just the ASUS Z790 creator, like I said though I'd look into W680 and some ECC instead had I not had a steal of a deal on the memory at the time. 5600 MT/s booted but wouldn't pass memory tests. I've heard others with the same setup needed to go to 4800. That just happens to still be faster than the max memory bandwidth of the quad channel platform that was referenced anyways. Part of it might be that the early 48 GB kits (mine included) were themselves only rated for 5600. I'd be willing to bet mine would work at 5600 with one of these new better rated ~6800 kits helping things a little. I will say my experience with the memory controllers on modern Intel systems has been SIGNIFICANTLY better than my experience with them memory controllers on modern AMD systems. I could barely get my 7950X to do 64 GB at 6000, and that was one of the better experiences have had with the Zen memory controllers, but the Intel builds easily blow past that.