Dual Epyc workstation questions

Soldato
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My brother is looking at a dual-Epyc workstation (2x 64 cores, 256 GB+ RAM, £20k+) and I'm looking to better advise him, so have a few questions.


First, how much is the performance difference between quad-channel and octo-channel RAM?
Second, how much is the added latency of one CPU accessing RAM associated with another CPU?
Third, he's looking at the Supermicro H12DSi-NT6. Any thoughts?

He's also looking at an American company to build it which is a big red flag from a RMA / support POV. This isn't OCUK's usual fare so I'm going to post in the customer support forum (OCUK staff click here) to see if they will before asking for other sources.
 
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Soldato
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With regards to memory latency and if it will be an issue - that depends quite a lot on what he's planning on doing with this monster - but IMO if spending this amount you'd be mad not to go with 8 channel RAM.

Nothing wrong with those Supermicro mainboards - I've alway found them to be very solid.

There are plenty of specialist firms in the UK who'd be able to supply this - so no need to go with a US firm and get it shipped that far.
 
Soldato
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Something doesn’t quite add up here.

It’s a high end workstation - though the RAM seems disproportionately low - generally the people buying that kind of spec already know exactly what they want/need and why, because they have a very specific usage case in mind. They also usually require a level of support/warranty that includes an SLA on hardware repairs that would have any sane individual scratching his/her head as to why they would have it supplied by a US firm.
 
Soldato
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Something doesn’t quite add up here.

It actually does add up for the tasks he wants to run: 8 sessions of an application which uses 16 cores and 32 GB RAM for each session. I.e. 128 cores and 256 GB RAM. Hyperthreading / SMT is strongly discouraged for this application.

They also usually require a level of support/warranty that includes an SLA on hardware repairs that would have any sane individual scratching his/her head as to why they would have it supplied by a US firm.

I have already pointed this out to him. As I said, it's a big red flag.

Anyway, OCUK are on the case and I'm sure I will be hearing about it soon enough.
.
 
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