Continuing my quest to choose a rig with lots of memory, one possibility is dual socket MBs. Gen 1 to 3 EPYC chips have 8 channels of DDR4, so this gives 16 total memory channels, which is good bandwidth, if not beating GPUs, but can have way more memory (up to 1024GB). Builds with 64+ threads can be pretty cheap.

My questions are

  • Does the dual CPU setup cause trouble with running LLM software?
  • Is it reasonably possible to get windows and drivers etc working on ‘server’ architecture?
  • Is there anything else I should consider vs going for a single EPYC or Threadripper Pro?
  • EvokerTCG@alien.topOPBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Thanks. I can’t find ‘qualification samples’ on ebay in the UK, unless you just find them through a serial number or something.

    The DDR5 ram is more expensive, but it should hold value fairly well. I’ll look for a 12 channel board.