You can say that again brother.

I think it's very neat that there is a 96-core, 192 thread CPU, but in reality I'm unsure how this is better than multiple machines/CPUs for far cheaper than $10,000. This CPU is clearly for the Enterprise.

A few points:

1)The $10k is just for the CPU...probably add another $1000 for whatever motherboard and case, etc. it's going to need.

2)Although I see that it would awesome to have 192 cores on 1 machine and thus only require 1 network card and 1 operating system and 1 box to manage, I believe most operating systems these days charge more money depending on how many cores/threads you are using. I don't recall the pricing but it's not cheap. I know Windows Server is going to cost around $5000 for 64 cores so how much for 196 cores? Redhat and other Linux flavors charge for core counts above 32 because, well, they know you are using it for some type of Enterprise use and they want money.

3)For pro-sumer projects like WCG or other cool stuff you want to do at home and brag to friends about, wouldn't it be much cheaper to buy a bunch of 16-thread machines? For example (and not comparing apples to apples for cpu benchmarks), you can buy a pretty fast 16-thread slim desktop for about $700 (and you don't have to worry about crazy OS costs). You would need about 12 of them to get 196 cores but that would cost about $8400 vs. $1100+. You then have to factor in the setup of the 12 machines, 12 boxes on the network (which shouldn't be a problem) and the power consumption of 12 boxes. However, I would argue that there's a lot more resale/repurpose value of 12 boxes than 1 very specialized box.


Again, I really like these Zen 4 chips but they seem to be (as new chips always are) expensive and in this case aimed at the Enterprise given all the cores/threads.

I'm all ears on any OS flavors that would gladly support 196 cores for free or dirt cheap compared to Microsoft or Redhat.

What I like about the large enterprise servers are the RAS (Reliability, Availability, Serviceability) features that you don't get in consumer desktop systems. I'm running a older Dell R7425 that has been in service for about 8 years now running 24x7x365. When a disk goes bad, a yellow alert light comes on, I order a new disk, pull the old one out and replace with the new one. Server never comes down. If there is an issue with memory, the hardware fences that section of memory and continues to run. Yes, system will have to come down to replace the DIMM but better than a hard fail and can be scheduled. Same thing with CPU sparing. Power supply goes bad, it's ok, they are hot swapable. Enterprise servers contain enterprise parts. They don't fail as easily. In 8 years, I have only replaced one disk and one power supply. Surprisingly, still running original fans. You can't really compare enterprise servers to desktop systems as they are designed and built for different environments and use cases. I have used Linux on this server since day one and never paid a cent for 128 threads. It's my understanding that you only pay if you want Enterprise support (I believe Redhat is a little different since IBM bought them).

Check out the various distros of Linux. A brief search yielded an answer of 4096 cores, but I did not check any further or try to verify that. I am guessing that a system with 196 cores/392 threads running at 100% would have some heat issues. It would probably need a whale of a cooler to keep the temperature down.

Cheers