Dual Xeon build and memory usage

Hardware Build a PC
1

Should memory usage on linux be noticeably higher than on a single processor?
After a bit of waiting (mostly due to motherboard being imported from manufacturer) I got all the parts for my dual Xeon build:
2 x Xeon e5-2670
asrock ep2c602
32 GB of ram (hynix)
fractal design xl r2
cooler master v1000 psu
gtx 980
ocz trion ssd
seagate sshd
asus music card
usb 3.0 controller
thermalright truespirit cooling

The assembly went quite well - only fitting the coolers required some fiddling.

But as it is my first dual cpu build I've noticed some things that are different and I'm not sure they are normal.

  1. First of all after installing Fedora 24 I've noticed memory used is way higher to something I'm used to (around 1.5GB - double of what I usally see).
  2. When the system starts it looks like it starts (I get asrock logo , hit f2 to enter bios and so on) then it restarts and I get those again. After this second "flash" the system starts normally.

Are those normal?

2

No but I will almost always recommend 64GB minimum for E5 platforms, specifically with dual CPU configurations. Memory usage is dependent on software running on the device. Without a gui you would be well under 200MB of RAM usage, the WM and DE have the biggest usage on system resources out of the box. You should be fine out of the box as long as it doesn't continue to halt at post.

3

Oooohhh.... So I'm getting worried. As mentioned when I've checked memory usage it was fresh Fedora install (with Gnome 3).

Any suggestions what can I check, where the problem might be (if there is one)?

Oh, and yeah I plan to add more memory later on - this workstation will be used mostly for my 3d work, so extram ram will come in handy. I simply decided to assemble this thing as soon as I got all the parts that are enough to get going :) .

4

As long as the memory doesn't fill up over time while idling, I wouldn't bother.

That might be the networking interfaces and stuff. It takes a bit to boot a board like this.

5

You can use top in terminal to find applications that are using high memory amounts.