Which is better processor for Virtualization AMD's or Intel's?

Ive been waiting to see if that asrock rack x399 MB shows back up on sale again… because it with a first or 2nd gen TR might just be my next big purchase.

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Not to muddy the water with more options, but HPE has really cheap EPYC Rome based servers… 16 core 32 threads, 32G of ram (expandable to terabytes) and a pretty nice chassis

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The only thing i’d caution against with the EPYC box is that if it is a proper rack mount server chassis (looks like it to me?) and you’re installing it at home… it will be LOUD.

If you can put it at the other end of the house in a sound-proof room or something, go nuts. But in case some here haven’t heard proper rack mount gear in person - the fans are generally obnoxiously loud. Small, lots of redundancy and high RPM.

e.g., right now i am sitting 30 feet away from the door to our server room. We have 5 racks in there, and it is a fireproof door/room. I can definitely hear the fans in there, and hear when they speed up if the cooling situation changes.

If a server re-boots, during post, etc. they are easy 3-5x as loud.

As someone mentioned, you can overcommit. More importantly this question tells me that most of the time in the next year or so, whatever you get will be mostly unused.

Perhaps, 2950x or a 2920 on an x399 board is the way to go if it’s just a VM lab machine.
You can start with 2x32G or 4x32G ram. And you get plenty of expansion slots for various network/storage stuff to pass through; if you pick a board that supports bifurcation on top of that… mmm nice.

3960 will be better if your budget allows - no point in going with an epyc for a home lab. A work lab, yes get a hundred epyc machines to run your small test cluster of it makes sense where you work… for learning it’s overkill.

3920/3950 it could be sweet, it’s not optimal for VMs, but it could be optimal for you. It’s a really nice workstation, - ie. that thing sitting on your desk with a gpu, couple of monitors and a keyboard attached that plays music while you read/write code and do compiles and docker builds and such, all that stuff your laptop can’t do or doesn’t let you do ergonomically all for less money than a decent macbook pro… you could add ram there and an extra nic and run a couple of VMs that way… I guess you could start with 64G of ram on that a machine and learn how ballooning works at some point. Eventually, once you’ve outgrown it in 2022, you’ll probably know what you need and will be able to afford a proper server, and can relegate that 3yo 3950 to running a browser and writing text/code only.

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The Gen 10 are a lot quieter than previous iterations. Yes during post they scream but get through it quickly.

Agreed I wouldn’t want it in my bedroom or the family room next to the television.

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I just got busy in some other investment stuff so missed on PC Build up plan. Here is my query.

For AMD 3950X only 128GB RAM is maximum allowed on any compatible motherboard?

Like:
1.ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Formula AMD X570 ATX Motherboard
2. MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE AMD X570 Chipset AM4 Motherboard
3. Gigabyte X570 AORUS XTREME AMD X570 Motherboard
4. MSI MEG X570 ACE AMD X570 Chipset AM4 Motherboard

I just had investment in other stuff, can’t afford 3960X, right now ;Can I still mange to achieve all that I mentioned below:

Here is what I want to achieve

I want to setup entire IT infra on my home Lab Server to practice any stuff for next 5 -6 years, like
I want to setup

On 1st VM I will install NetApp ONTAP OS (Cluster Node 1)
On 2nd VM I will install NetApp ONTAP OS (Cluster Node 2)
On 3rd VM I will install Linux Client 1
On 4th VM I will install Linux Client 2
On 5th VM I will install Solaris Client 1
On 6th VM I will install Solaris Client 2
On 7th VM I will install Windows 10 Client 1
On 8th VM I will install Windows Server 2012 Cluster Node 1 (Backup Server)
On 9th VM I will install Windows Server 2012 Cluster Node 2
On 10th VM I will install Windows Server 2016 Domain , Mail, NTP Server
On 11th VM I will install VMWARE ESX Server
On 12th VM I will install NetApp OCUM to monitor 1st and 2nd VMs of NetApp.
On 13th,14th and 15th VMS I will configure 3 Node ORACLE RAC and configure Database.

What I want to practice on my Home Lab Server is as follows:

I will be assigning the Storage from NetApp ONTAP OS to Windows , Linux and Solaris system.
Configure Cluster between Windows & between Linux system.
Setting up the common mail server across all VMs.
Setting up common Domain Server, NTP server.
Taking Backup of all VMs through Backup Server to virtual disks assigned from storage through scsi protocol, doing restore of file level, Entire VM level ,snapshot Restore
Replicating data from one Storage Cluster Node 1 to another Storage Cluster Node 2
Perform Database Restore.
and other all possible stuff which can be configured on lab.

Kindly advise.

Doesn’t matter which desktop CPU you go with, they all have the same bottlenecks. Pitiful RAM capacity and extremely limited PCIe lanes.

How come RAM could be bottleneck? for my use which I mentioned above, 128GB is enough to start with, when I will afford 3960X with 256GB is more than enough.
Kindly explain.

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Based on your post here it sounds like you are already a sysadmin. How exactly did you come up with this if you haven’t learned this stuff yet?

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