Consumer CPUs - max core/threads?

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shadow_man

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Looking to possibly build a nice KVM (hypervisor host) for home lab / a gaming pc to justify the cost of the build :ROFL:.

What are consumer CPU's doing nowdays in terms of core/thread and can I dual socket on any consumer (lets say AM5 or Intel) kit?

OR would it be worth me looking at something like AMD Epyc as an example?
 
Thread rippers if you absolutely want thread count but to be frank just about any high end consumer cpu will be plenty for a small scale hypervisor. You'll be more interested in rams than cores.
 
I have a 24-core Intel laptop (8 perf, 16 efficiency) that I use for home dev and gaming. Something that I will say is a bit annoying is the lack of control and visibility I have into what’s running on which cores (across my windows+WSL host and RHEL9 Linux guest VM).
 
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Sinbad said:
Thread rippers if you absolutely want thread count but to be frank just about any high end consumer cpu will be plenty for a small scale hypervisor. You'll be more interested in rams than cores.
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Sadly multiple kubernetes clusters consume a lot of resources - cpu is my issue 🙈

Sometimes I need 3-4 small clusters up to test DR type scenarios.

Almost considering a cheap X99 setup for the core/thread count!
 
cguy said:
I have a 24-core Intel laptop (8 perf, 16 efficiency) that I use for home dev and gaming. Something that I will say is a bit annoying is the lack of control and visibility I have into what’s running on which cores (across my windows+WSL host and RHEL9 Linux guest VM).
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The efficiency cores don’t do hyper threading :( so I think that likely rules me out of an intel CPU.
 
shadow_man said:
The efficiency cores don’t do hyper threading :( so I think that likely rules me out of an intel CPU.
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I suggest one of the Zen4’s. 16, 32, 64 or 96 core (depending on what you can afford).

Something else that I saw whizz by, which may be of interest is a standard sized motherboard form factor system with 6 raspberry Pi boards on it (and 6 SSDs underneath). Let me see if I can find it.

www.seeedstudio.com

Raspberry Pi CM4 Cluster Mini-ITX board - Support up to 6 CM4, Storage Expansion for Each CM4, multiple Fan and USB Interfaces, two HDMI Ports, two RJ45 Network Connectors, on/off switch, reset button, dual Power Supply

DeskPi Super6C Raspberry Pi CM4 Cluster Board is a standard mini-ITX motherboard, supporting up to 6 Raspberry CM4, equipped with storage expansion function, mounted rich PC case front panel headers, powered by DC or ATX power supply. This board can be a great opportunity for you to learn...
www.seeedstudio.com www.seeedstudio.com

So, it’s actually 6 4-core machines in one. Not going to be great for gaming of course, but depending on what you’re doing, real hardware may be better than virtualized.
 
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cguy said:
I suggest one of the Zen4’s. 16, 32, 64 or 96 core (depending on what you can afford).

Something else that I saw whizz by, which may be of interest is a standard sized motherboard form factor system with 6 raspberry Pi boards on it (and 6 SSDs underneath). Let me see if I can find it.

www.seeedstudio.com

Raspberry Pi CM4 Cluster Mini-ITX board - Support up to 6 CM4, Storage Expansion for Each CM4, multiple Fan and USB Interfaces, two HDMI Ports, two RJ45 Network Connectors, on/off switch, reset button, dual Power Supply

DeskPi Super6C Raspberry Pi CM4 Cluster Board is a standard mini-ITX motherboard, supporting up to 6 Raspberry CM4, equipped with storage expansion function, mounted rich PC case front panel headers, powered by DC or ATX power supply. This board can be a great opportunity for you to learn...
www.seeedstudio.com www.seeedstudio.com

So, it’s actually 6 4-core machines in one. Not going to be great for gaming of course, but depending on what you’re doing, real hardware may be better than virtualized.
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Currently I’m running HP Prodesk 400g6 minis which are nice for power draw, but a pain for storage / network.

So I’ve already tried the small form factor way 🤣🙈
 
You can pick up a 16-core / 32-thread 5950X, a cheap AM4 board and 4x 32GB DIMMS pretty cheap for a smol 32VCPU & 128GB RAM hypervisor.
 
No one asked OP how many VM's he wants to run at once and how many cores per VM?

Also, dual socket motherboards (server) have a different pin count compared to consumer CPU's so they wont work - at least on Intel's side.
 
Rickster said:
No one asked OP how many VM's he wants to run at once and how many cores per VM?

Also, dual socket motherboards (server) have a different pin count compared to consumer CPU's so they wont work - at least on Intel's side.
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Server boards are hilariously expensive, as are the CPUs

Sure you can go last-last-last-last gen but at that point if you're messing with socket 2011 or E5 V4/3. it's a complete waste unless you can get the kit for free.
 
shadow_man said:
Looking to possibly build a nice KVM (hypervisor host) for home lab / a gaming pc to justify the cost of the build :ROFL:.

What are consumer CPU's doing nowdays in terms of core/thread and can I dual socket on any consumer (lets say AM5 or Intel) kit?

OR would it be worth me looking at something like AMD Epyc as an example?
Click to expand...

I use 2 x Intel Nuc pro , each with 64GB Memory with an Corei7 processor (think its around 16 cores).But ive found the main bottleneck is the storage.Busy looking at Synology NAS with SSD for shared storage.Using it for esxi.
 
ubercal said:
I use 2 x Intel Nuc pro , each with 64GB Memory with an Corei7 processor (think its around 16 cores).But ive found the main bottleneck is the storage.Busy looking at Synology NAS with SSD for shared storage.Using it for esxi.
Click to expand...
I’ve got 3x HP Prodesk 400 G6 with i5-10500t CPU’s and 64 gb ram - but it’s a little too light for my use case.
 
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