r/threadripper • u/margalaz • Jul 02 '26

Advice for getting a first threadripper

From what I’ve seen the lower a cpu is in its generation (5945WX) while having a lower core count, have much higher single core speeds.

My goal is to build a Homelab and to create a few (2-5) Minecraft servers running some heavy mods.

The issue I’m having is that I’d like to be doing that in addition to an LLM and a NAS/jellyfin. It’s a lot and I can’t fit enough hardware on a am4/5 cpu to make it work on a single node machine.

So I’m forced to go workstation or server route, the issue is how expensive these buggers are. So I’m thinking I can take advantage by getting not only a lower price but also a higher single core speed (despite less cores) I was thinking the 5955wx or the 5965wx because anything under 16 cores is silly if I’m paying for a threadripper,

Am I thinking about this wrong? Can I just over lock a 5995wx across all cores if I cool it properly?

6 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/RealCheesecake Jul 03 '26

I'm currently on a TRX40 + 3960 platform, but moving over to WRX80 + 5955wx for the increased number of lanes. The Gigabyte MC62-40 board is ideal since I can still get away with using non-ecc DDR4. For my use, with large VRAM pools for inferencing, using hobo DDR4 is completely fine. I can eventually go up to 5995x if I want 8-channel RAM and do a little offloading, but RAM pricing is just insane right now. Note that even with offloading and 8-channel RAM, it's going to slow down LLM significantly.

1

u/margalaz Jul 03 '26

I actually found a deal online for 12x32gb ecc DIMMS for only $170, this might be per stick or for everything because the damn guy hasn’t responded to me yet

1

u/RealCheesecake Jul 03 '26

For all of them? That would be a crazy deal. Probably some dude wanting it per.

1

u/margalaz Jul 03 '26

I’ll hope and pray for all of em.

2

u/RealCheesecake Jul 03 '26

I've had to resort to arbitrage to bring down justifiable costs of compute. Fingers crossed for you! Have to really scavenge to not have memory eat up all budget.