CPU and ram recommendations/experience for t7810

[Shemi]

Hi all, I have purchased a t7810 with the intention of running Eve bare metal, or maybe with Esxi, but more likely BM. I'm trying to be sensible and not overspend on this build, but wanted to see what experiences people have with similar specs. I've started provisioning the drives at the moment, and will have 2 NVMEs.

At the moment I'm thinking of a pair of e5-2680v4s as they are super budget friendly. That should get me 28 physical cores, but I'm a little confused how many vCPUs that might equate to in regards to calculating nodes as per the calc sheet. Any advice on this model and how vCPUs work in Eve would be appreciated.

I'd also consider going with a slightly more expensive CPU, but I'm wondering if there is much to be gained to warrant the extra cost.

Also, although I have capacity for 256gb ram, I'm not sure how useful that would be compared to 128gb, as I wonder if the core count would be mismatched and 256gb would be under utilized. The cost is so much for 258gb where I am in the world, but I worry I my regret not getting the max amount possible off the bat.

I want to run some fairly big labs, I work with a lot of Juniper equipment so thoe nodes would be a common thing for me to use. Looking at the calc sheet it looks like 128gb ram and the 2680s would allow quite a few nodes.

Any advice, some examples of the kind you labs to are running on similar specs and limitations you have come across would be much appreciated.

[rusty725]

if you can get 2 of those Intel Xeon E5-2696 v4

[Shemi]

Thanks for the suggestion, they're way out of my price range at moment, sadly. Two of those would run me £300 which I just can't afford right now

[rusty725]

search ebay you can find good deals sometimes.