Scaling Large Topologies - CPU Clock Speed vs. Core Count?

[KhoSim]

I’m currently in the process of rebuilding my home lab server specifically for EVE-NG (Professional Edition) to simulate some complex service provider topologies. I’ve been running into some performance bottlenecks when spinning up multiple Cisco XRv9K and Nokia SR-OS nodes simultaneously.

I’m torn between two hardware paths and wanted to get some insights from the community's real-world experience:

The "High Core Count" Route: Going with dual Xeon Scalable processors (older gen, but lots of cores). This seems great for running 50+ lightweight nodes, but I worry about the slower clock speeds when the SD-WAN controllers start their boot-up sequences.

The "High Clock Speed" Route: Using a modern Ryzen 9 or Core i9 setup with fewer cores but much higher IPC. My theory is that it might handle the heavy resource-intensive images much smoother.

Has anyone done a side-by-side comparison for large-scale EVE-NG environments? Also, how much of a difference have you noticed when moving the image storage to NVMe Gen4 instead of standard SATA SSDs in terms of node "boot-up storms"?

I want to build a "prestige" lab environment that doesn't lag when I have 20+ images running. Any feedback on the hardware sweet spot for 2026 would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers!
khosim

[rusty725]

Xeon only something like e5 2696v4 for a start. Do not post links unless related they are related to Eve.