Epyc 7302P vs Xeon W-3223 Workstation Build

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TXAG26

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Aug 2, 2016
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Epyc 7302P vs Xeon W-3223 Workstation Build
I'm looking to build a new Windows 10 workstation for Photoshop and related tasks. After a couple of years, this workstation will eventually transition over to replace the internals in my FreeNAS server, so IPMI and ECC ram are important.

I'm looking at these two options: an Epyc 7002 or Xeon W-3200 - both are within about $150 total build cost of each other in price, which is a wash.

(a) Epyc 7302P (16C/32T; 3.0/3.3GHz boost; 128MB L3; 8 Channel DDR4; 155w) + Supermicro H11SSL-NC + 128GB DDR4 3200 RDIMM ECC (4x 32GB RDIMMs)

(b) Xeon W-3223 (8C/16T; 3.5/4.0GHz boost; 16.5MB L3; 6 Channel DDR4; 160w) + Supermicro X11SPH-NCTF + 128GB DDR4 2666 RDIMM ECC (4x 32GB RDIMMs)

Irritants:
AMD. Lower base speed and lower boost speed, which may make single-thread and non-optimized multi-thread applications run slower overall. However, the massive 128MB L3 cache and faster DDR4 may offset some of the clock speed concerns. No frequency-optimized CPU parts (yet).

Intel. The $750 W-3223 is artificially neutered with 2666 DDR4. One has to jump up to the 12C/24T (3.3/4.4GHz boost) W-3235 @ $1,400 to get 2933 DDR4. Less PCI-E expandability - after adding a double slot GPU, the Supermicro Xeon board would only have 2 remaining PCI-E 3.0 x8 slots remaining.
 
Last edited:

Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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Way ahead of you (by 2 days) - go for AMD since

upload_2019-11-3_17-19-0.png


upload_2019-11-3_17-18-15.png

Note - They might work or not, they don't have feedback yet and couldn't tell me whether the necessary microcode is included in the bios or not.
 
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TXAG26

Active Member
Aug 2, 2016
397
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Way ahead of you (by 2 days) - go for AMD since

View attachment 12242


View attachment 12241

Note - They might work or not, they don't have feedback yet and couldn't tell me whether the necessary microcode is included in the bios or not.
Thank you for that! I’m amazed the W-3200 series is not supported on those boards. I’ve previously had great success using “server” boards for workstations. Add in a video card, USB sound dongle and a USB hub (if needed) and that resolves all of the “it’s a server-only motherboard” concerns.
 

Patrick

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I have some thoughts. I can probably talk about them later this week.
 
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Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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I have some thoughts. I can probably talk about them later this week.
You never revealed your thoughts?
Might be getting one of those W's now after all and wonder whether I might face issues