Hello, I’m currently thinking back and forth about which new home server to build. What I’ve stumbled across: the i9 and new Core 9 Ultra all only support a maximum of 192GB RAM. However, some of the mainboards support 256GB (with 4 RAM banks and dual channel). Why?
I want to have the option of maxing out the RAM later.
I could buy 4x48GB RAM now and be at 192GB. Maybe I would be annoyed later that 48 GB of RAM is still “missing”. But what if I buy 4x 64GB RAM? 3x64 GB RAM makes no sense, because then dual channel is not used. 4x64 is probably not recognized by the processor?
Or are there LGA1851 or LGA1700 processors, capable of handling 256GB RAM?
The real question is: why do you need this much memory?
If it’s not actually going to be used, you’re spending more money acquiring it now than you would later.
I’e seen that some want it to host their own LLM. It’s far cheaper to buy DDR5 memory than somehow getting 100+ GB of VRAM. Whether or not this is a good idea is another question
And 4 sticks ate 4 times more prone to break down.
Twice, because usually it’s two sticks.
In any case, RAM failure is rare enough that quadrupling its chances is not gonna make any meaningful difference. Even if it does, RAM is the easiest thing to replace in a PC. Don’t even need to go offline while waiting for a new stick. Someone who’s got the cash to build that thing in the first place won’t be too upset by the cost of another 32gb stick either, I don’t think.