Question AMD Ryzen 9 9950X for Virtualization

[Moudar]

Hello everyone,

Is anyone here using the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X with VMware Workstation to create VMs and set up lab environments? If so, what memory and SSDs are you using? I'm looking to run resource-intensive labs, like Cisco ISE and Check Point gateways, and would love some feedback on how well this CPU handles such tasks. Any recommendations? I'm leaning toward this newer AMD processor instead of older servers with Xeon CPUs since I believe the latest AMD CPU, along with PCIe 5 and DDR5, will be a better choice. What are your thoughts?

 

[CountMike]

Hello everyone,

Is anyone here using the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X with VMware Workstation to create VMs and set up lab environments? If so, what memory and SSDs are you using? I'm looking to run resource-intensive labs, like Cisco ISE and Check Point gateways, and would love some feedback on how well this CPU handles such tasks. Any recommendations? I'm leaning toward this newer AMD processor instead of older servers with Xeon CPUs since I believe the latest AMD CPU, along with PCIe 5 and DDR5, will be a better choice. What are your thoughts?

Not familiar with those tasks but....
All you need is a lot of RAM and even more if using VM concurrently with Windows programs as VM will reserve any RAM you give it and not much would be left for host OS. Speed is less important. Just how much, depends on particular OS and program you ran in it. Quite similar with CPU and how many cores/threads you allocate.
Same for the storage, but you can store and run VM on another disk which can speed it up considerably.
In all, in a VM performance drops 10-20% of that on the host.
If you don't run VM or several at same time and any on host OS at same time, it would be better to make dual BOOT on another SSD and run those on it. That way you get full use of all HW,

 

[Misgar]

Is anyone here using the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X with VMware Workstation to create VMs

Nope. Afraid not. But I am using a 7950X with Hyper-V. I also run Hyper-V on an old LGA 2011 Xeon. What can I say. The AMD is faster than the Xeon, but the AMD has only two memory channels and the Xeon has four memory channels. I even run VMs on a dual core G3258 Pentium. I'm sure a 9950X will be fine.

what memory and SSDs are you using?

The 7950X has 2 x 32GB (64GB total) DDR5 DIMMs. The Xeon has 8x 8GB (64GB total) DDR4 DIMMs. The Pentium has 2 x 4GB (8GB) DDR3 RAM. Avoid fitting too little RAM and be aware that Ryzens can be fussy about RAM. Some people say avoid Corsair Vengeance. 2 DIMMs are usually better (faster/more stable) than 4 DIMMs (preferably matched in one kit).

As for SSDs, I have three 1TB M.2 Gen.4 NVMe drives in the 7950X (built in Dec. 2022). Provided you buy good quality Gen.4 drives with decent TBW you should be OK. Gen.5 might be overkill. I wouldn't get overly concerned about spec. Personally I'd go for TLC, but you might need QLC if you want 4TB or 8TB.

 

[Moudar]

Nope. Afraid not. But I am using a 7950X with Hyper-V. I also run Hyper-V on an old LGA 2011 Xeon. What can I say. The AMD is faster than the Xeon, but the AMD has only two memory channels and the Xeon has four memory channels. I even run VMs on a dual core G3258 Pentium. I'm sure a 9950X will be fine.


The 7950X has 2 x 32GB (64GB total) DDR5 DIMMs. The Xeon has 8x 8GB (64GB total) DDR4 DIMMs. The Pentium has 2 x 4GB (8GB) DDR3 RAM. Avoid fitting too little RAM and be aware that Ryzens can be fussy about RAM. Some people say avoid Corsair Vengeance. 2 DIMMs are usually better (faster/more stable) than 4 DIMMs (preferably matched in one kit).

As for SSDs, I have three 1TB M.2 Gen.4 NVMe drives in the 7950X (built in Dec. 2022). Provided you buy good quality Gen.4 drives with decent TBW you should be OK. Gen.5 might be overkill. I wouldn't get overly concerned about spec. Personally I'd go for TLC, but you might need QLC if you want 4TB or 8TB.

What XEON CPU do you have, how old is it? What kind of VMs do you run? I wonder if that latest AMD CPU is faster than a 4 year old XEON!