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Dedicated server RAM throttled
I bought a 7950x dedicated server at a new provider and noticed the geekbench score was about 15% lower than expected, upon further inspection I noticed the RAM is running at 3600 despite being DDR5-5600. Is this normal for the provider to throttle the RAM like this?
At my previous provider the geekbench score was actually a bit higher than expected so I never had a reason to look into things like this before.
Comments
What is your RAM? It will reduce to 3600 if they're using something like 192GB/256GB. If you want the fastest speed take out RAM and make it 2x32GB, 2x48GB or something.
nothing your provider can do about it, it's a limitation of the hardware.
Most server motherboards (like the Asrock Rack B650D4U) set the speed to 3600 when 4x DIMMs are in use.
It's 2x DIMMs
Well I just spoke to Mevspace support and apparently that's just their policy. Didn't want to name provider before in case it was a mistake. Quite disappointing.
If it's a dedi, can't you just change it yourself? I assume there's some IPMI/equivalent so there's no real harm in just poking at it.
Or @OP gets some type of KVM access and checks the bios. Downclocking RAM probably isn't done by jumpers these days.
This isn't throttled, AM5 with all 4 slots filled supports only 3600.
BIOS is password protected, probably for this reason.
It's only 2 slots being used.
That is extremely sus IMO. If it's your machine it should be yours to fuck around with as long as you don't impact others.
Obviously it's also your responsibility not to cause such things or cause your machine to require hands on work - but again - as long as you have some out of band tool you can just reset the CMOS. That's just my 5 cents though.
Run some hardware information program to see what the sticks are, in GNU/Linux probably
dmidecodewill show that. Check out if they actually plugged in lower spec sticks than 5600 to save money, then it would not look good indeed. Otherwise I see no reason for them to be so stubborn and not even allow you to try to change it..
Probably just in an attempt to prevent people renting servers from fucking up the IPMI IP settings, then having to pay for remote hands to fix it. Yes it's rare and pointless but it's likely it.
I can understand them wanting to block overclocking, I would assume thats against the rules at most providers due to more power use and possibly shorter hardware life. But I dont think them essentially underclocking so significantly is reasonable. I just expect 'normal' performance for the given CPU.
Ask for a refund.
hmm interesting. If not 5600, I would expect at least 5000 or 5200
X.M.P profile??
5200 would be fine, 3600 on the other hand really defeats the point of a 7950x CPU and I don't think it's what anyone would expect when buying 7950x server.
No.
It's not your hardware allowing that would make people overclock and whatnot. Its a bad idea
Will probably void your ToS/AUP, but you can totally recover the password from a dumped
BIOS flash file.
https://gist.github.com/en4rab/550880c099b5194fbbf3039e3c8ab6fd
Will work on all ASUS AM5 motherboards, including your TUF gaming one.
hmm checking OVH, they run 128GB at 3600 on their 9950x dedi but 9700x/9900x is 64GB at 5600. So 4 slot is limited at 3600
Yeah so if I took the 192GB option at Mevspace I'd understand since I'm guessing that's 4 slots, but I took the 96GB option which is 2 slots
So they just lock it at 3600 no matter if its 2 or 4 dimms. 96gb is not common. Its either 64, 128 or 192. So they expect 4 slots to be used most often.
Yeah that may be the case. But 96GB is the default for the 7950x, with 192GB as an upgrade. Anyway it would be nice if they can change it on request, I escalated to customer service rather than technical support and I'll see what happens. Pretty happy with Mevspace so far aside from this.
i would get running at jedec speed specs, cause server etc, but what the hell is 3600.
After escalating, they increased the RAM speed to 5200 which I think is reasonable. Geekbench looks much closer to expectations.
Hmm, given on this type of hardware you are bound to be dealing with EFI there might be a chance to get at the settings from the OS by writing EFI variables (maybe using some kind of tool?) but i sadly don't have much experience there. Also messing with EFI is kinda risky and might actually break things, so if you proceed proceed with caution.
Edit: Should have read before posting. If you already reached a satisfying conclusion there's obviously no reason for such voodoo.
Hi all, MEVSPACE here again
I am posting from the official account, as my personal account was banned.
This is not artificial throttling done by MEVSPACE. On AMD AM5 platforms, the supported memory speed depends on how many DIMM slots are populated.
For example, according to AMD’s official specification for the Ryzen 9 9950X:
https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/desktops/ryzen/9000-series/amd-ryzen-9-9950x.html
Max Memory Speed:
So when a server is configured with 192 GB or 256 GB RAM, we need to populate all 4 memory slots using 48 GB or 64 GB modules. In that case, the memory bus speed is reduced to DDR5-3600 according to AMD’s specification.
If you want to achieve the higher memory speed, you should order a 96 GB or 128 GB RAM configuration. In that case we can use only 2 memory slots, which allows the platform to run at the higher supported memory speed.
Regarding the reported case where a 96 GB RAM configuration was running at 3600 MHz: I have not checked this specific server yet, but I assume this may have been our mistake and the wrong memory slots may have been populated. We will add an additional check to our automation tests to verify correct DIMM population for such configurations.
Regarding the BIOS password: yes, BIOS access is restricted on our servers. This is not because we do not want to give customers control, but because we have seen a high number of hardware failures caused by overclocking or unsafe BIOS changes made by customers.
We are currently working with ASUS on a special BIOS version for our servers. Our goal is to allow customers to change selected safe settings while keeping overclocking and other risky options disabled. Once this BIOS is ready and tested, we plan to gradually roll it out to our machines.
MEVSPACE is open to customer needs. If you have any special requirements, please contact us and we will always try to help where possible.
@DP what did mevspace do on their personal account? post weeb pictur?
Yeah, looks like I got barred because I replied without having the Host Rep tag. No weeb pictures or drama involved, unfortunately — I didn’t manage to post anything controversial this time.