Balanced Memory Configurations for 2-Socket Servers with 3rd-Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processors

Configuring a server with balanced memory is important for maximizing its memory bandwidth and overall performance. Lenovo® ThinkSystem 2-socket servers running Intel 3rd Generation Xeon Scalable processors (formerly codenamed “Ice Lake”) have eight memory channels per processor and up to two DIMM slots per channel, so it is important to understand what is considered a balanced configuration and what is not.

This paper defines three balanced memory guidelines that will guide you to select a balanced memory configuration. Balanced and unbalanced memory configurations are presented along with their relative measured memory bandwidths to show the effect of unbalanced memory. Suggestions are also provided on how to produce balanced memory configurations.

This paper is for customers and for business partners and sellers wishing to understand how to maximize the performance of Lenovo ThinkSystem 2-socket servers with Intel 3rd Generation Xeon Scalable processors.

Introduction
Memory interleaving
Balanced memory configurations
About the tests
Applying the balanced memory configuration guidelines
Summary of the performance results
Maximizing memory bandwidth
Summary

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Related product families

Product families related to this document are the following:

• Processors