AMD Epyc 9004

We have a bunch of these AMD Epyc 9004 series processors. Some are quite cool like Epyc 9654 which has 96 cores, and some are wild like the Epyc 9684X which has that and an actual gigabyte of cache!

Anyway, we're using them on some Supermicro H13SSL-NT boards and also some Gigabyte MZ33-AR0 boards and the one big peculiarity of these processor and motherboard combinations is that you have to torque the heat sink on quite hard. If you don't do that or screw in the processor plate tight, sometimes the machine will boot sufficiently to turn fans on and give you the default boot screen (a manufacturer logo) but won't POST!

The Supermicro boot screen - sometimes good, sometimes bad

So remember to torque them on nice and tight to the 1.5 Nm or else you're going to spend a lot of time debugging!