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Intel launched its Optane Persistent Memory 200 Series (PMem 200) in 2020 for its 3rd-gen Xeon Scalable CPUs in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities. On two-socket Xeon platforms, it runs at a higher effective MT/s rate than the first generation (PMem 100) that was used on the first project, and it can deliver an average of up to 32% more memory bandwidth. Optane can run in either Memory Mode or App Direct Mode; both builds had platforms allowing for each.
Memory Mode has the Optane act as system memory with DRAM as its cache, the method used in the first build, while App Direct exposes Optane as a separate, persistent region that the software maps directly, the mode used in the second. This can give “more control over where the model’s tensors live,” according to the first build’s creator, u/APFrisco, who planned to try it.
Performance does take a hit by going with Optane over DRAM, and with the higher 3-bit quantization, the speed went down even more to 0.75 tokens per second. One commenter points out that this is very slow, with a 50k-token task estimated to take 13 hours at about 1 token per second, but another notes that overnight batches don’t care as much about speed. Both speeds compare to the first build’s roughly 4 tokens per second, although in that case the builder had an RTX 3060 handling part of the model in addition to Memory Mode, a 2-bit quantization, and the smaller, earlier 1-trillion-parameter K2.5 model.
Benchmarking Qwen 3.8 27B on RTX 5090 and beyond
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/homelabber-uses-second-gen-optane-memory-sticks-to-run-a-2-8-trillion-parameter-ai-model-on-cpu-alone-warns-that-optanes-extreme-heat-can-burn-out-nearby-memory-dram-used-blower-fans-to-prevent-melting-ram#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
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