I've been thinking about buying one of these, they show up on eBay as CPU+mobo+RAM combos as used cloud provider machines. Each CPU is 64C/128T, instead of the 15C exposed in the post's cloud VM. The rackmount cloud machines are dual CPU, for 128C/256T in 2u.

I'd prefer it in a tower case, but cooling (of not only the dual CPUs, but also the VRMs) is tricky.

Example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/195740808551 (a different 128C Epyc, for less than half the current cost of used same-gen Threadripper PRO with half the cores and no RAM..)