Compile/development server build advice

[devzer0]

I would like to solicit community feedback for parts/component selection, since the last time I built a computer, was way back in 2003, before AMD fell off the cliff, so I'm a little rusty.

 

Use Cases

• Compilation server for hobby OpenSource software contributions & work stuff
• Numerical/Scientific computing benchmarking for parallel applications (prototypes, for hobby and work)
• MineCraft server (maybe....)

Goals & motivation

• Reduce time spent waiting on compilation by either
  • building directly on the server (ssh in from outside) or
  • running icecream or distcc
• Have an additional place to prototype & benchmark parallel algorithms for scientific & numerical computing
• Maybe run a Minecraft server (I don't recall if they even have multithreading in the server-side engine or not... if they don't then there's perhaps not much point to this)

Budget

 

Ideally less than $2,000 USD

 

Current Thinking

• Prioritize concurrency & number or threads since compilation workloads are highly parallel (I'm thinking threadripper)
• Higher clock speeds are always good too, but I don't have the patience or will to spend time tuning my voltages etc. in the EUFI/BIOS
• I don't want a system that thermal throttles, but I have no patience for extravagant water cooling, delidding, etc.
• Decent quantity of RAM, so that there is O(1-2GB) per core, this way I can also create a RAM disk as a compilation build area and also possibly mirror my ccache cache to it.
• Decent RAM CAS and throughput speeds since the computational science workloads I look at are always memory bandwidth bound, and compilation is likely at least partially memory bound in some fashion too
• Small-ish O(256-512GB) but very fast NVME disk for:
  • OS
  • Applications (think /opt or /usr/local)
  • builds not done on RAMdisk
  • compiler scratch/temp directory
  • minecraft world (if used as minecraft server at all)
• Will be running debian or fedora Linux (duh)
• Skimp as much as possible on graphics etc. since it will be headless most of the time, I'll reuse monitors & peripherals I already have for setting it up, etc.

Questions and help needed:

• I'm currently thinking I'll go with AMD over Intel for the CPU
• I really am tempted by the concurrency of threadripper, but I'm not sure if I can get it to meet my target budget, and it doesn't have integrated graphics, AFAICT. (I really will only ever need a monitor for maintenance tasks, installation etc.)
• Are there motherboards that can support modern AMD CPUs like Threadripper, but have some builtin (even if it's 600x800 VGA) graphics? Or if I go with a CPU that doesn't have integrated graphics will I need a GPU to get the machine setup? (I may be able to temporarily cannibalize a ~5 year old NVidia GeForce 960 or similar... not sure if it would even be compatible)
• Is my budget of <= $2000 USD unrealistic if I want 16 or more physical cores?

 

Anyway, I'm new here, so any pointers or tips would be much appreciated!