Need suggestions for high-cpu server build

[h2muller]

Hi,

 

I am a PhD student developing software to be ran from clusters. The process deals with very large datasets and is both memory and cpu intensive, and I am reaching a stage on my development where my machine is the bottleneck. Although my university has a cluster, I don't really want to pay for time to test (unstable) builds. So I decided to do what any crazy dev would do – build my own server-grade machine.

 

I found an article from 2 years ago where they say it is (was?) more cost-effective to build a dual 2011-v3 system to run with 40 threads than buying a high-core single CPU, however I was unable to confirm if this is still the case today. My idea was to build a 18-20 core, 64-256 gb ram machine (running linux, obviously), for as little money as possible (with the single restriction being I need to purchase only new parts from established stores, meaning no eBay bargaining). My goal was to build the best machine I could for around $3k (if that is possible, I mean, but budget is not set yet).

 

I have never built anything like this before, and I haven't followed the parts market in a very long time, so I would like to see what is the opinion of the LTT community on the viability of this project.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Not being about to use ebay will hurt you a bit here, Can you use other used hardware resellers? Places like newegg are often a pretty bad bet here as they don't specalize with used hardware. 

 

Id also be tempted to look at threadripper, should get you almost as much performance as ram for a simmilar price. look at something like a 2970wx.

[BloodKnight7]

I would go for an older R910 server, with its 4 sockets, the proessors that normally come are Xeons with 6 to 8 cores you will get 24-32 of them, plus you can fit up to 1TB of DDR3 RAM modules! should be enough for what you are wanting to do?

 

The only downside is that those puppies are hungry hungry hippos for power.

[h2muller]

On 11/7/2018 at 6:25 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

Not being about to use ebay will hurt you a bit here, Can you use other used hardware resellers? Places like newegg are often a pretty bad bet here as they don't specalize with used hardware. 

 

Id also be tempted to look at threadripper, should get you almost as much performance as ram for a simmilar price. look at something like a 2970wx.

Ideally, I wouldn't use any used hardware, as this is going to be purchased with research money so there are rules I need to follow... Kind of annoying but rules are rules.

 

On 11/7/2018 at 7:32 PM, BloodKnight7 said:

I would go for an older R910 server, with its 4 sockets, the proessors that normally come are Xeons with 6 to 8 cores you will get 24-32 of them, plus you can fit up to 1TB of DDR3 RAM modules! should be enough for what you are wanting to do?

  

The only downside is that those puppies are hungry hungry hippos for power.

I have been looking at this server since your suggestion, and it seems promising (and incredibly cheap, I was surprised). I saw it has one PCIe 2.0 x16, do you think it could support something like a GTX 1060? I wanted to implement CUDA calculations and that graphics card has the best cost-benefit for that purpose...

[BloodKnight7]

On 11/9/2018 at 8:00 AM, h2muller said:

Ideally, I wouldn't use any used hardware, as this is going to be purchased with research money so there are rules I need to follow... Kind of annoying but rules are rules.

  

I have been looking at this server since your suggestion, and it seems promising (and incredibly cheap, I was surprised). I saw it has one PCIe 2.0 x16, do you think it could support something like a GTX 1060? I wanted to implement CUDA calculations and that graphics card has the best cost-benefit for that purpose...

Sorry for the delay on the answer, yes that slow would definitely handle a GTX 1060, its x16 after all