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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

This post is fantastic. I wish there was more workstation porn like this for those of us who are not into the RGB light show ripjaw hacksaw aorus elite novelty stuff that gamers are so into. Benchmarks in the community are almost universally focused on gaming performance and FPS.

I want to build an epic rig that will last a long time with professional grade hardware (with ECC memory for instance) and would love to get a lot of the bleeding-edge stuff without compromising on durability. Where do these people hang out online?

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Thanks! In case you're interested in building a ThreadRipper Pro WX-based system like mine, then AMD apparently starts selling the CPUs independently from March 2021 onwards:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16396/the-amd-wrx80-chipset-a...

Previously you could only get this CPU when buying the Lenovo ThinkStation P620 machine. I'm pretty happy with Lenovo Thinkstations though (I bought a P920 with dual Xeons 2.5 years ago)

And just in time article

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16462/hands-on-with-the-asus-...

I guess I should submit this on HN as well.

Edit: I was getting too ahead of myself I thought these are for TR Pro with Zen 3. Turns out they are not out yet.

My only quibble with that board is that I worry about how easily replaced the fan on the chipset is. In my experience that exact type of fan will inevitably fail in a moderately dusty environment... And it doesn't look like anything you could screw on/off from the common industry standard sizes of 40mm or 60mm 12VDC fans that come in various thicknesses.

Supermicro's WRX80 motherboard looks like it has an easily replaceable chipset fan, not sure about the Gigabyte one.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16396/the-amd-wrx80-chipset-a...

Fortunately you can often swap the complete heatsink and fan combo on the chipset with a different one. If the mounting method is strange one can use thermal epoxy or thermal adhesive tape.

STH: https://www.youtube.com/user/ServeTheHomeVideo https://www.servethehome.com/

GamersNexus (despite the name, they include a good amount of non-gaming benchmarks, and they have great content on cases and cooling): https://www.youtube.com/user/GamersNexus https://www.gamersnexus.net/

Level1Techs (mentioned in another reply): https://www.youtube.com/c/Level1Techs https://www.level1techs.com/

r/homelab (and all the subreddits listed in its sidebar): https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/

Even LinusTechTips has some decent content for server hardware, though they stay fairly superficial. And the forum definitely has people who can help out: https://linustechtips.com/

And the thing is, depending on what metric you judge performance by, the enthusiast hardware may very well outperform the server hardware. For something that is sensitive to memory, e.g., you can get much faster RAM in enthusiast SKUs (https://www.crucial.com/memory/ddr4/BLM2K8G51C19U4B) than you'll find in server hardware. Similarly, the HEDT SKUs out-clock the server SKUs for both Intel and AMD.

I have a Threadripper system that outperforms most servers I work with on a daily basis, because most of my workloads, despite being multi-threaded, are sensitive to clockspeed.

Indeed, serious people now use gamer computer parts because it's just faster!

It's not "just faster".

No one's using "gamer NICs" for high speed networking. Top of the line "gaming" networking is 802.11ax or 10GbE. 2x200Gb/s NICs are available now.

Gaming parts are strictly single socket - software that can take advantage of >64 cores will need server hardware - either one of the giant Ampere ARM CPUs or a 2+ socket system.

If something must run in RAM and needs TB of RAM, well then it's not even a question of faster or slower. The capability only exists on server platforms.

Some workloads will benefit from the performance characteristics of consumer hardware.

The desktop used in TFA supports 1 TB of RAM.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/thinkstation-p620

Workstations and desktops are distinct market segments. The machine in the article uses a workstation platform. And the workstation processors available in that Lenovo machine clock slower than something like a 5950X mainstream processor. The RDIMMS you need to get to 1TB in the machine run much slower than the UDIMMS I linked above.

I'm with you on this, I just built a (much more modest than the article's) workstation/homelab machine a few months ago, to replace my previous one which was going on 10 years old and showing its age.

There's some folks in /r/homelab who are into this kind of thing, and I used their advice a fair bit in my build. While it is kind of mixed (there's a lot of people who build pi clusters as their homelab), there's still plenty of people who buy decommissioned "enterprise" hardware and make monstrous-for-home-use things.

Look at purchasing used enterprise hardware. You can buy a reliable x9 or X10 generation supermicro server (rack or tower) for around a couple of hundred.

I've been planning to do this, but enterprise hardware seems like it requires a completely different set of knowledge on how to purchase it and maintain it, and especially as a consumer.

It's not quite as trivial of a barrier to entry as consumer desktops, but I suppose that's the point. Still, it would be nice if there was a guide that could help me make good decisions to start.

Also, purpose built data center chassis are designed for high airflow and are thus really quite loud.

Very true. I have a single rack mount server in my HVAC room, and it's still so loud I had to glue soundproofing foam on the nearby walls:)

Most people who get into home labs spend some time on research and throw some money at gaining an education.

Compute is so cheap second hand.

It’s actually much EASIER in my experience- enterprise gear is made to be easily reparable and most if not all parts can be swapped without tools.

Loud though - most of them run pretty quiet if not doing anything.

Downside of buying enterprise for home use is noise - their turbofan coolers are insanely loud while consumer grade 120mm (Noctua et al) coolers are most quiet.

Would swapping them out for Noctuas be difficult?

I've not been successful trying this with HPE servers. Most server fans (Foxconn/Delta) run 2.8 amp or higher. Not aware of any "silent" gaming grade fans that use more than 0.38 amps. That's not even considering the CFM.

Why would current be relevant here? Shouldn’t operating voltage be the only thing that matters?

Amps * Volts is power. Power is a proxy (a moderately good one) for air movement (a mix of volume/mass at a specific [back-]pressure).

It’s not likely that a silent 2W fan will move a similar amount of air as the stock 14W fans. The enterprise gear from HPE is pretty well engineered; I’m skeptical that they over-designed the fans by a 7x factor.

Operating voltage tells you “this fan won’t burn up when you plug it in”. It doesn’t tell you “will keep the components cool”.

Mostly yes because server chassis are very compact and sometimes use proprietary connectors and fans. Still, many people have done that with good results, have a look in YouTube to know which server models are best suited for that kind of customization.

It’s mostly about casing though - density is important with enterprise stuff, and noise level is almost irrelevant hence small chassis with small, loud, fans.

I’ve got a 3.5” x16 bay gooxi chassis that I’ve put a supermicro mb + xeon in.

Something like this:

https://www.xcase.co.uk/collections/3u-rackmount-cases/produ...

I got this specific nas chassis because it got a fan wall with 3x120mm fans, not because I need bays.

With a few rather cool SSD’s for storage and quiet noctua fans it is barely a whisper.

Also - vertical rack mounting behind a closet door! I can have a massive chassis that basically takes no place at all. Can’t belive I didn’t figure that one out earlier...

Noise isn't the only downside - the power they consume can cost $$$. These things aren't typically the most energy efficient machines.

Another downside is powerconsumption at rest. Supermicro board with 2x Xeon use 80watt at minimum. Add a 10Gbit switch and a few more peripherals and you’re looking at an additional $€80/month electricity bill. Year after year, that is $€10.000 in 10years.

Of course that is nothing compared to what you’d pay at Google/Azure/AWS for the AMD machine of this news item :-)

12V only PSUs like OEMs use or ATX12VO in combination with a motherboard without IPMI, similar to the German Fujitsu motherboards, have significant lower power consumption at rest. Somewhere around 8-10Watt without HDD. Much better for home use IHMO.

In the US, electricity rates are typically much cheaper than the EU. My rate is roughly .08 €/kWh, for example, and I don't get any subsidies to convert to solar, so I have no way to make it pay off for myself within 15 years (beyond the time most people expect to stay in a home here), while other states in the US subsidize so heavily or rates for electricity are so high most people have solar panels at least (see: Hawaii with among the highest costs for electricity in the US).

Regardless of electricity cost, all that electricity usage winds up with a lot of heat in a dwelling. To help offset the energy consumption in the future I plan to use a hybrid water heater that can act as a heat pump and dehumidifier and capture the excess heat as a way to reduce energy consumption for hot water.

Check out Wendell Wilson, of Level1Techs on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOWcZ6Wicl-1N34H0zZe38w or https://www.youtube.com/user/teksyndicate), and https://forum.level1techs.com

The level1techs forums seems to have a lot of people with similar interests

Though I have to wonder.... would these be good gaming systems? Are there any scenarios where the perks (stupid numbers of cores, 8-channel memory, 128 PCI-E lanes, etc) would help?

Not many games are written to scale out that far. I remember Ashes of the Singularity was used to showcase Ryzen CPUs though.

Not really. Gaming is bound to latency and rendering, not scale nor bandwidth. Memory and IO usage is pretty constant while the game is running.

Check out HardForum. Lots of very knowledgable people on there helped me mature my hardware level knowledge. Back when I was building 4 cpu, 64 core opteron systems. Also decent banter.

Happy to help if you want feedback. Servethehome forums are also a great resource of info and used hardware, probably the best community for your needs.

+1 to ServeTheHome, the forums have some of the nicest and smartest people I’ve ever met online.

Hard forum is cool too

> RGB light show ripjaw hacksaw aorus elite novelty stuff

haha yeah I bought a whole computer from someone and was wondering why the RAM looked like rupies from Zelda

apparently that is common now

but at least I'm not cosplaying as a karate day trader for my Wall Street Journal expose'

Because flashy RGB is the default mode used for marketing purposes.

I’m not trying to be snarky here but you can always just turn off the lights or set it to be a solid color of your preference.

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