Interesting pricing here, especially if you want to max the system memory out in the future. 128GB ECC DDR4 sticks can be had for about $1000ish a pop, so this

Interesting pricing here, especially if you want to max the system memory out in the future. 128GB ECC DDR4 sticks can be had for about $1000ish a pop, so this is the usual Apple memory markup (to the tune of about double the MSRP) You need the 24-core CPU to do this, so you're spending an extra $6000. I can't seem to find what exact CPU model they're using, but a close equivalent would appear to be the Xeon W-3265M, which sells for around $6000 and change, so that one's actually at a slight discount assuming that's the right model. -- I could see myself purchasing one of these and then using it for a combination workstation/VM server. I find that the main constraint on virtual machines tends to be memory, and even if I stick with the base CPU, I'll have room to expand to up to 768 gigs, and the ability to install bog-standard PCI cards that can do pretty much anything else I'd be interested in doing.