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The total price is just a hair of $9.7k ($13,290 is 2020 dollars) It's interesting looking at the breakdown, because in some cases prices are similar, and I th
by dmayle 7y ago
The total price is just a hair of $9.7k ($13,290 is 2020 dollars)
It's interesting looking at the breakdown, because in some cases prices are similar, and I think in some other cases, the smart money has changed.
For instance, a really high end motherboard (X570 or threadripper) will still be in the $500 range, but there are now available options going up to $800.
The closest CPU option is 32 cores 3970X TR, but it runs $2000, not the $2400 they spend (again, 2020 dollars)
256GB of DDR4 ECC RAM (instead of 4GB) will cost about $1200, not the $1350 spent.
GPU options, however, will run into $1200 for an RTX 2080 Ti rather than the $800 they spent.
SCSI cards are no longer necessary, as NVME is the smart play, and PCIE 4.0 is the high-end play.
They only spend $600 on the system drive ($827 if you include the controllers), but for a God Box, I'd put in an Optane PCIE card for $1300.
For $1440 in storage drives, you're either looking at dual 4TB SSDs if you want SSD speed, or an external 4-bay NAS with 3 8TB drives.
Optical drives are out, which just leaves backup and case. I know nothing about tape storage, so I won't comment on that, but in the case world, you now have interesting options like the TureMetal UP10 which allow you to run this system entirely fanless, but for somewhere in the $700-$1000 range.
- greggyb 7y ago> The closest CPU option is 32 cores 3970X TR, but it runs $2000, not the $2400 they spend (again, 2020 dollars). Sticking to HEDT, rather than server components, the 3990X is available, appropriately enough, at $3,990 retail. This is 64 cores. > 256GB of DDR4 ECC RAM (instead of 4GB) will cost about $1200, not the $1350 spent. This is not possible as a combination right now. Threadrippers (as is the case for all mainstream and HEDT processors from AMD) can only use unbuffered DIMMs. The largest unbuffered ECC DIMM I have been able to find is 16GB, which maxes out at 128GB with 8 DIMM slots (I haven't seen larger for any TR motherboards). > For $1440 in storage drives, you're either looking at dual 4TB SSDs if you want SSD speed, or an external 4-bay NAS with 3 8TB drives. If it's a capacity play, you can easily get more than 3x8TB if you install into the tower directly, rather than a separate NAS. Especially with Threadripper, the motherboards tend to be large and 3rd gen need massive cooling solutions. There should be room for at least 4-8 3.5" drives in the tower. Still, the modern god box is a good sight better than the old one.
- dmayle 7y ago> Sticking to HEDT, rather than server components, the 3990X is available It's true that I left that out. It's not entirely clear to me whether the budget is unlimited or not in the God Box. Back in 2004 you could go higher budget than they did with the Opteron 850, but the market wasn't as clearly segmented as it is today. > Threadrippers (as is the case for all mainstream and HEDT processors from AMD) can only use unbuffered DIMMs I hadn't realized that. There are 32GB ECC UDIMM's on the market (e.g. https://memory.net/product/m391a4g43mb1-ctd-samsung-1x-32gb-ddr4-2666-ecc-udimm-pc4-21300v-e-dual-rank-x8-module/ https://memory.net/product/m391a4g43mb1-ctd-samsung-1x-32gb-...), but that raises the price to around $2k. > If it's a capacity play, you can easily get more than 3x8TB if you install into the tower directly Yes, but we're talking smart money, At the time, the NAS didn't exist, and with 10Gbe, the bandwidth is high enough to make it not worth keeping in-case. I personally think the sweet spot is somewhere in the $2k-$3k range. That gets you 16 cores, 128GB ECC, 2TB NVME, 10Gbe, RTX 2070/2080
- greggyb 7y agoAw man! That RAM was not available two months ago. I recently built a 3970X machine and was frustrated at the lack of 32GB ECC UDIMMs.