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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

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?

piinbinary 6y ago
The level1techs forums seems to have a lot of people with similar interests
zhdc1 6y ago
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.
- ashkankiani 6y ago
  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.
  - jqcoffey 6y ago
    Also, purpose built data center chassis are designed for high airflow and are thus really quite loud.
    - modoc 6y ago
      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:)
  - gogopuppygogo 6y ago
    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.
  - bombcar 6y ago
    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.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- igorstellar 6y ago
  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.
  - girvo 6y ago
    Would swapping them out for Noctuas be difficult?
    - alvern 6y ago
      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.
      - weehoo 6y ago
        Why would current be relevant here? Shouldn’t operating voltage be the only thing that matters?
        sokoloff 6y ago
        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”.
    - cfn 6y ago
      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.
  - 6y ago
tanelpoder 6y ago
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-few-boards-for-3rd-gen-threadripper-pro 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)
- ksec 6y ago
  And just in time article https://www.anandtech.com/show/16462/hands-on-with-the-asus-pro-ws-wrx80-e-sage-se-wifi 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.
  - walrus01 6y ago
    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.
    - opencl 6y ago
      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-few-boards-for-3rd-gen-threadripper-pro https://www.anandtech.com/show/16396/the-amd-wrx80-chipset-a...
    - smolder 6y ago
      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.
philsnow 6y ago
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.
greggyb 6y ago
STH: https://www.youtube.com/user/ServeTheHomeVideo https://www.youtube.com/user/ServeTheHomeVideo https://www.servethehome.com/ 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.youtube.com/user/GamersNexus https://www.gamersnexus.net/ https://www.gamersnexus.net/ Level1Techs (mentioned in another reply): https://www.youtube.com/c/Level1Techs https://www.youtube.com/c/Level1Techs https://www.level1techs.com/ https://www.level1techs.com/ r/homelab (and all the subreddits listed in its sidebar): https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/ 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/ 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 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.
- 1996 6y ago
  Indeed, serious people now use gamer computer parts because it's just faster!
  - greggyb 6y ago
    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.
deagle50 6y ago
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.
- gigatexal 6y ago
  +1 to ServeTheHome, the forums have some of the nicest and smartest people I’ve ever met online. Hard forum is cool too
arminiusreturns 6y ago
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.
vmception 6y ago
> 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'
- ecf 6y ago
  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.
COGlory 6y ago
Check out Wendell Wilson, of Level1Techs on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOWcZ6Wicl-1N34H0zZe38w https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOWcZ6Wicl-1N34H0zZe38w or https://www.youtube.com/user/teksyndicate https://www.youtube.com/user/teksyndicate), and https://forum.level1techs.com https://forum.level1techs.com
tomc1985 6y ago
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?
- sp332 6y ago
  Not many games are written to scale out that far. I remember Ashes of the Singularity was used to showcase Ryzen CPUs though.
- eldelshell 6y ago
  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.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

piinbinary 6y ago

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

zhdc1 6y ago

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.

ashkankiani 6y ago
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.
- jqcoffey 6y ago
  Also, purpose built data center chassis are designed for high airflow and are thus really quite loud.
  - modoc 6y ago
    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:)
- gogopuppygogo 6y ago
  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.
- bombcar 6y ago
  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.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
igorstellar 6y ago
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.
- girvo 6y ago
  Would swapping them out for Noctuas be difficult?
  - alvern 6y ago
    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.
    - weehoo 6y ago
      Why would current be relevant here? Shouldn’t operating voltage be the only thing that matters?
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        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”.
  - cfn 6y ago
    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.
- 6y ago

tanelpoder 6y ago

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-few-boards-for-3rd-gen-threadripper-pro 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)

ksec 6y ago
And just in time article https://www.anandtech.com/show/16462/hands-on-with-the-asus-pro-ws-wrx80-e-sage-se-wifi 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.
- walrus01 6y ago
  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.
  - opencl 6y ago
    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-few-boards-for-3rd-gen-threadripper-pro https://www.anandtech.com/show/16396/the-amd-wrx80-chipset-a...
  - smolder 6y ago
    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.

philsnow 6y ago

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.

greggyb 6y ago

STH: https://www.youtube.com/user/ServeTheHomeVideo https://www.youtube.com/user/ServeTheHomeVideo https://www.servethehome.com/ 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.youtube.com/user/GamersNexus https://www.gamersnexus.net/ https://www.gamersnexus.net/ Level1Techs (mentioned in another reply): https://www.youtube.com/c/Level1Techs https://www.youtube.com/c/Level1Techs https://www.level1techs.com/ https://www.level1techs.com/ r/homelab (and all the subreddits listed in its sidebar): https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/ 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/ 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 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.

1996 6y ago
Indeed, serious people now use gamer computer parts because it's just faster!
- greggyb 6y ago
  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.

deagle50 6y ago

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.

gigatexal 6y ago
+1 to ServeTheHome, the forums have some of the nicest and smartest people I’ve ever met online. Hard forum is cool too

arminiusreturns 6y ago

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.

vmception 6y ago

> 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'

ecf 6y ago
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.

COGlory 6y ago

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

tomc1985 6y ago

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?

sp332 6y ago
Not many games are written to scale out that far. I remember Ashes of the Singularity was used to showcase Ryzen CPUs though.
eldelshell 6y ago
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.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]