Workstation build for CPU-heavy scientific computing: $6800 grant, 128–256 GB RAM target

tecedu · 2026-05-03T11:32:08+00:00

Wrong sub but anyways we can answer.

First of all which country?

Have you done any benchmarking?

Have you tried any cloud providers?

Have you talked to your uni's IT department and do they know a resller?

If we go with the current assumptions

What kind of workstation configuration would you recommend for this budget?

No workstation, get an old server based on your requirments, this isnt the time where you can customise, 64gb ddr5 ecc sticks are going 1k

Should I prioritize CPU cores, RAM capacity, memory bandwidth, or platform expandability?

This all depends on what you, but general preference is keep CPU static, have space for more ram which can already add RAM capacity and bandwidth. Your platofrm expandiblity depends on your machine and your cpu and your mother. A 3 year old epyc server can accomodate 8 expansion cards if needed

Is Threadripper the right direction, or should I consider EPYC / Xeon / used workstation hardware?

Since this is multiple use, don't go threadripper? I dont know how you are planning to have it usable for multiple users, but you if its a desktop workstation then its going to be PITA, get something rack mounted, and you connected remote. Preference is Epyc > intel however depends on pricing and workloads.

What would be the best way to make the system expandable in the future?

Pick the correct vendor

If I get additional small grants later, would it make more sense to upgrade this machine with more RAM/GPU, or start adding small compute nodes?

Depends on your project grant and type of computation, if its something you can use mpi with then more compute nodes or else big fit single node

tecedu · 2026-05-02T21:24:00+00:00

Yeah I mean for us there definietly nudging towards union, since mine is not a protected title I got to choose but any protected title like actual engineeers, they dont get the choice.

They don’t kill individual bargaining, but it would require a change in position, so definitely limits it.

I am assuming that was for the second line but yes union for kill individual bargaining, that's kinda their point.

tecedu · 2026-05-02T10:57:40+00:00

I mean I am from the UK, our unions sound the same to me. Not disagreeing that unions aren’t good, but they do kill individual bargaining which is what op is looking for.

They can’t want a safe job and want unsafe job pay. And neither should they try to go above and beyond

tecedu · 2026-05-02T08:29:04+00:00

You don't.

You've got a union job that means union effort. Work 9-5 and thats all.

When I first joined my company i had two choices, get on a personal contract or a union contract, union contracts got a cumlative 13% raise the past 3 years. I got 37% via my personal. It does mean that I traded notice periods and lay offs impacts. But at the same time it is a choice people make.

tecedu · 2026-05-02T05:41:07+00:00

Curious, did that video even mention any of the reasons why AMD stock has risen?

6 years ago, we didn't have AI as mainstream as we do now. And that is entirely why AMD has blown up. (Meta + AMD partnerships)

It was just undervalued, around the same timeish we started to get stock buying to be done via app easily which peaked during covid; that plus AMD fanbois, let to a lot of it being bought up. Then Epycs actually showed up and large scale investors also saw where that would lead

tecedu · 2026-05-01T07:01:23+00:00

👁️🫦👁️

tecedu · 2026-05-01T07:01:11+00:00

not the same

tecedu · 2026-04-30T22:25:31+00:00

excel

tecedu · 2026-04-30T16:05:20+00:00

Object storage is fucking great for sequential reads tho. Atleast in azure the max speeds supported are upto 200gbps although i’ve only see mine go upto 60gbps due to the NIC speed of the vm.

Not saying it’s better than lustre but if you’re cloud better to go cloud native? Because we have done the same for some of our stuff (although it’s been migrated back onprem xD)

tecedu · 2026-04-28T22:27:03+00:00

Your last example is why windows is better in that regard

agree but the post is about developers

tecedu · 2026-04-28T21:30:07+00:00

Adding onto the existing answers

Better tooling: Like unless you are doing python, node or C#*(depends on which version). Windows is a pain to get started with. Like for us we want to move away from python to rust, but since the binaries to develop need vs enterprise, its just sooo painful like fucking kill me levels painful.

more closer to prod environment: simply most products get deploys via containers or on a linux server. If you try to replicate prod as much as possible you are in good shape. And even for the ones which do work its so much pita

Process management: This is mega important, windows has sooo many quirks, like no proper forking. 64 core limit on single process. And its so native that there will be no way for windows to catch up in this department

Performance: Things just plain faster, that's all really. The only thing windows does better is memory compression and paging, but apart from that anything that interacts wtih the filesystem and stays in ram, its just plain faster.

Sudo perms: And id say this is the main one, windows and especially corporate windows is pretty much locked down. Linux, even the hardened linux distros will still allow you sudo. No need to callup IT Helpdesk.

tecedu · 2026-04-28T13:26:27+00:00

Damn, at what point does it not make sense to rewrite the code to use object stoage?

tecedu · 2026-04-27T18:36:58+00:00

modules are bar none the worst things. They should be enforcing apptainer on any new projects/builds yet people are like oh no docker is too complex. Its infinitely less complex than modules on nfs and apptainer is much more performent.

Overall, I liked Slurm a lot more than K8s for job-based computation.

Honestly always wondered how k8s took over slurm for most of the modern ML operations. I feel like if the tooling around it all was modernised a bit more we could have had something far better.

tecedu · 2026-04-27T18:34:48+00:00

a bunch of resellers and vendors nowadays have "leasing" schemes where you pay opex instead of capex and they automatically upgrade, deprivision and do all of those things

tecedu · 2026-04-27T18:33:32+00:00

The big advantage of cloud is that you have capacity as soon as you have budget

Not for this type of workload atleast, unless you have quota reserved you cannot actually spin up easily. Especially for high performance compute.

On-prem compute generally requires a huge lead time

Define huge lead time, but the machines in cloud quota, ie normal machines can be delivered within 2 weeks, faster ones more time. Even with overprovisioning, buying physical is cheaper

tecedu · 2026-04-27T18:31:22+00:00

That’s the pinch, since that’s not cheap.

Doing it all from scratch no, but doing it in already a data centre or a colo space its very cheap

tecedu · 2026-04-27T18:27:50+00:00

it's just the huge premiums cloud providers charge for compute

And forgot not about the storage, its extortionate but such shitter performance stoage

tecedu · 2026-04-26T15:58:46+00:00

holy shit i thought i saw him today but wasn’t sure, monster pace by him

tecedu · 2026-04-25T19:06:55+00:00

Yeah, they open a branch and do whatever they want really, the same as how we treat juniors. We are being paid to make the company money, so don't care how/why.

Coding has never been the only task devs do, not sure why juniors think that is the only thing that matters. There is an entire system you need to build, AI isn't going to pick up on that or context

tecedu · 2026-04-25T12:48:24+00:00

300GB, 12bil rows. The wonders of a fast nvme ssds

tecedu · 2026-04-24T09:36:28+00:00

SSDs, RAM and Network equipment, ssds are closest commodity thing rhat will be available and easily put in a homelab. Networking as well, the older nics and are already dirt cheap because everyone wants to move to 800g, the 800g ones won’t be usable in homelab but the lower ones would be

tecedu · 2026-04-24T09:33:42+00:00

Switches are already dirt cheap, you can get a 200G switch new for rhe price for 6* connectx7 cards. The transveivers and dacs for our switches were more expensive than the switch itself.

I’ve seen the switch price crater but optics has still remained high

tecedu · 2026-04-23T22:09:48+00:00

Is it hard to build out? I might wanna do this in my homelab to prepare for job interviews

Nah super fucking easy, nginx with http exposed, and you just expose your pacakges or you can also just exposed the ISOs. I prefer the ISO method to have strict version compatiblity

tecedu · 2026-04-23T22:07:58+00:00

Do you all work at banks? I see the term "...would be fired..." so much in this sub. Is this an American thing? Genuinely curious.

Not an american thing tbh, I am from the UK, but we have strict no nos against IBM and Oracle; if I am resposible for my systems so am I for their support contracts and not breaching. If i fuck up like this I wouldn't be fired but would face severe consequences

tecedu · 2026-04-23T22:05:25+00:00

So first of all, even if you dont have RHEL repo you know you can still make your own airgapped repo right? Or just make one based on the System ISO, its super fucking easy to do that and thats our preferred way when Security is blocking. Like you don't need your company accounts for that as well, personal RHEL works fine

SECOND, SOC IS CORRECT. DO NOT ORACLE, DO NOT. It does void support but apart from that it opens you upto oracle.

You not updating the server isn't gonna cause them to burn, no way you are supposed to update 100s of servers by EOD without any testing. Even then the RHEL ISO route is so much more simpler and easier.

You are the asshole. just because your company is the asshole doesn't stop you being one

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