The clocks are a little lower than the retail Xeons, and you do need to pay attention to compatible boards/BIOS versions, but you can get a big Xeon E5 for like $200-300.
If you follow this very thread, you'll notice that another user already complained that "you need to pony up for a Xeon workstation if you need more than 64 GB."
I was pointing out that there were other processors already on the market that met his requirements: Xeon engineering samples, which most people don't think about when they are talking about the costs of high-end Xeon workstations.
(This is partially because they are not "finished" products like retail chips. Clocks are lower, and you need to use motherboards/BIOSs from a specific compatibility list, and they are not something you can source from Intel. Thus, they slip many people's minds because they aren't something you would consider for an actual server deployment - but they are perfect for a workstation with specialty needs that needs to hit a tight budget)
So yes, I did actually read the thread. You just didn't grasp enough of the context to make a sensible response and figured it was the perfect time for a superslam "did you even read bro?" gotcha response.
Typically this sort of response is not welcome on HN. If you don't have something substantiate to post, please don't post at all.
(Tangentially: I wouldn't bother with ECC RAM for this application unless that were required by the rest of the hardware. Memory errors may slightly affect time to a converged solution, but it's rare that a flipped bit would actually cause a job to converge to a different solution.)
Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud,
The reason I don't use cloud computing is that you constantly have to worry about moving data around, turning stuff on and off, API changes, data movement costs, product lineup changes (should I store this stuff on S3 or local HD), locally compiling all your stuff again or containerization and associated time overhead.
Local large box makes way more sense if you're doing solo projects. And if traveling, it would way more sense to rent a VPS from Hetzner. Flat cost structure and tons of bang for the buck.
BTW, I you can get 128 gb LGA2011-v3 motherboards.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681315...
and it seems like it works: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2938855/hardcore-hardware-we-...
even though the spec says max 64gb: https://ark.intel.com/products/82932/Intel-Core-i7-5820K-Pro...
You can get commercial software that is a bit better tuned for running on "ordinary" desktop hardware, but it's so expensive that you don't really come out ahead on total cost.