I almost went down this sort of road and went 3900x instead. I think the one non-replicated benefit of the older server route is cheap & large amounts of ECC ram, but you're also getting slower ddr3 ram which is why the pricing works out the way it does. I was in that same pricing ballpark with a new-build ryzen with a 2070 super, I think you could make it pretty much equivalent but maybe trading 64gb of fast ddr4 ram for the 128gb of ddr3. As long as you can "make by" with 24 cpu threads I think you'll be in a much better position at same-ish cost but with new / full warranty components but that's just my math :-).

correct, but you can get build a full system with the Ryzen 9 plus 128gb of ram etc for definitely less than $1700. Especially given the drop in ram and ssd's these days

128GB of ECC RAM itself is going to be ~800-1000$ as far as I can find some to fit in a Ryzen build. So it won't be trivial to reach the price point for a full build although Ryzen is clearly great value anyway.

True, but only if ECC is necessary. In this case where he is mainly using the server for experiments and to try software, regular ram will do absolutely fine.

Here is a 128gb kit for under $600 dollars. https://www.newegg.com/corsair-128gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N8...

> only if ECC is necessary

If your workloads require 128GB of RAM then you probably want ECC. You'd be skimping in the wrong place.

This is kit of 8 sticks. Ryzen supports max of 4 dimms, so you need 32GB per stick.

> True, but only if ECC is necessary.

big "if" there really, and that makes it an apples-and-oranges comparison IMO.

I received a price quote on HPE ECC Server RAM this week from HPE that is $230 per 64GB stick. So make that $500 with shipping and tax for 128GB.

Consumer Ryzen requires unbuffered ECC RAM so most usual RAM options are not compatible.

SUPPORTS ECC RAM, but does not require it. You can use plain old RAM chips with it.

Grandparent's point, presumably, was that _buffered_ ECC RAM would not work. Which is definitely correct. I'm not sure if the sticks in question are buffered or not though.

Likely registered, not buffered - FBDIMMs fell out of favor some time ago. Technically still “buffered”, but only the control lines and it maintains electrical compatibility with UDIMMs.

Ah, thanks for that. I looked up the difference, I'll have to update my terminology.

Exactly, watch what happens to the price when you add 128GB of DDR4 memory.

I mean why isn't this the first comment reply.

The motherboard, RAM, SSDs, CPU, case, powersupply all have to be factored.

This is an apples to oranges comparison.

IMO it always makes more sense to build your own PC vs buy a used server.

It's going to be have better ventilation and be much quieter in a home setup.