Suppose my aim was to set up a workstation that should capitalize on three primary parameters (this would not be a gaming platform, so graphics cards aren't a part of it):

1) CPU core count
2) available RAM
3) disk read speed

3 is easy - simply set up any number of SSD's in RAID 0 (striped) mode and anything from 1-2 GB/s is achievable per array, which is very good.
2 is somewhat easy - 24 GB of RAM is a good start, but I can't find a desktop solution that can easily go beyond that
1 is the primary problem: with an i7 roughly 8 full cores (accounting for hyperthreading with that "roughly") is an easy task. I'm noticing, however, that dual CPU 1366 mobos aren't at all popular, especially given the fact none seem to be in production according to some research. If I had it my way, I'd actually look for a quad CPU setup, netting 32 cores, which is proving to be a non-existent technology (I know somewhat of the limitations, in particular the QPI link one, but that was more than a year ago).

With this in mind, what is the most powerful workstation one can put together at home if money isn't an obstacle?

I didn't see GPU listed there, so if that doesn't matter you don't want a workstation but a server, you can get very good tower ones that you can use at home (or, if you don't mind working remotely on remote desktop, you could use a dedicated hosting solution too).

What kinda cpu/memory range are you looking for? 32 cores / 256GB ram? more ? less? The solution really depends on your needs if money is no issue

With money not being an issue, you could drive this extremely far

I think the best single current machine setup could give you 256Gb of RAM with 4 16-core server CPUs and some high-performance SSDs for your fast disk access
But if money is not a problem you could easily cluster some of these together for additional parallel performance, I suppose

Just out of curiosity, what would a setup like that cost?


Just to be clear, money is an issue (and I'm not planning on buying one) - I'm just curious what one can get at home nowadays if it weren't.

I suppose around 64 GB of RAM would suffice and no, a graphics card is not a requirement: I think using something like this for gaming would be overdoing it to a certain degree

Edit. Cliky for those interested in Intel's latest take.

Intended usage means everything. What would the theoretical application of this computer be?

I would think price/performance it would be better to do distributed computing instead of trying to install multiple cpus/mobos. If money was no object for my computer I'd just throw dollars at parts.

My friend probably has about the most expensive build a person can do in a standard case:

Huge and fast SSD for storage
3 GTX 580's - SLI + a third card for dedicated physics
i7 extreme
Asstons of RAM.
The CPU and GPU are watercooled and heavily overclocked

Parts were around $4-$5k.

This is where the circumstances of use would become somewhat ambivalent - I'm thinking along the lines of a non-distributed audio workstation that, differently from a video editing workstation, cannot take advantage of GPGPU functionality, but will fare far better with as many medium-capacity cores as there are tracks or effects (think around 30-60, each of which should clock at around 1.5-2.5GHz) for a pretty powerful setup. Naturally, anything bigger will be better, but would become increasingly more circumstantial. Traditionally the solution is to distribute the workload over a network to slave workstations that do the number crunching, but I'm wondering if those days might be over soon.

On consumer kit, you'd top out with a 6-core i7 (12 hyperthreads), Quad-channel memory with up to 64GB of capacity, and PCIe-based SSDs in Raid. You could probably do that for 4k figuring a good buffer for other quality components, add in another $600 per, for each high-end GPU you wanted to add in.

For more cores you need a workstation motherboard to get maybe two CPUs (at this point you have to switch over to Xeon or Opteron, not the consumer CPU packages) or a Server board for 4+ CPUs. You can probably count on having 32-64GB of RAM capacity per CPU socket. You can probably get a high-end, dual CPU (12-16 physical cores) workstation for around 10 grand if you wanted gobs of memory, A server besting that is probably several tens of thousands of dollars. Half that if you build your own, servers and workstations are typically sold with cushy service contracts attached, and a price premium to match.

This is where the circumstances of use would become somewhat ambivalent - I'm thinking along the lines of a non-distributed audio workstation that, differently from a video editing workstation, cannot take advantage of GPGPU functionality, but will fare far better with as many medium-capacity cores as there are tracks or effects (think around 30-60, each of which should clock at around 1.5-2.5GHz) for a pretty powerful setup. Naturally, anything bigger will be better, but would become increasingly more circumstantial. Traditionally the solution is to distribute the workload over a network to slave workstations that do the number crunching, but I'm wondering if those days might be over soon.

If your concern is space maybe. For price/performance, I think distributing the workload is going to be superior. I have no evidence to back this theory up, just my gut feeling.

Intended usage means everything. What would the theoretical application of this computer be?

I would think price/performance it would be better to do distributed computing instead of trying to install multiple cpus/mobos. If money was no object for my computer I'd just throw dollars at parts.

My friend probably has about the most expensive build a person can do in a standard case:

Huge and fast SSD for storage
3 GTX 580's - SLI + a third card for dedicated physics
i7 extreme
Asstons of RAM.
The CPU and GPU are watercooled and heavily overclocked

Parts were around $4-$5k.

I'm pretty sure you can spend double that. $1200 gets a single top-end SSD ~1Tb. $700 gets a single top-end GPU... two each of both of those and we're at $4k already!

I bet you can still get dual-CPU motherboards too, you always used to... so now your desktop PC has two topend i7s as well!