I want to get high-end workstation at home for doing data analysis/simulation over large financial datasets, but 4000$K for the latest 6-core seems a little much too me especially considering the capabilities of cloud based computing these days.<p>However, as much as I want to do everything at amazon I still feel the need for a powerful workstation at home.<p>So what are some worthy alternatives? Preferably, it comes installed with ubuntu and is quiet.
What is your budget for this machine? I have been looking at high-end workstation / server configurations for my own use, and for around $1000 for the motherboard and process one can have the essentials for a 12 core machine:<p><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182240" rel="nofollow">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182...</a> (SUPERMICRO MBD-H8SGL-O Socket G34 motherboard for $244.99)
<a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819105267" rel="nofollow">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819105...</a> (AMD Opteron 6168 Socket G34 115W 12-Core Server Processor for $769.00)<p>Total: $1013.99<p>That motherboard comes with onboard video and dual gigabit ethernet. The only other things required are a case, power supply, some RAM, and some sort of storage. All of this will be a lot less than $4000.
I'm actually a fan of the HP Z600 Workstations. You can get dual-processor six-core Xeons, and unlike the Mac Pro, you can start with one CPU (and pick up a second one at a later time).<p>The case is pretty well-designed, and it's quiet.
System 76<p>I got a Core-i7 (quad core with hyper threading, the OS sees 8 CPUs), 8GB of RAM, 164GB SSD, for about $2000<p>Yes, it comes with Ubuntu pre-installed.<p>You can get it a bit cheaper with a regular hard drive, but if you're craving the performance, go for the SSD.
You can't get a 6-core Mac pro, can you?<p>Actually, I'm in the market for a new Mac, as I need to do some iPhone dev. Does anyone find the non-replaceable battery to be an issue? That seemed like a real turn-off to me.<p>Anyone have Hackintosh experience? If I have >2 cores on a Hackintosh, will OS X recognize do proper thread scheduling? How stable are Hackintosh builds?