Get as much cores as you can, use dual socket boards. You can find 12 core Xeon E5-2670V3 for about $12 on Aliexpress and dual socket X79 boards for about $75. Used ECC RAM is cheap.
Build your own boxes.
You can use Kerrighed or OpenSSI for the software side.
Wow they really cost peanuts. A bit high TDP but still...
Why is this so cheap? I always did software so my hardware knowledge is pretty basic but still this kind of chip can really offer a lot in terms of performance even now?
Yeah from what I see the perf single thread is 2x lower than the Ryzen 5500 so even with 2x the cores you get more or less the same. Just that the Ryzen has 2x lower TDP.
Still, considering it is like 4-5x times cheaper and uses a mobo with two CPUs (which saves on cost cause you don't need to build 2 boxes) this might be a good idea that I'll strongly look into. Thanks!
They’re a good value for playing around, but CPU performance has come a long way since those were released. A mid-range AMD desktop CPU could beat even a dual-socket server with two of those in most tasks, and a used 16-core AMD desktop chip will walk away from it in almost every benchmark. It will also be much quieter and consume less power while doing it.
If you’re on a shoestring budget, don’t mind hunting down and testing used parts, and power and noise aren’t an issue then those old server parts are great fun though.
Also don't forget no hardware spectre/meltdown mitigations. V2 Xeons are EOL and get no more updates or support, V3 isn't far behind. Once these go EOL (or get close), companies start dumping them.
Build your own boxes.
You can use Kerrighed or OpenSSI for the software side.