What Does A $16,000+ PC Look Like, Anyway?

By Chris Angelini
published

Keeping Things Quiet

"In this case, we could run the pump at 30% speed, which is very quiet!"

An Unassuming Exterior

From this angle, it's hard to tell that there are 16 cores and 32 GB of registered DDR2-667 ECC memory inside that Cooler Master case. 

That's More Like It

From here, it's pretty easy to tell that this system is sporting something special under the hood. In addition to the components already listed, this machine also includes an Asus Xonar DX PCI Express sound card, a 3Ware 9550SX-8LP SATA 3 Gb/s RAID controller, two Western Digital 300 GB VelociRaptor hard drives in RAID 1, two 1 TB Samsung SpinPoint F1s also in RAID 1, and four 1 TB Samsung SpinPoint F1s in RAID 5.

Also seen in the front are two Pioneer 20x DVD+/-R/RW SATA drives.

Final Cost:

This particular customer ordered his machine with Windows Server 2008 Standard. Puget adds a one-year parts warranty and a lifetime labor warranty, bringing the machine's total cost to $16,338.89.

"It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."--Ferris.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
180 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bfaber
    I can't imagine what somebody would do with 16-cores in a case like that.. You'd like such configurations would be more suitable for server duty, and hence require a good rack mount...
    Reply
  • cangelini
    bfaberI can't imagine what somebody would do with 16-cores in a case like that.. You'd like such configurations would be more suitable for server duty, and hence require a good rack mount...
    Video workstation maybe? The problem with most rackmount systems is that they're bloody noisy. This thing was designed to be the exact opposite, suggesting it'd be used in an office or something.

    Who knows, maybe the new owner of that rig will stop by and tell us exactly what he's doing with it now!
    Reply
  • Opteron processors? What will the intel fanboys say? Xeons/Corei7s not up to the task?
    Reply
  • cangelini
    boknoyOpteron processors? What will the intel fanboys say? Xeons/Corei7s not up to the task?
    There are no Nehalem-based Xeons yet ;) For an application like this, AMD has the upper hand.
    Reply
  • What about the display cards??
    Reply
  • macer1
    http://media.bestofmicro.com/2/9/181521/original/PRE%20BUILD_02.JPG


    Reply
  • wildwestgoh
    There's 1 card above the PSU being bended, wonder if that's ok =)

    And, the Chasis going to be massively heavy on one side, with the already heavy mainboard + the radiator, wonder if the chasis can withstand such setup for long term.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    BloodRageWhat about the display cards??
    It's in one of the captions, too, but he ordered an 8800 GTS.
    Reply
  • palladin9479
    This isn't a workstation, its a freaking mainframe put in a large tower case modded for silent running. 16 cores and that much memory, with such a small GFX option, someone's doing some heavy virtualization. Hope he's running a flavor of LINUX on that thing.
    Reply
  • deej1977
    No no no it's for a member of the x264 release groups, he wants to encode his Blu-rays super fast and be the first at everything ;).
    Reply