[seanp2k2]

Yep, and ECC RAM starts getting pretty important >8GB if you value stability. Workstations depreciate like bricks typically, so a last-gen system can be had for a song if many cores if what you're after. A short while back, some Xeon engineering samples were flooding eBay and were a better deal per-core than whatever the latest i7s were at the time. I forget the model number.

[JTenerife]

I'm running 32 GB Ram for 5 years without the siltiest stability issue. ECC is probably for really, really big machines 128 GB up or overall an overrated myth.

[patates]

Yeah, me too. I think if one needs the RAM for running VMs (so, not doing ZFS or running Prod databases), paying extra for an ECC enabled architecture isn't the greatest investment.

[jamessb]

Probably the Xeon E5-2630 v4 [1], discussed previously [2].

[1]: http://www.techspot.com/review/1218-affordable-40-thread-xeo...

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12249317

[wbl]

The Colluseum is still standing with 2,000 year old bricks. They don't depreciate that fast.