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I keep deploying computing projects to mini-pc's and raspberry-pi's. Things like my local weather station and hive witness server and sometimes I feel like it should all be centralized on one server. It would make backups easy and having snapshots would be really nice. Also easy to monitor their resource usage and easily add more or less when needed.

Being able to spin up instances instead of deploying hardware for every environment is something I want to have. I think I will keep it simple at first, but if I could do GPU and high CPU projects like BOINC with Einstein@home and CUDA projects that is something to work toward. Though I may need to save those things for bare metal.. we shall see.. I could at least benchmark them on this and then try again on slightly older hardware but at least it would run without virtualization if that is an issue.

Maybe even building a Hive API server, I can make use of all the NVME drives on this build.

https://i.postimg.cc/d1kpr7V1/20250512-135610.jpg

### Build list:

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16 core / 32 Thread Processor 5.7GHz Max Boost / 4.5 GHz Base
Gigabyte B650 AM5 motherboard
Crucial 2x 64GB Kit (4x 32GB) DDR5-5600 128GB total
Corsair RM850x fully modular power supply
Cooler Master N400 mid tower case
Peerless Assassin 120 SE CPU cooler
2x 4TB SSDs 870EVO
1x 2TB WD Black SN770
2x 512GB NVME
2x 6TB HDD



https://i.postimg.cc/kXdzRg3J/20250512-135630.jpg

Since I am using a new CPU architecture (AM5) it requires DDR5 memory.  

https://i.postimg.cc/DfGRzbNp/20250512-135643.jpg

Not the newest CPU but pretty close, with all its cores it should make some good virtual environments.

https://i.postimg.cc/SxSPV1xH/20250512-135702.jpg

We can see on the case where everything can be placed. 

https://i.postimg.cc/bNHMxfpQ/20250512-135711.jpg

Since the CPU does not come with a cooler, I had to buy one.


https://i.postimg.cc/8cdymLQ1/20250512-142017.jpg

The power supply should handle whatever I throw at it.. When I start doing more CPU and GPU intensive projects it should be ready. Though I may need bare metal for those projects.. but worth a try.

https://i.postimg.cc/3r2bhQyP/20250512-143729.jpg

Getting the PSU mounted and the modular connections made to the power supply.

https://i.postimg.cc/X73171dX/20250512-150003.jpg

Time to place the processor into the motherboard.


https://i.postimg.cc/y8pLjV5S/20250512-153933.jpg

That CPU heatsink barely fits in the care.. Had to move the fans upwards a little just to fit by the mosfet coolers.

https://i.postimg.cc/yNwvqL71/20250512-160412.jpg

Maybe I should have gone with a full tower case, my video card will not fit in the upper primary PCI-E slot due to my 3.5" hard drives where they are currently. I may need to relocate them to the bottom of the case to fit. Otherwise I cannot fit a CUDA compatible video card inside.

https://i.postimg.cc/Y07R0j4T/20250512-212439.jpg

Just to get it running I popped in one of my smaller video cards. But I should go back and rearrange the case fan and drives to fit at the bottom of the case. So the video card as full clearance to fit in the main PCI-E slot.

https://i.postimg.cc/wx5FP5Zz/20250512-212649.jpg

When I bought this motherboard I did not know it has three NVME m.2 slots.. very cool! I expected just one. So I opened up one of my mini computers that used to run an enviroment and took out the two 512GB drives.. should be useful in this server.

https://i.postimg.cc/PrtKkpnw/20250513-171313.jpg

There we go.. got 2TB+512GB+512GB setup. Plus I have 2x 4TB SSD and 2x 6TB HDDs.


https://i.postimg.cc/Jz0qGfn7/20250514-214435.jpg

All put together ready to use.

https://i.postimg.cc/bww61G6h/20250512-150123.jpg

One of the memory sticks is defective, so unfortunately I will not get the full speed or power out of the memory in the system. Now I have 96GB of RAM running at DDR5-3600 which is not ideal. Compared to the 128GB DDR5-5600 it should be.

https://i.postimg.cc/Ghqrxyj3/ezgif-69b6dd7a998cc9.gif

memtesting the remaining three sticks for a short time.. Should probably let it run over 24h to really make sure the RAM is good.

Once the memory tests fine, I will start sending operating system ISOs over there and start the process of importing VMs and building new ones. Using Promox all of that will be possible. Now I just need to take the time to get it all setup.

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