Guides & Build Templates
Curated builds and deep dives across every server class
Running AI Locally: A Beginner's Guide
VRAM requirements, GPU recommendations, quantization explained, and the best free software to get your first model running today.
The $5,000 Home AI Server
4× RTX 4090 on a Threadripper PRO platform. 96GB VRAM for running 70B+ models locally.
EPYC-Based Fine-Tuning Station
Dual A100 PCIe on an EPYC 9374F. ECC DDR5, NVMe RAID, redundant PSUs.
TrueNAS Scale Home NAS
12-bay Supermicro chassis, HBA in IT mode, ZFS RAIDZ2, and 10GbE for your home network.
Budget 4-Bay NAS Starter
EPYC 9254 or Xeon w3-2423, 4× 20TB IronWolf Pro, Fractal Define 7 XL. Easy to expand.
Homelab Proxmox Cluster
3-node Threadripper PRO cluster for VMs, containers, and self-hosted apps.
Database Server with PostgreSQL
High-RAM EPYC platform, NVMe in RAID 1, ECC DDR5. Sub-ms query latency.
PCIe Lanes Explained
Why lane count matters for multi-GPU builds, and which CPUs actually have enough.
ECC RAM: Do You Need It?
Error-correcting memory, when it matters (ZFS, long training runs), and how to spec it.
InfiniBand vs 10GbE for Home Labs
When to use IB, HDR, NDR — and when gigabit ethernet is genuinely fine.