Is a €250 modded Dell T5810 + RTX 3090 a smart local-LLM host in 2026?
SlechteConcentratie · reddit · 2026-10-25
A developer returning to hardware after 20 years seeks EU buying advice: with an RTX 3090 24GB (€1,260) in hand, he plans to buy two modded Dell Precision T5810 workstations (€250–295 bundle) as local AI hosts for a father-son project with his sons (15 and 12).
Config & usage
- Primary: Xeon E5-2699 v4 (22C/44T), quad-channel DDR4 RDIMM (up to 256GB), 685W 80+ Gold PSU with native 2×8-pin PCIe for the 3090, 50W idle after fan mods.
- Secondary: E5-2698 v4 (20C), doubling as the kids' gaming PC and an agent sandbox/Proxmox node.
- Software: Ubuntu/Proxmox + llama.cpp + Strata (MoE CPU+GPU hybrid offload); Qwen 27B fully in the 3090 targeting 20+ tok/s; cheap DDR4 later to run a 120GB MoE model; also local processing of sensitive medical/tax PDFs, no video generation.
The post includes an exhaustive spec list (PCIe lane layout, 76.8 GB/s theoretical memory bandwidth) inviting debate on whether Broadwell-EP is wise in 2026.
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