In 2014, I shared the specifications of a 6-core 64GB RAM desktop system that I purchased at around $2,000. Since then, I added NVidia Titan X to it for deep learning at additional $1,000, and it served me well.
However, as other team members started joining me on data science competitions and deep learning competitions got more popular, my team decided to build a more powerful desktop system.
The specifications of the new system that we built are as follows:
- CPU: Xeon 2.4GHz 14-Core
- RAM: 128GB DDR4-2400
- GPU: 4 NVidia 1080 Ti 11GB
- SSD: 960GB
- HDD: 4TB 7200RPM
- PSU: 1600W 80+ Titanium certified
Total cost including tax and shipping was around $7,000. Depending on the budget, you can go down to 2 (-$1,520) 1080 Ti GPU cards instead of 4, or 64GB (-$399) instead of 128GB RAM, and still have a decent system.
You can find the full part lists here.
