ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS + Dual Xeon E5-2697

I was scrolling eBay one night and saw a listing that made no sense — an ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS dual-socket workstation board with two Xeon E5-2697s and 256GB of DDR3 ECC. Originally listed at $230, dropped week after week down to $150. Two watchers. The RAM alone was worth more than the ask. I bought it immediately.

The plan was a poor man’s AI lab — 256GB of ECC is a lot of addressable memory, load models into system RAM and run inference off it. Slow, but it works. Grabbed a couple of cheap coolers and started planning. Then I noticed the top-left I/O corner was bent from shipping, and around the same time realized DDR3 ECC on dual E5-2697s was going to be painfully slow for inference. The novelty wore off.

So I sold the 256GB DDR3 ECC kit for $200 and put it toward the Dominus. Paid $150 for board + RAM + two CPUs, sold just the RAM for $200 — the board and both E5-2697s are sitting here essentially free. My cousin got me an IPMI module for it that’s still in a drawer. The dream is technically still alive.

ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS, dual E5-2697, bent corner, collecting dust. Might post. Only one way to find out.