How to build a deep learning GPU workstation while saving $1500?

3 min readDec 19, 2021

Companies like Lambda, Bizon, Digital Storm offer pre-built deep learning GPU rigs that are often more expensive than building the rig from scratch. However, the upside of purchase from these companies is the support and pre-built software stack you receive, but if you don’t need those, building the rig from scratch saves you money. In this blog post, we aim to build the same Vector GPU workstation but $1500 cheaper! The workstation is customizable so for clarity, the following is its exact specification:

The Vector rig from Lambda labs we’d like to build from scratch. As we see, the pre-tax price of this machine is $7630 on 12/04/2021 which is $1513 higher than what we paid Newegg.com for all the pieces.

The price of each hardware piece is listed below:

Hardware piece pre-tax prices on Newegg.com purchased on 12/04/2021.

The following is the list of hardware pieces purchased with the link to the Newegg product page. The assembly instructions are also described below.

Install the power supply on the computer case. The cable management and packing of the wires are crucial here as the PSU has lots of power wires.

Install the motherboard on the computer case. Don’t forget to attach the port plate before installing.
Install the CPU on the motherboard. Don’t touch the pins and make sure there is no dirt. Apply the thermal paste on top of the chip.
Attach the CPU cooler to the CPU
Install both GPUs on the motherboard

Install the NVMe SSD on the motherboard
Install all four RAMs on the motherboard
Connect all the power cables and computer case cables such as the front power button and USB ports.

Notes:

If you are building a 4-GPU rig, as each GPU takes about 250–350W, you need to make sure total power is supported by your PSU and outlet.
Make sure the inside temperature is good by reading the temperatures of the motherboard, CPU, and GPU.

Photos during the build: