Not only would it be expensive hardware-wise, but you'd also have to factor in cooling and electricity costs. Our server room runs at 68 degrees, although you have a few degrees leeway in that. So if you're planning on using multiple servers, you're also going to have to keep them in a cool room. If you're not willing to spend money on a decent A/C unit (portable window units don't count), then it's already out of your price range.

I'd agree with guyonearth, a high-end workstation is better for you. But don't get hung up on CPUs alone, there are other factors that can affect your application such as memory speeds, disk speeds, and OS configuration.

I've just ordered an Odroid U2. The Odroid has a quad core ARM chip running at 1.7GHz with 2GB of RAM for $89. 4 Odroids would give you 16 cores for much less than the cost of an Opteron chip. Power consumption would be much lower, and you wouldn't need to spend as much on cooling etc.

An Intel or AMD chip is still faster than an equivalent ARM chip.

http://snippets.khromov.se/unixbench...u2-references/

More cores do not equate to an increase in performance.

Depends on the workload, heavily multithreaded workloads can run faster on slower systems with more cores than on higher clocked systems with less cores.
With those ARM cores, using less power and being cheaper, you can pack more CPUs in a case and may be faster in specific workloads.

I see your point. Even if you adjust for clock speeds, an Intel Core i3 packs twice as much punch as an Odroid. But one reason why I'm attracted to Odroid is that I don't need to spend money on a motherboard, PC compatible PSU, case etc. And in the long run, I'll use a fraction of the electricity.

It's just a shame that Odroids only have 10/100 ethernet.

Not sure the Odroid is any better than a MK802III but neat enough products. Energy per calculation would be a very important consideration for a home user.

My issue with such a suggestion is that I don't have enough facts to decide what would be faster and cheaper. Off hand I'd think (with no data) that a dual quad core xeon or opteron would smoke any equal dollar cost Odroid device. I'd be willing to read any links to studies on it if anyone has any.

At least a 8x server is easier (I suspect) usually to program to use all cores where many of the android's would have to use some distributed way to share power.

Forgot what I was going to add.