$50 for ram and <$100 on storage for a HDD or $200 for a small SSD. Bulk prices would take that down by probably 10-20% today so you could probably do this for $300 today. I believe Dell is selling systems like this as private integrations just not retail, I'd imagine their costs are substantially lower.
Bump the CPU to a 330 or whatever, bump the ram sure but you're still talking $300 when a normal 1U HP server is <$1k list and is vastly more bang for buck. The cooling and power density arguments aren't going to be very persuasive (IMO) unless the price is there as well, hence my hope for very low per-unit costs, even if there are chassis/bladecenter components as part of the package.
Supermicro 1U 230 barebones chassis is $200 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101...
$50 for ram and <$100 on storage for a HDD or $200 for a small SSD. Bulk prices would take that down by probably 10-20% today so you could probably do this for $300 today. I believe Dell is selling systems like this as private integrations just not retail, I'd imagine their costs are substantially lower.
Bump the CPU to a 330 or whatever, bump the ram sure but you're still talking $300 when a normal 1U HP server is <$1k list and is vastly more bang for buck. The cooling and power density arguments aren't going to be very persuasive (IMO) unless the price is there as well, hence my hope for very low per-unit costs, even if there are chassis/bladecenter components as part of the package.