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Lydie
ℒӱḏɩę 💾☮∞🎶♲☀🔋 @Lydie@tech.lgbt · Jul 13, 2026

An update on my triple 2080ti on DDR3 local solar powered AI server. It's impressive for its age and the fact that I built it for $700 plus a bunch of old crap. Combined forces of older hardware works!

I've got Hermes Agent running, the LLM is Qwen3.6-35B. Hermes has read-only access to my Google Workspace (for good reason!).

The LLM can push 550w+ across the 3x 2080ti GPUs. 33GB of VRAM allows big model and big context - Home Assistant works so nicely with a big LLM.

I want to drop in a Xeon E5-1680 v2 CPU, but that's about it for hardware.

Spec list:

  • Intel Core i7-3930K CPU
  • Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5 Motherboard
  • 64GB DDR3 RAM (8 x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-1600C9D-16GXM)
  • 3 x NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Blower Edition GPUs (33GB Total VRAM)
  • Corsair RM1000e 1000W Power Supply (Refurbished)
  • 240GB SATA SSD (OS Boot Drive)
  • 3 x 1TB SATA SSDs (AI Storage Array)
  • Advantech Industrial Computer 510 Case

#LocalAI, #SelfHosted, #Homelab, #BudgetBuild, #ComfyUI, #HardwareHacking

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Lydie
ℒӱḏɩę 💾☮∞🎶♲☀🔋 @Lydie@tech.lgbt · Jul 06, 2026

Local solar powered AI server build log:

07-06-2026: Assembled the core components for the first time. Had to update BIOS to make the 2080 ti work in this old board. Waiting for a couple odds and ends to arrive tomorrow, then I can button it up and begin the software work.

Current spec list:

  • Intel Core i7-3930K CPU
  • Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5 Motherboard
  • 64GB DDR3 RAM (8 x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-1600C9D-16GXM)
  • 3 x NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Blower Edition GPUs (33GB Total VRAM)
  • Corsair RM1000e 1000W Power Supply (Refurbished)
  • 240GB SATA SSD (OS Boot Drive)
  • 3 x 1TB SATA SSDs (AI Storage Array)
  • Advantech Industrial Computer 510 Case

#LocalAI, #SelfHosted, #Homelab, #BudgetBuild, #ComfyUI, #HardwareHacking

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Lydie
ℒӱḏɩę 💾☮∞🎶♲☀🔋 @Lydie@tech.lgbt · Jun 30, 2026
Junk-box local AI server build log: -Purchased 2 more 2080 Ti GPUs -Industrial Chassis in hand -32GB DDR3 in hand -Mobo+CPU+PSU ordered. -Intel Core i7-3930K (6 Cores / 12 Threads) -Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5 (LGA 2011 Socket) -32GB DDR3 (4 x 8GB Sticks, configured for Quad-Channel) -3 x nVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Blower Edition (11GB each / 33GB Total VRAM) -Rosewill 80-Gold 1000W Power Supply -Multiple SATA SSDs (RAID 0) -Advantech Industrial Chassis -Operating System: Ubuntu Linux 24.04 LTS -Text Generation Frontend: Text Generation WebUI (Oobabooga) -LLM Engine Backend: ExLlamaV2 (EXL2 model format) -Image Generation Platform: ComfyUI -Multi-GPU Orchestration: ComfyUI-MultiGPU (DisTorch 2.0) -Networking & Remote Access: NetBird VPN (WireGuard) #LocalAI, #SelfHosted, #Homelab, #BudgetBuild, #ComfyUI, #HardwareHacking
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Lydie
ℒӱḏɩę 💾☮∞🎶♲☀🔋 @Lydie@tech.lgbt · Jun 29, 2026
OK so here’s my evil plan for a junk-box local AI server built from ancient DDR3 era hardware and crap I have laying around. I am stacking three blower RTX 2080 Tis for the 33GB of VRAM (I already have one in hand). I scored an Intel Core i7-3930K and X79 motherboard on eBay for ~$100 bucks and I already have 32GB DDR3 RAM that I'll thief from my old FX8350 rig. A 1000W PSU will power it, I'll power limit the GPUs. This Win10+AMD+Ollama girl will be jumping head first into Linux, Intel, nVidia, GPU stacks, and will run ExLlamaV2 via Oobabooga. For diffusion I am using ComfyUI. Hell I’m even striping junkbox SATA SSDs into a RAID 0 array. Then I'll use NetBird to access my secure solar powered local AI from anywhere. $650 spent; local AI frankenserver coming soon...stay tuned! #LocalAI, #SelfHosted, #Homelab, #BudgetBuild, #ComfyUI, #HardwareHacking
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