15k budget - how would you spend it?

[XakEp]

Well, i had an unusual request cross my desk yesterday. My boss wants to start doing password auditing (among other things) and gave me a budget of 15k to build a hashcat rig. So if you were in my position, how would you spend it?

I'm guessing at some point, if this is successful we'll be adding nodes to a cluster, so would it make sense to build this initial machine with an eye towards being able to add infinistream down the road? Or will gigabit ports be good enough?

Which cards would you use? How many? Is the Tyan FT77 a good place to start, or is there something else you'd use? Water or air cooling?

Thanks for your help, I'm reading as much as I can, but if I can get some help from anyone out there, I'd be grateful!

[K9]

I'd choose the 8 x HD7970
http://hashcat.net/forum/thread-1515.html

http://hashcat.net/forum/thread-2831.html

[epixoip]

search through the hardware forum, we cover this a lot but the ft77 is definitely a great place to start, either with 8x 7970 or 4x 7990. and i'd absolutely avoid water cooling. also, i just sent you a pm.

[mastercracker]

search through the hardware forum, we cover this a lot but the ft77 is definitely a great place to start, either with 8x 7970 or 4x 7990. and i'd absolutely avoid water cooling. also, i just sent you a pm.

I think that with the same request asked over and over, it would be worthwhile to post the specs and pictures of some of your builds and put it as a "sticky"/"important thread" or whatever would stay at the top of the hardware section.

[epixoip]

there's a complicated reason for why i haven't done that, but the simple answer is, i have a financial motivation not to do so, and it would be inappropriate for me to advertise on these forums.