alt Hacker News> $4,000 isn't priced insanely? ye gads
It depends.
My bicycle was in the 5-digits brand new (now I paid it 1/5th of that and I do thank the first owner for that: the 8 000 out of 10 K I saved were put into stocks, that's his opportunity cost, not mine).
Or I know a great many a going to cry "audiofool", but I can say with certainty the following does sound better than the stereo setup of those crying audiofool:
(not my setup but I've got those speakers: same thing, 15 K EUR brand new for the pair... Previous owner forked the money to buy these brand new and, well, I didn't... And I just hooked them to a wonderful, cheap, fully-integrated Yamaha amp: amazing sound).
If your hobby is DIY job around the house, the cost of tools can very quickly add up too: having 20 K worth of tools is definitely not unthinkable.
You like old cars? Pricey hobby.
Some here even track their cars: tires and brake pads budget (and overall car budget and depreciation)... Through the roof.
There's a saying that you're not really into computers if your setup doesn't cost more than your car.
Is $16 K ($4 K x 4) a lot? It's six months of rent for me and for many here I'm sure. It's not "crazy crazy".
Can anyone afford that? Definitely not. But there are way more insane things out there.
And thanks to the individuals that go through to all the pain of setting those up, we've got feedback, tutorials, explanation, numbers, etc. as to how to run those at home.
For example I helped my brother set up VMs and GPU passthrough and he's now running uncensored models locally and showing me the different answers between the uncensored models and the commercial, censored, ones.
So to GP who bought four of these: we need more people like you on HN, keep it going, blog about it, be "crazy"!