Workstation Help!

This is what I have configured so far, from reading /r/buildapcforme on reddit and PCpartpickers forums, this looks like my best option. Anyone know anything about wireless network adapters? I went with one of the highest rated cards, which will probably be okay.

What do you guys think?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($499.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ Outlet PC)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX-2 4g Thermal Paste ($4.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: ASRock X79 Extreme6 ATX LGA2011 Motherboard ($223.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (8 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($299.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($327.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($263.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Sound Card: Asus Xonar DG 24-bit 96 KHz Sound Card ($27.99 @ NCIX US)
Wired Network Adapter: Intel EXPI9301CTBLK 10/100/1000 Mbps PCI-Express x1 Network Adapter ($28.63 @ NCIX US)
Wireless Network Adapter: Linksys AE3000 802.11a/b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter ($48.91 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($74.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair Professional 750W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.98 @ Outlet PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($88.98 @ Outlet PC)
Monitor: Asus VG248QE 144Hz 24.0" Monitor ($249.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $2383.34
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-06-28 14:35 EDT-0400)

Looks Solid.

Get rid of the sound card and the wired network adapter - both of those are built onto the motherboard. You can also get an internal Wifi card if you want, it’ll be cheaper and better integrated than the dongle, plus usually the antennas have better performance.

IMO Windows 8 sucks, consider sticking with Windows 7 Professional 64.

If you want to get some more bang for your buck and are willing to put in some time to do the research, the 3930k can overclock pretty easily to 4.5ghz+ - if you go with a heavy duty water cooler like the H100 you can get almost all of the performance of the $1000 chip just by adding a $100 cooler.

Some benchmarks:

It’s all pretty safe these days as well, the motherboards and chip are designed to prevent themselves from doing anything bad, so you can very easily push the chip using some predetermined settings and get a big performance bump for not a lot of work. You can also torture test it and make sure it’ll be rock solid and stable for your work.

Also that monitor isn’t really a good monitor for a design professional. You really want an IPS panel that will get you the right color reproduction. Right now the best deal out there is probably these:

Monoprice (and several other vendors) are buying the grade A- (not perfect) monitors that Dell and Apple use in their $1000+ cinema displays and reselling them for fractions of the price. They’re still EXCELLENT displays and the super high DPI is fantastic…I currently use the Dell 2711U which the monoprice version has the same panel. I’d highly recommend it for something you’ll be staring at for long periods of time. The defects are also usually very limited…there might be 2 or 3 dead pixels or a small backlight uniformity issue but they’re usually only the kind of things you’d spot if they were pointed out to you or you were staring at a solid color screen. Best bang for the buck right now.

Also look into your student bookstore and see if they have software discounts. At UC we had Windows 7 there being offered for 7 bucks. Yours school may offer a similar discount.

You’re probably right, and i’m not sure if there are any compatibility issues between older programs and Windows 8. I haven’t used it yet and was going to order it just for the hell of it, so I guess I’ll stick with 7.

I’ll see what I can find for IPS panels, Thanks!

Good thinking Sain, I didn’t even think about that.

Found this IPS monitor from AOS.

From the reviews I have read, it seems like a great monitor for a great price. Fast refresh rate, good color depth (darkest darks and lightest lights are slightly off) but I think I can get over that for a $300 monitor. What would be the difference between this IPS monitor and one of the monoprice’s you suggested?

That AOC is a 1080P panel (1920x1080 resolution) the Monoprice 27" is 2560x1440 so it’s substantially more pixels and much higher DPI. Just think of it as the difference between the Pre-retina and post retina iPhone.

Technically the Monoprice is also a 10 bit (Vs 8 bit) panel for the AOC, (it has a higher ability to reproduce color) but it can’t really be taken advantage of.

Ahh I failed to even pay attention to resolution. I could have saved myself the embarrassment.

It seems like all other 2560x1440 are in the 650-1200 price range. Now I just need to search for a good deal on an appropriate monitor.

The Monoprice is probably the most reputable reseller at the moment. They also have the same monitors coming from Microcenter, and Ebay under the names Catleap, Crossover, Achevia etc. Some vendors will let you pay more for the a monitor with no flawed pixels (AKA they open the box, check to see if theres any pixel issues then seal it back up) - but the monitor is so high res it’s very difficult to spot a bad pixel in normal use.

The other main differences are whether or not they have anti glare coating or glossy finish (personal preference, I prefer matte but many people think glossy “looks” better as long as you don’t have any awkward lighting in your environment) also some have more inputs than others, the cheaper ones just have a barebones DVI connection and that’s it. More expensive ones will have HDMI, displayport, etc.

I may go with Dell’s U2713HM. It seems like the best entry IPS monitor and is getting excellent ratings all across the board. The Asus PB278Q also looks like a great monitor, and is 100 bucks cheaper, but doesn’t have the color presets or USB ports. Hmm…

Can’t go wrong with the Ultrasharps if you’ve got the cash. I’ve run only Ultrasharps since 2002 and never looked back. One thing to keep in mind though is the U2713HM is actually a lower end panel but it does have the resolution, just not the color output. Great for CAD, not quite as good for photo editing or any color sensitive work. The U2711 which has been on sale quite a bit lately for the same price range:

http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/97672/dell-home-office-27-dell-ultrasharp-u2711-sips-2560x1440-lcd-monitor-w-premiercolor

$450 off coupon code (not positive if it’s still valid)

Damn, that’s cheap!
I’m not too worried about color, as I use my MBP for all my imaging work.

I’m finding myself in a similar situation…

This is going to be a totally new machine probably from Dell or HP, or someplace you guys would recommend over those. I’m not doing a scratch build. It’s company money but I don’t want to spend where it unnecessary.

I use Alias Studiotools, Solidworks, Keyshot, plus Adobe stuff daily.

-16gb of ram seems fine
-I’ll probably get a boot SSD and a big 2nd HDD

-Is a Xeon set up(dual or single) worth it over an i7 proc set up? Should I aim for more cores, or higher clock speed? or both?

-I have dual nvidia GTX 280 video cards right now and they seem to run everything fine. Are the quadro cards worth investing in? I don’t really really want to fuss with video drivers too much.

Brett,

16GB is plenty and easy to upgrade.
-SSD is a must these days. It’s the #1 speed improvement you’ll get on a computer. SSD prices are also cheap enough to get a 256 gig drive and use it for your working files as well. Will help considerably when saving big files. You can always move them to an archive folder on the HDD when needed.

-For rendering, cores over clock. For day to day usage, it’s the opposite - fastest clock speed since all those other tools are only single threaded for most tasks . If renderings is a major time sink and huge part of your workflow, opt for as many cores as you can afford. If rendering is an occasional thing and most of your renderings finish in a few minutes (like most Keyshot renderings will on a quad core I7) then optimize for a 4770k and save the money.

If you are happy with your current GTX setup then don’t worry about upgrading to a Quadro. But the 200 series cards are pretty dated, so an upgrade to something like the 760 (or even an older 660) would help.

cool thanks for that rundown Mike.

Seems like the big 3 all spec Xeon in their workstation stuff so it looks like I’ll be researching those and comparing prices for the next 3 weeks. I do a lot of keyshot rendering so I’ll look to max out cores.

Is there any advantage to dual video cards,like 2GB x2 vs a single 4-gb card?

SLI video cards are not properly supported in the vast majority of CAD apps so there’s no advantage whatsoever to running SLI. In fact I’d highly recommend against it since SLI tends to be more unstable.

2 GB is plenty of memory for CAD as well unless you were running a real time renderer like Shot or Showcase. Even then 2GB is a lot. Big memory is good for super high res textures used in modern games but other then that it’s just a waste.

ok, that’s good to know too. Thanks a lot for your input.

Hi all,
I want to piggy back on this thread with another question. I’m looking to build a desktop workstation on a tight budget. The idea is to start with a good foundation that I can upgrade over time. Would it be ok to run some 3D software on an integrated chipset to start? Is there a baseline you guys would recommend? i5 vs i7?

How “Tight” is your budget?

If you can live with slower rendering times an I5 is fine. The 3570k is a great CPU all around, it just won’t render as quickly as an 8 threaded I7.

I would not try to run any 3D software on an integrated chip. Get a cheap used dedicated GPU and go from there. You can get something like a used GTX 460 for like $50 these days.

At my company we use Dell boxes, they have been completely reliable. Still using box #1, 8 years old.

The laptops are Dell as well, 15" M4500, retrofitted with 128Gb SSD’s for programs, standard 500Gb HDD for files. 3 SSD’s failed from3 months to 1.5 years use, no HDD failures. Fortunately, the SSD’s had a 3 year warranty so were replaced, but the downtime and the time to bring the laptops back to life was uncomfortable (including having to explain the issue to Adobe and Solidworks to properly initialize software licenses). Besides the dying SSD issue, the Dell laptops are stellar performers, but heavy. Overall, we have not found noticeable performance enhancement with SSD during application use. Loading software and performing upgrades is unbelievably fast.

A workstation for a Modern Man:

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73930K
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 140mm and 120mm SSO CPU Cooler
Case Fans: 3 x Noctua NF-P14 FLX 140mm Case cooler
Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Memory: Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
Storage: ATA KINGSTON SVP200S SCSI Disk Device 2.5" Solid State Disk
Storage: Western Digital WD Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: PNY VCQ600-PB Quadro 600 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Low Profile Workstation Video Card
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX850 (CMPSU-850AX) 850W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full …
Optical Drive: LITE-ON DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM



Peripherals:

Monitor 1 : ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED Black 27" Full HD HDMI LED BackLight LCD Monitor w/Speakers
Monitor 2: ViewSonic VX2450wm-LED Black 24" (23.6" Vis) LED Backlight LCD monitor

Keyboard: Apple USB Keyboard
Mouse: Microsoft SideWinder Mouse
3D Nav: 3Dconnexion 3DX-700028 Silver/Black 2 Buttons USB Optical SpaceNavigator SE
Graphic tablet: WACOM Intuos5 Touch PTH850 Large Pen Tablet
Webcam: Logitech C920 USB 2.0 certified (USB 3.0 ready) HD Pro Webcam

External storage 1: LaCie 1TB USB 2.0 7200RPM Desktop External Hard Drive - Design by Neil Poulton
External storage 2: Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex USB 3.0 500GB Portable External Hard Drive HDD Black

Printer/Scanner: HP Photosmart 7520 Series

UPS: APC BR1300G 1300 VA 780 Watts 10 Outlets Power Saving Back-UPS Pro 1300