Shopping Cart for Heavy Digital Workstation(s) Amd & Int

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 10:20 am

Hello all!

I am really busy with work and school and I have not as much time as I would like to have investigate blue prints for Heavy Duty Digital Work station (must be able to work with Photoshop, Adobe in-Design's, AutoCAD and other quite heavy digital work. They should also perform DAW work if needed.

I'd be gareteful for suggestion for AMD and Intel Setups. I hope price range can be kept something sensible. Like $1,500 max each. Just the parts. No OS; monitors or similar need to count in.

I was thinking in the line Quad core with 4-8 GB RAM and perhaps Some RAID set-up for data security.

I plan to use these blue prints I can gather with your help to create two work station one AMD and one Intel for my graduation work or at least get shopping cart for both.

Thank you all. Opinions, suggestions and such are always welcome.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Wed Mar 10, 2010 8:42 pm

IÃ¤ve gathered some sort of Intel shopping cart:

1x SAMSUNG DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223L LightScribe Support

1x Antec P183 Black Aluminum / Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

2x Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5

1x CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

1x Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

1x CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C9

1x ASUS P7P55D LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

1x Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80605I7860

3x Scythe GentleTyphoon D1225C12B3AP-13 120mm Case Fan

1x Noctua NH-U12P SE2 120mm SSO CPU Cooler

Total is around $1170

But what HDD would be good for OS? I would use WD's as Raid for data protection. Would SSD be any viable option? Not sure of VGA card. nVidia's GTS 250/260 might be good of CUDA would be used, that is uncertain though.

eddieck · Post by **eddieck** » Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:31 pm

thejamppa wrote:2x Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5

I don't think Caviar Blacks are well liked here. I have one and it is far from silent. (My old 24" iMac was quieter than the Black itself.)

thejamppa wrote:1x CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

Overkill.

thejamppa wrote:1x Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

Old. Doesn't perform very well by today's standards. The best is Indigo Xtreme and that's $20 for 2 applications (it's not a standard paste); the best price/performance is probably MX-2 or IC Diamond and that's somewhere around the price of AS5.

thejamppa wrote:1x ASUS P7P55D LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

I've no idea why, with a budget of $1500, you are considering the P55 platform. The X58 platform is more future-proof as it'll support the upcoming 6-core Gulftown chips, offers triple channel RAM, and more PCI Express lanes which could be useful if you add more VGA cards (if you are indeed going to use CUDA).

thejamppa wrote:3x Scythe GentleTyphoon D1225C12B3AP-13 120mm Case Fan

I've never used these but I've heard they have an annoying bearing noise because of the ball bearing. They are optimized more for static pressure than airflow and are more for heatsinks or radiators. Generally, you want to use the Nexus fans for static pressure applications (heatsinks, radiators) and Slip Streams for case fans.

thejamppa wrote:1x Noctua NH-U12P SE2 120mm SSO CPU Cooler

For that price you can get a Megahalems and a Nexus fan which will perform better.

I'll come up with a parts list later and respond back.

b_rubenstein · Post by **b_rubenstein** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 6:59 am

eddieck wrote: I've never used these but I've heard they have an annoying bearing noise because of the ball bearing. They are optimized more for static pressure than airflow and are more for heatsinks or radiators.

I actually have one of these fans: they don't have ball bearings and unless the fan has been damaged have very quiet bearings and are very quiet fans.

They also work extremely well as case fans. A case is not free air and presents a static load to a fan.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 7:38 pm

This is not something I'll build for myself. This is something that is build for company. The specs are bit unclear. Like said I don't have much time to dig-up this things atm so I am looking advice.

GT's are robust and will last long and their noise character is hard to detect in my experience.

WD blacks are not most silent HDD's there are, I grant but they are also very robust reliable. One reason I'd choose them for company use.

Workstation should be quiet enough for the working environment of company. Air Cooling makes it slightly easier as there is dark smooth air flow noise in background helping covering the computer noise. Not Ideal if they ever use it for DAW, I grant.

Jay_S · Post by **Jay_S** » Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:32 am

thejamppa wrote:This is not something I'll build for myself. This is something that is build for company.

As much as I love researching parts, spec-ing builds and building, as soon as someone asks for build advice for a coporate setting, I say stop. DIY in a corp environment may seem like a cost-saver, but all support falls on your shoulders and this can cost a fortune. You can certainly build a superior workstation for less than the price of a Dell Precision or equivalent HP. But, the real value there is the warranty. Basic 3-year next-business-day is often the standard warranty at the workstation level. Being able to get free replacement parts in a day is really valuable.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:44 am

Jay_S wrote:
thejamppa wrote:This is not something I'll build for myself. This is something that is build for company.
As much as I love researching parts, spec-ing builds and building, as soon as someone asks for build advice for a coporate setting, I say stop. DIY in a corp environment may seem like a cost-saver, but all support falls on your shoulders and this can cost a fortune. You can certainly build a superior workstation for less than the price of a Dell Precision or equivalent HP. But, the real value there is the warranty. Basic 3-year next-business-day is often the standard warranty at the workstation level. Being able to get free replacement parts in a day is really valuable.

True in warranty, but none of the current solutions they can have can really meet the needs of single powerful Workstation from HP or Dell that they can place in their price range. This shop cart is intend to give them a blue print for their purchase locale shops that build specific computer's and also take care of warranties as whole. This arrangement is done so they can get free consultation with people up to date knowledge of current hardware and I can have study points. As sad as it sounds their IT person has last time build P4 machine and last years have been gone maintaining current systems without time to spare upgrading the knowledge as needed.