A cheap workstation

[Valentino_6]

Dear all, I need to buy a new pc for my startup but like many start-ups We don't have many money. I will use fundamentally for photoshop use and MATLAB, plus normal office use. My budget it is 500$ and I found several used Xeon workstations on ebay, probably they are bit old but they have a lot of RAM and some are also dual processors. It is a good idea? or is better to buy a low budget new pc? I would just an opinion because I am bit worried about the release date of some Xeon that I found (app 2010-12), but I'm fascinated by the cache of some xeons

 

[WorldGuinessComments]

I dont know what is matlab and photoshop requires 2gb ram and 2gb vram afaik.Just wanna say i had alot of trouble in gaming with a workstation,some moderators are tired of me spamming threads but...nothing i can do...If you wanna use it for gaming-Big NO

 

[Atomicdonut17]

We'd be talking Beckton/Nehalem MA, LGA1567. Honestly, to find all this, I had to look it up- I'm no expert, but I've at least got a pretty general idea of architecture terminology. I'd never even heard of Nehalem. >.>

Anyhow, what's the core count of those Xeons? Specific model?

 

[WorldGuinessComments]

In case you want to change parts i dont think its gonna be easy for you in your workstation

 

[Atomicdonut17]

I dont know what is matlab and photoshop requires 2gb ram and 2gb vram afaik.Just wanna say i had alot of trouble in gaming with a workstation,some moderators are tired of me spamming threads but...nothing i can do...If you wanna use it for gaming-Big NO

He wasn't asking about a gaming rig, that would be a totally different question. He's asking about the viability of an old Nehalem-based Xeon workstation. You don't (or you shouldn't) be gaming on a dual-processor server system. Most games will only detect one processor, and even with 4/6/8 cores, on a 2010/2011 processor, you'll find challenges.

And, no offense, but I can understand the moderators being frustrated with spamming of threads. Unrelated questions in a generally empty thread tends to make you unpopular.

 

[WorldGuinessComments]

I dont know what is matlab and photoshop requires 2gb ram and 2gb vram afaik.Just wanna say i had alot of trouble in gaming with a workstation,some moderators are tired of me spamming threads but...nothing i can do...If you wanna use it for gaming-Big NO

He wasn't asking about a gaming rig, that would be a totally different question. He's asking about the viability of an old Nehalem-based Xeon workstation. You don't (or you shouldn't) be gaming on a dual-processor server system. Most games will only detect one processor, and even with 4/6/8 cores, on a 2010/2011 processor, you'll find challenges.

And, no offense, but I can understand the moderators being frustrated with spamming of threads. Unrelated questions in a generally empty thread tends to make you unpopular.

I can understand it too.Im an asshole.At least i was.

 

[boosted1g]

Your Socket 1567 Workstation is from 2010 and its desktop geneartion equivilent would be the first gen i5. This is still failry old and not a good buy.

Something like this would be far far better:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T5600-Workstation-Intel-Xeon-E5-2620-2-0Ghz-8GB-1TB-DVD-Win-7-Pro-/302300162720?hash=item46627e6aa0:g:XB8AAOSw-3FZBS8G

Then just add a 16gb ram kit for 24gb of ram with your remianing $100.
That is a 6 core 12 thread Xeon CPU from sandy bridge/ivy bridge era that made large improvements over previous generation.
For your budget range this is the pretty much the best you can expect to find

 

[dudeman509]

We still have an old server running dual Nehalem 4-core Xeons used for productivity and many users on-board (ArcGIS, Photoshop, etc).

It's very slow and I cannot wait until the new one's on board. I would also +1 the Sandy Bridge or newer era E5 Xeon CPUs as the base platform.

 

[boosted1g]

In case you want to change parts i dont think its gonna be easy for you in your workstation

A workstation is just like a regular desktop except server grade parts.
You ran replace ram just the same as you can in a desktop board, add a GPU, add-on cards, hard drives or anything else.
Only difference is that you have to be more specific about ECC or non-ECC and buffered vs unbuffered for memory.

The only other factor that has nothing to do with being a workstation, just with being an OEM computer is upgradeability.
Dell and HP like to use proprietary parts so dont be surprised when an off the shelf PSU wont work, or your motherboard has some proprietary port to connect to your case, etc.

 

[Valentino_6]

I found these on ebay in EU:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Z600-QUAD-Core-dual-cpu-XEON-x5560-WORKSTATION-500gb-12GB-RAM-NVS295-/162500212704?hash=item25d5c477e0:g:K4wAAOSwuMZZCIXl

http://www.ebay.it/itm/HP-Z600-CAD-Workstation-2-x-Xeon-E5620-Nvidia-Quadro-2000-Ram-24GB-SSD-256-GB-/251641590418?hash=item3a9701f292:g:dnoAAOSw~bFWP9A7

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Precision-T3500-Workstation-Xeon-3-06Ghz-12GB-128-GB-SSD-2TB-Win-10-64Bit/192109981580?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D43782%26meid%3D9c1aa10203234d8891c031b2812efcf1%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D162500212704

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-PRECISION-T3500-XEON-W3505-DUAL-SCREEN-1TB-32GB-RAM-WINDOWS-7-OR-10-/222405235583?hash=item33c862937f:g:rvIAAOSwIWVY-JoD

What do you think? What do you quote?

 

[artk2219]

Dear all, I need to buy a new pc for my startup but like many start-ups We don't have many money. I will use fundamentally for photoshop use and MATLAB, plus normal office use. My budget it is 500$ and I found several used Xeon workstations on ebay, probably they are bit old but they have a lot of RAM and some are also dual processors. It is a good idea? or is better to buy a low budget new pc? I would just an opinion because I am bit worried about the release date of some Xeon that I found (app 2010-12), but I'm fascinated by the cache of some xeons

Where are you based by the way? US, Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, Australia, ETC?

 

[boosted1g]

I found these on ebay in EU:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Z600-QUAD-Core-dual-cpu-XEON-x5560-WORKSTATION-500gb-12GB-RAM-NVS295-/162500212704?hash=item25d5c477e0:g:K4wAAOSwuMZZCIXl

http://www.ebay.it/itm/HP-Z600-CAD-Workstation-2-x-Xeon-E5620-Nvidia-Quadro-2000-Ram-24GB-SSD-256-GB-/251641590418?hash=item3a9701f292:g:dnoAAOSw~bFWP9A7

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Precision-T3500-Workstation-Xeon-3-06Ghz-12GB-128-GB-SSD-2TB-Win-10-64Bit/192109981580?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D43782%26meid%3D9c1aa10203234d8891c031b2812efcf1%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D162500212704

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-PRECISION-T3500-XEON-W3505-DUAL-SCREEN-1TB-32GB-RAM-WINDOWS-7-OR-10-/222405235583?hash=item33c862937f:g:rvIAAOSwIWVY-JoD

What do you think? What do you quote?

Out of the 4 the 2nd HP with 2x5560 is the best but still based off of old 1366 socket.
Found a few decent priced dell precisions even with 2x2620, but they are not in UK./Europe.
This would be really good if didnt require internetaional shipping from USA: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-T5600-Workstation-2x-Xeon-E5-2620-2-0GHz-4GB-250GB-Win-7-Pro-1-Yr-Wty-/201898860249?hash=item2f021c1ed9:g:VAYAAOSwWWxY-NBU

The 2620 is quite a bit strong of a CPU so a single 2620 (with 6 cores and 8 threads can compute at about the same speed as 2x5560s