BestConfigs Poll - High-End Workstation

[jpishgar]

It's time to vote on your favorite build for this category!
Please see below for a list of the choices available.

g-unit1111

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($569.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Swiftech H220 55.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($150.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus P9X79-E WS SSI CEB LGA2011 Motherboard ($508.94 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin Redline 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($299.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: OCZ Vector Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($259.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: ATI FirePro V7900 2GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($630.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: ATI FirePro V7900 2GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($630.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Silverstone TJ11B-W ATX Full Tower Case ($599.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G2 1000W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($207.04 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $3966.85
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-06 19:13 EDT-0400)

jinayhvora

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($569.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($74.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4 ATX LGA2011 Motherboard ($248.49 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($311.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($223.68 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($223.68 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($367.18 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PNY Quadro 5000 2.5GB Video Card ($1636.97 @ Amazon)
Case: Cooler Master Storm Stryker (White) ATX Full Tower Case ($169.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Professional Gold 850W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($171.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $3990.93
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-07 10:28 EDT-0400)

Cerunnos

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($569.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 CPU Cooler ($69.95 @ Amazon)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX4 4g Thermal Paste ($9.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 WS SSI CEB LGA2011 Motherboard ($362.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($319.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Corsair Neutron Series GTX 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($219.99 @ Newegg) [ Boot - RAID1 on Intel X79 (SATA-III) ]
Storage: Corsair Neutron Series GTX 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($219.99 @ Newegg) [ Boot - RAID1 on Intel X79 (SATA-III) ]
Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($104.99 @ Amazon) [ Storage - RAID10 on Adaptec in Hotswap Bay ]
Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($104.99 @ Amazon) [ Storage - RAID10 on Adaptec in Hotswap Bay ]
Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($104.99 @ Amazon) [ Storage - RAID10 on Adaptec in Hotswap Bay ]
Storage: Western Digital Red 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($104.99 @ Amazon) [ Storage - RAID10 on Adaptec in Hotswap Bay ]
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ Newegg) [ Scratch Disk on Intel X79 (SATA-II) ]
Video Card: AMD FirePro W7000 4GB GDDR5 4DisplayPort PCI-Express Workstation Graphics Card 100-505634 ($678.27 @ Amazon)
Sound Card: Creative Labs ZXR 24-bit 192 Hz Sound Card ($209.98 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair Obsidian Series 800D ATX Full Tower Case ($209.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair 860W 80 PLUS Platinum Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($178.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($52.00 @ Newegg)
Other: Adaptec RAID 6405 2271100-R 6Gb/s SATA/SAS 4 internal ports w/512MB cache memory Controller Card, Kit ($389.99 @ Newegg)
Other: Rosewill RX-C200P 2.5" SSD / HDD Plastic Mounting Kit for 3.5" Drive Bay ($5.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $3993.03
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-07 09:59 EDT-0400)

guchaochen

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2620 v2 Ivy Bridge-EP 2.1GHz 15MB L3 Cache LGA 2011 80W Six-Core Server Processor BX80635E52620V2*2 ($439.99*2=$879.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Dynatron R24 40.5 CFM Ball Bearing CPU Cooler*2 ($32.99*2=$65.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X9DR3-F-O Extended ATX Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 DDR3 1600 ($449.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Server Memory DR x4 Model KVR16R11D4K4/32 ($389.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M500 960GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($547.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: NVIDIA® Quadro® K4000 VCQK4000-PB 3GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Workstation Video Card ($764.99 @ Newegg)
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD 24-bit 96 KHz Sound Card ($149.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Lian-Li PC-A75 ATX Full Tower Case ($184.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1200W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($207.90 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-208DBK Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($57.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-208DBK Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($57.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $3997.75
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-04 17:40 EDT-0400)

sadams04

Processor: 2 x Xeon E5-2630 v2 Ivy Bridge-EP - $650 / $1300
Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-X9DR3-F-O Dual LGA 2011 - $450
CPU Coolers: 2 x Dynatron R25 80mm Narrow Type - $35 / $75
RAM: 4 x Crucial 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 ECC CL9 1.5v - $106 / $424
Graphics Card: AMD FirePro W7000 4GB - $680
Boot / OS: 2 x Samsung 840 Pro 256GB - $247 / $494
Hard Drive: 2 x Seagate 2TB 7200RPM - $100 / $200
Optical: LG 16x BD-RW - $80
Case: NZXT Phantom Full Tower - $120
Power Supply: Seasonic SS-760XP2 Platinum - $170
Total: $3993

 

[junglefish]

I instantly downrank the i7 builds, despite more bang per buck. With a workstation _stability_ is a priority, which is what Xeon excels at. ECC RAM and procs that don't burn up under load means less opportunity for crashing and reduced chance of a dead PC the day before a big deadline. One fatal crash at the wrong moment can mean massive loss of revenue.

 

[Shneiky]

I will analyze this from a viewpoint of a 3D / VisualFX stand point of view.
So basically the battle is between jinayhvora and guchaochen.

jinayhvora has a very solid build. I like the dual SDD + the Seagate Constallation combo. The Quadro should have been a K version in my opinion. Although 200 buck more expensive, it does offer considerable performance when dealing with particle systems, cloth simulations and other hardware calculated assets. I should confess i would have really liked to see a 4930K here. While not a big fan of a white and windowed case, I would have gone with a HAF X with no window or nice silent case or something (but this is more a personal opinion).

The guchaochen build. This is a very good set-up for a render station. Nice storage configuration, very good render performance and descent GPU performance.

If I had to pick a Workstation, I would have went with the jinayhvora. Before you even get to rendering and use all the CPU power available to you, you have to create what must be rendered. A lot of the Adobe/Autodesk software is not really using a lot of threads during your workflow. The MHz advantage of the I7 3930K will allow a way smoother workflow. But workstations will be awesome for multy channel audio work.

Now regarding the other builds. I imminently let down the others down, because they use W cards or Dual card configurations. Well no descent amount of software for now uses SLI or CrossFire, so that is few bucks wasted. Also NUKE and NUKEX are CUDA only. And I must say NUKE is a big deal for me. Don't get me wrong, I am from the AMD GPU camp, but I am also a man who buys what suits his needs, not what suits his taste. The W cards will perform quite better than Quadros in CAD related software or as a 3D modeling cards, but they have lesser performance when it comes to dynamics, particles and other goodies that you see in a final production. Also Cerunnos did include quite an impressive array of HDDs. Too bad they are 5200 RPM WD drives. A way better option is to get 2x 7200 RPM Seagate Constallation in a raid. 2 drives that are designed to operate 24/7 will always be a more secure option than 4 normal drives.

Anyway, I read a person saying that for a workstation, Xeon is the only way to go. My dear sir, Xeon is not the only way to go. A workstation is designated by it's usage and the adoption of the best suited hardware for that usage, not by just throwing expensive hardware with features that you may never need. ECC is really overrated when it comes to content creation. For many, many, many years I never had a problem that arose by using normal instead of ECC memory.

Anyway, all in all, this is just my 2 cents as a 3D / VIsual FX workstation user.

Cheers to all, and huge thanks to all the people who put some effort in this. I would have applied as well, but I am not a US citizen.

 

[g-unit1111]

OK why do you need 6TB and a $200 sound card for a workstation? That doesn't make much sense to me. I would think at this point all large video files would be stored on a central file server with more than one backup solution. If you're working for a company that can afford $4,000 workstations, you don't take chances storing your work on a local hard drive.

 

[Shneiky]

If you were in a Company that could allow itself $4000, you will just work on what you are given and not mind this thread.

$200 sound card -> there are audio workstations as well. Even though audio is not as compute intensive, some projects need quite the hardware.

This thread is specially aimed at small studio/home working people. File server is not always a possibility.

Even though I appreciate your input g-unit1111 your comment is completely out of place.

 

[g-unit1111]

If you were in a Company that could allow itself $4000, you will just work on what you are given and not mind this thread.

$200 sound card -> there are audio workstations as well. Even though audio is not as compute intensive, some projects need quite the hardware.

This thread is specially aimed at small studio/home working people. File server is not always a possibility.

Even though I appreciate your input g-unit1111 your comment is completely out of place.

That may be true, but I would think most companies that could afford $4K workstations would not store all their data locally. I would think that separate file servers or NAS storage units would be purchased (my company uses NAS, a dual Xeon server, and like six firewalls - both software and hardware to protect our data) , along with multiple backup solutions. I mean if I had that kind of business you can bet that I would not trust even a 10KB data loss for even a second. I guess I'm paranoid when it comes to that kind of stuff, but I would have backup after backup after backup, even using old tape solutions if I had to. :lol:

 

[Shneiky]

I do agree with you. Now we (the place where I am making my graduation project) are moving outside of the university to a dedicated building. We have 2 options - either both university and the company that the project is going to be will contribute to the hardware allowance - 30K in total or just the university - 15k. If it's the 1st option - then I'm going with 4 x HP 820s with Xeons and a WD Sentinel 4000 NAS + an I7 4770 HP normal desktop as a back-up PC (they got some kind of a contract or something). If we get only the university allowance, then I will build 4xI7 4930 or 4960 machines - 2 as 3D workstations, 2 as video editing, visual FX workstations and the same WD Sentinel 4000 NAS. Forgot to mention that it's 4K motion graphics that are in question here.

Either way, a NAS is necessary. But if you are home, and you are making a workstation for yourself, then back-up on extra drives or a raid is sufficient. Paranoia aside, Xeons or enthusiast I7s, extra drives or a NAS, it always depend on the computer ecosystem and the budget.

 

[kicoverz]

I Picked guchaochen
But for my build, I am planning to make it like this:
It would be for 3ds max modeling, animation & rendering. + post-production like Photoshop, Premier, and After effect.
Let me know what you guys think!

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/27yMH
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/27yMH/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/27yMH/benchmarks/

CPU#1: Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2630 (15M Cache, 2.30 GHz, 7.20 GT/s Intel® QPI) ($638.00)
CPU#2: Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2630 (15M Cache, 2.30 GHz, 7.20 GT/s Intel® QPI) ($638.00)
CPU Cooler: Dynatron R24 40.5 CFM Ball Bearing CPU Cooler ($30*2=60.00)
MotherBoard: Asus Z9PE-D8WS - Intel C602 Chipset Ssd Caching/dual Intel Xeon E5-2600 ($630.00)
Memory: Kingston 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Server Memory DR x4 Model KVR16R11D4K4/32 ($389.99)
Storage: Crucial M500 480GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($306.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($114.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: NVIDIA Quadro K4000 3GB GDDR5 Graphics card (PNY Part #: VCQK4000-PB) ($800.00)
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos II (Black) ATX Full Tower Case ($273.66 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1200W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($217.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-208DBK Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($58.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $4128.60
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-24 04:44 EST-0500)

----------------
Possible Future Upgrades:
I would probably add another 2x (SLI) GeForce GTX780Ti
OR
Just get a K5000 in which case the price would be 4370$
RAM to 64 GB (Only If needed)

 

[VladDrackula]

1.Hardware
Mobo - ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS
CPU - 2 x XEON E5-2697 v2
GPU - NVIDIA Quadro K6000, NVIDIA Tesla K40 AC
RAM - 2x Kingston 64GB (4 x 16GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1600 = 128 mb
Opt.Drv. - ASUS DRW-24B3ST, ASUS BW-16D1HT
Stor. - 2 x WD WD1000DHTZ 1 TB (10000 prm) , WD WD20EZRX 2 TB (7200 prm)
PSU - LEPA G1600
CASE - Corsair 900D
2.water cooling
Koolance ERM-3K3UC Liquid Cooling System
CPU - 2 x Koolance CPU-380I
GPU - EK-FCQ6000 (for quadro k6000), EK-FCTK20 (for tesla k40)
Chipset +VRM / MOSFETs - EK-FB KIT ASUS Z9PE-D8
RAM -Bitspower BP-RAMS66-CLBK , 2 x Bitspower RAM BP-RAMS22-CLBK
All in one cycle.
price ~ $23.000

 

[badra100]

Gaucheness's build is the best for work.

 

[Draven35]

If you ditch the second blu ray drive, and ditch the soundblaster in favor of a real audio interface...