Budget Workstation Build

[gb0001]

Hi Guys

Needing some advice with a workstation build. I have a very tight budget $1500 Aus, system only monitor or peripherals are already sorted. System will primarily be used for Lumion 7 (only small projects house rendering etc). Have built a few gaming systems but having trouble getting my head around on the best place to start with this build.

https://lumion3d.com/system-requirements.html (Recommended or better)

Have looked through pcpartpicker and found some older builds. Tried tweaking a few myself but would appreciate any advise.

Below is where I am at so far, yet to sort out a motherboard as the two I wanted are out of stock in two suppliers

NZXT Source S340 Mid-Tower Case - Black
View Accessories
NZXT Source S340 Mid-Tower Case - Black SKU# AB56704 | Model# 8C-S340011-WBM

Qty :
1 x $109.00

Samsung 850 EVO 250GB 2.5" SATA III SSD MZ-75E250 SKU# AB59172 | Model# MZ-75E250BW
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Qty :
1 x $134.99

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4 2666MHz Memory Black
SKU# AB65198 | Model# CMK16GX4M2A2666C16

Qty :
1 x $170.00

EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti SSC GAMING ACX 3.0 4GB SKU# AB90358 | Model# 04G-P4-6255-KR

Qty :
1 x $265.00

WD WD1003FZEX 1TB Black 3.5” 7200RPM SATA3 Hard Drive
SKU# AB52508 | Model# WD1003FZEX

Qty :
1 x $108.99

EVGA SuperNOVA 750W G2 80+ Gold Modular Power Supply SKU# AB58319 | Model# 220-G2-0750-XR

Qty :
1 x $159.00

Gigabyte H170-D3H LGA 1151 Intel Motherboard SKU# AB66809 | Model# GA-H170-D3H

Qty :
1 x $169.00

Cooler Master Hyper T4 CPU Cooler
SKU# AB53835 | Model# RR-T4-18PK-R1

Qty :
1 x $39.00

ASUS DRW-24D5MT 24x Internal DVD Burner
SKU# AB72557 | Model# DRW-24D5MT

Qty :
1 x $20.00


Sub Total Inc GST: $1,174.98
Service Charge: $0.00
Savings: $81.00
Shipping: Calculate Above
Total: $1,174.98
Sourced through Mwave

Appreciate any feedback, thanks in advance

 

[jmsellars1]

OK so that site says the minimum recommended is is effectively:

Intel Core i3 / AMD 860K
8GB High Speed RAM
GTX 745

The recommended requirements are more like:

Intel Core i5
16GB High Speed RAM
GTX 1060 6GB


The specs on the site also indicate that the software will take advantage of multiple CPU cores and is very vRAM hungry. The specs you have there look decent so far but I think you could do better:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor ($445.00 @ Umart)
Motherboard: Asus H110M-A/M.2 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($79.00 @ Shopping Express)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($129.00 @ Umart)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($88.00 @ Shopping Express)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.00 @ Shopping Express)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB WINDFORCE OC 6G Video Card ($359.00 @ Shopping Express)
Case: Silverstone PS09B MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($45.00 @ Umart)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 450W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($93.50 @ Skycomp Technology)
Total: $1302.50
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-15 00:46 AEDT+1100

That gives you something over the recommended spec for $1300.

 

[gb0001]

Thanks jmsellars, really appreciate your help. Some great options outlined, im going to take on everything you had listed. With two changes was thinking of future proofing and getting a mboard with 2 more slots for ram.

Gigabyte B150M-D3H mATX LGA1151 Motherboard - $20 more expensive

And

Antec GX500B-W Dominator Window ATX. Supports 15" Extra Long VGA Card, 2x Fan Controls $26 more expensive

What do you think?

 

[bambiboom]

gb001,

The proposed system should work well, but you might also consider upgrading a used LGA2011 workstation such as a Dell Precison or HP zX20 series. The idea is to use LGA2011, which can accommodate up to 14-core CPU's and has 40PCIe lanes instead of 16 to be able to run more peripherals- two GPU's, a RAID controller, PCIE M.2 which is x4 and etc.

Buy a system with lower specification, and change the CPU, GPU, and drives. This takes advantage of the dramatic depreciation of CPU's and with the right system choice, the system can even be used right away, as is and upgraded gradually. The hours of additional operational time could represent a noticeably portion of the cost. At the end of 2015, I bought a Dell Precision T3500 for $53 US with a 3.2GHz. On a moderate level it could have been used within two hours of opening the box. I popped in a Quadro 4000 PERC 6/i RAID controller with 146GB and 300GB 15K SAS drives from another compute that I'd upgraded and it was completely useful. I certainly could have done more than $53 worth of work on it on the next day .

Workstations are designed for long slogs in processes such as rendering and also to be quiet.

For you your use I'd suggest a Dell Preicsion T3600 or HP z420:

HP Z420 WORKSTATION XEON QUAD CORE 3.8GHZ 16GB RAM PC DESKTOP > $699 AU

We still have one of these (2013) in the office and actually, the E5-1620 4-core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz in your use might not need changing. This is used that one with Autodesk Building Suite 2014, Adobe CS6, Sketchup Pro with Vray rendering, and Solidworks, with 16GB RAM and a Quadro K2200 (4GB) GPU, and Samsung 840 250GB and WD Black 1TB. That system over three years is 100% reliable and extremely quiet. Having a quiet workstation is very important to me and those systems are carefully designed for sound- they have the CPU fan in a shroud and avoid having fans and too many air vents on the outer case surfaces. That one is inaudible from a couple of feet away.

The $700 price means there is another $700 for a good GPU- have a GTX 1060, up the RAM to 16GB, and a Samsung 850 EVO and etc.

If the system has a bootblock date of 6/13, the CPU can be changed later to a variety of very fast CPU's with more cores. My current z420 used for 3D modeling has an E5-1660 v2 which is 6-core @ 3.7 /4.0GHz and the z620 rendering which cost $270- now has a pair of Xeon E5-2690 8-core @ 2.9 /3.8GHz and with 16-cores /32 thread is very fast with CPU rendering while the Quadro K2200 plus Tesla M2090 6GB runs GPU (VRay RT) renderings at a rate similar to a Quadro M5000 (8GB)- a 3180 X 2140 in under 4 minutes..

Modern LGA1151 CPU's will have a higher single-threaded rate, but the limitation of 16 PCIe lanes and 4-cores seems a disadvantage, while the possibility to take a step up in the very important GPU due to the lower system cost may make a quite a difference. Much less work to get back to work and also very quiet and reliable. Shopping does have to careful.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 

[jmsellars1]

Thanks jmsellars, really appreciate your help. Some great options outlined, im going to take on everything you had listed. With two changes was thinking of future proofing and getting a mboard with 2 more slots for ram.

Gigabyte B150M-D3H mATX LGA1151 Motherboard - $20 more expensive

And

Antec GX500B-W Dominator Window ATX. Supports 15" Extra Long VGA Card, 2x Fan Controls $26 more expensive

What do you think?

Looks fine to me

 

[King Dranzer]

Get this build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6800K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor ($597.00 @ Shopping Express)
CPU Cooler: Deepcool Maelstrom 120K 61.9 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($65.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer/3.1 Micro ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($299.00 @ Umart)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($139.00 @ Umart)
Storage: Crucial MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($95.00 @ Shopping Express)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1060 3GB 3GB Dual Video Card ($288.00 @ Shopping Express)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($55.00 @ Centre Com)
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Essential 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($63.00 @ IJK)
Total: $1601.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-16 04:39 AEDT+1100

Best suited for your work.
Add HDD down the lane.