High-End personal Workstation Guidance

[Alvin Smith]

I am looking at building a workstation to handle Autodesk Building design Suite ultimate . with a little minor 3d work. can you suggest a mid range setup??



This is what i have come up with so far:

CPU : Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40 GHz Quad-Core Unlocked

Motherboard : Intel BOXDZ68DB Z68 LGA 1155 Motherboard

Memory: Kingston KHX1333C9D3B1K2/8G Desktop Memory Kit - 8GB (2x 4GB), PC3-10600, DDR3-1333MHz,
240-pin DIMM, 9-9-9-27 CAS Latency, 1.5V, Non-ECC, Unbuffered X 2 total 16GB

Video Card : EVGA 01G-P3-1461-KR GeForce GTX 560 Superclocked Video Card - 1GB, GDDR5, PCI-Express 2.0 (x16),
2x Dual-Link DVI-I, Mini-HDMI, DirectX 11, Dual-Slot, SLI Ready, Overclocked

Hard drives: 2 X Western Digital WD5000AAKX Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 500GB, 3.5", SATA 6Gbps, 7200RPM, 16MB In
Raid 1
Corsair CSSD-F120GBGT-BK Force GT Series Solid State Drive - 120GB, 2.5", SATA III, 6Gbps for OS and
apps

Case :Corsair CC-9011012-WW Carbide Series 500R Mid Tower Gaming Case - ATX, mATX, 4x Ext 5.25" Bays, 6x Int 3.5" Bays, 1x 200mm and 2x 120mm White LED Fans, 1x 120mm Fan, 2x USB 3.0 and 1x FireWire Ports

PS: Corsair CMPSU-750TXV2 Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 Power Supply - 750 Watts, ATX, 140mm Fan, 80 Plus Bronze, SLI Ready, Active PFC

Monitor : Samsung S22A100N 22" Class Widescreen LED Backlit Monitor - 1920 x 1080, 16:9, 5000000:1

I have been away ...

Just at first glance ?? ... Looks good. I would recommend a GTX-560ti at ~$250 and a Corsair or Seasonic 650Watt PS and a mid-tower case. Again ... at a glance it all looks just fine if you are going to stick with ACAD ... I have NOT checked (lately) to see if the product and version that you have proposed STILL is most dependent on RAW CPU SPEED, rather than the number of cores and 64bit code ... last I heard ... it really did not matter WHAT chip you had or how many threads (beyond two) ... So ... Yeah ... any chip that is running north of 3.6GHz and has 4GB of ram and snappy storage will do fine ... The real question is what OTHER apps (especially 3D CUDA optimized code (still failrly rare) ...
... I have a feeling that MOST apps that require a true workstation will be moving to the cloud, soon, anyway, where there will be (virtually) no limits to the hardware power. I am just saying that if you are a true pro and are considering building a system that costs more than $5K ?? ... you might want to research cloud-based applications, where hardware obsolescence (and upgrades) is not even a concern. In short ... It will soon be most cost effective to RENT apps and compute power, on an "as-rendered" basis.

This has already begun ... even PhotoBucket has online photo-editing, with some sophisticated tools ... for free ... and WindowsLive also has online photo-editing ... the same will soon be true for pro-video-edit suites and ACAD and 3D renderring ... already moving there, quickly, even as I yet type this reply.


=Alvin=

 

[iliya1]

Hi all. Hi Alvin, long time no see.

I found this article on SSDs:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

I thought it was pretty good and should be included here somewhere.

Have fun!

- ily

 

[Alvin Smith]

Hi all. Hi Alvin, long time no see.

I found this article on SSDs:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

I thought it was pretty good and should be included here somewhere.

Have fun!

- ily

ILY !! Well ... Sand-E (PCIe3.0) finally arrived (quad channel!) and I can't believe it but I have nothing more to add except that, EVERYTHING WILL SOON MIGRATE TO THE CLOUD ... Whatever does not will likely go TESLA (HPC) ... SSDs are a dollar per Gig and it is a WONDERFUL time to build a Sand-E ... SURE wish I had the money. Might do it anyway.

Stay well !

 

[fport]

ILY !! Well ... Sand-E (PCIe3.0) finally arrived (quad channel!) and I can't believe it but I have nothing more to add except that, EVERYTHING WILL SOON MIGRATE TO THE CLOUD ... Whatever does not will likely go TESLA (HPC) ... SSDs are a dollar per Gig and it is a WONDERFUL time to build a Sand-E ... SURE wish I had the money. Might do it anyway.

Stay well !

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey Alvin...

No, really. Despite not ever getting confirmation of high GHz (4) core vs lower GHz (8) core renderings and processing this thread still
stands as a thinking man's guide to purpose built workstations. My choice for an industrial grade workstation type box with end of life plans to be used as a modest server versus the fast and nimble builds that came about here, seems to be, in the end, more than adequate but not the match of.

Faster CPU/GPU plus more RAM and SSD are really the bang for the buck not that my more expensive toybox is a slouch.

Choices I faced:

Motherboard: EVGA Classified Super Record 2 (SR-2) Motherboard vs actual SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DTH-6F

GFX card: 460GTX 2Gb thinking to SLI later with equivalent card but not finding any when needed(MB doesn't support it either)
when a GTX 560Ti or even an ATI (would have been faster and allowed my PLP monitor setup which is currently
a 30 inch landscape and two twenty inchers in portrait ( 1200x1600, 2560x1600, 1200x1600). I went with a deal on a
460GTX 2WIN 1GB.

I will eventually add an SSD to this and two 2Tb SAS drives. I'll double the RAM when it hits half the price I paid for the
original 24Gb's. And at some time in the future I will switch out the antique but brand new server tower for something that gives
me more room inside, the 460 2win barely fit.

In two years I will build a state of the art workstation - this time for speed instead of for future use.

As it turns out the user interface is far more useful to me than the horsepower at the moment but it is a kludge that represents
the mixed bag of intentions caused by not only a budget consideration but also keeping one eye on future use. I now know that
I can build a dragster for my next machine that will fly.

 

[Alvin Smith]

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey Alvin...

No, really. Despite not ever getting confirmation of high GHz (4) core vs lower GHz (8) core renderings and processing this thread still
stands as a thinking man's guide to purpose built workstations.
~~~~~~~~~ snip ~~~~~~~~~~~~~.

As it turns out the user interface is far more useful to me than the horsepower at the moment but it is a kludge that represents
the mixed bag of intentions caused by not only a budget consideration but also keeping one eye on future use. I now know that
I can build a dragster for my next machine that will fly.

Well ... As far as more that 12 threads goes ... VERY few apps will exploit that ... Memory is cheaper nowadays and you can just max that out and assign a large chunk as a RAM-DRIVE ... SSDs are ~$200 for a very fast and reliable 240GB drive (nothing not to love, there) ... PCIe 3.0 will give PLENTY of lanes for all the Creative Suite graphics assist that an INDY PRODUCER could really ask for ... Plenty of bandwidth for Higher Density Capture ... Displays are getting lots cheaper, especially if you are not going to get freaky over purest color calibration issues ... I mean ... As far as desk-top real-estate goes ? ... Cheap. ... i am ALMOST sad to see the tablet revolution taking over, so quickly but I am a guy who lives on an electric bike and pull a 10-day expedition pack around on a (BURLEY TRAVOY) bike-trailer so ... tablets, whith 4G and WiFi and cameras (fore and aft) are very welcome, as are portable solar recharge options and long-life batteries. ... I really am looking to get larget solar panels (than my GOAL ZERO Guide 10) and want to have extreme e-bike main battery capacity for running tablets and LED lighting, for extended road tours and camping, etc.
I sure do hope that PCIe 3.0 REMAINS a viable and affordable option for Project Studios and Independent "Film" Producers (like me) ... For Event Videographers ... for INDY DOCUMENTARIES ... The Prosumer Power Desktop truly is a democratizing enabler (so long as YouTube and other such outlets remain FREE and UNCENSORED . The threat to YouTube's greatness just turns my stomach.

=Alvin=