Spec me a £2,000 dev workstation

topbanana

topbanana

topbanana

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15 Jun 2005
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I don't need crazy graphics performance, but I do want:
Ultimate in disk IO - some sort of RAID SSD setup?
Strong CPU - 6 cores ideally, lots of cache, hyperthreading not needed
Lots of fast RAM (32GB is plenty).

What would you recommend?
 
Someone had to start you off, so here is my crack at it...

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £455.99
2 x Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £190.99 (£381.98)
1 x LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-4i KIT Controller Card - (Retail) £189.95
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Quad Channel Kit (GEL332GB1866C10QC) £179.99
1 x Gigabyte X79-UD3 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £179.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £73.99
1 x XFX Pro 650W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £69.98
1 x BitFenix Shinobi USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £49.99
1 x Phanteks PH-TC12DX CPU Cooler - Black (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £44.98
1 x Asus HD 6450 SILENT EDITION 1024MB GDDR3 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card £31.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £1,770.82 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Do you need mouse, keyboard & monitor?
 
its pro or it won't work, and also don't both with raid, go for a card

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=2104&subid=2198

so much faster than raid0 on sdd's even

1 x OCZ RevoDrive3 X2 480GB PCI-E SSD - (RVD3X2-FHPX4-480G) £599.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £455.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance RED 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (CMZ32GX3M4X1866C10R) £179.99
1 x ASRock X79 Extreme4 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £167.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards £149.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £119.99
1 x Intel 330 Series 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £99.98
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
1 x Antec One Gaming Case - Black £36.98
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £1,957.86 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
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zakblood said:
its pro or it won't work, and also don't both with raid, go for a card

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=2104&subid=2198

so much faster than raid0 on sdd's even

1 x OCZ RevoDrive3 X2 480GB PCI-E SSD - (RVD3X2-FHPX4-480G) £599.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £455.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance RED 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (CMZ32GX3M4X1866C10R) £179.99
1 x ASRock X79 Extreme4 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £167.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards £149.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £119.99
1 x Intel 330 Series 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £99.98
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
1 x Antec One Gaming Case - Black £36.98
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £1,957.86 (includes shipping : £12.50).

Click to expand...

That cooler might be a tight fit. Case takes up to 155mm and the K2 is 160mm.
 
thanks for that,

1 x Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £49.99
Total : £61.09 (includes shipping : £9.25).




can always change case, i have used these now many times, fits all :) cases for me are like keyboards and mice, they are personnel choices and tbh shouldn't be included in builds as most would be fine, IF the parts fit, unlike my first choice :( so thanks for comments above, never used the case tbh but have heard good comments about it, but if cooler dont fit then of no use, i normaly pick as i have it myself a Zero Infinity Phantom Knight CPU Cooler, but it's a massive size, great cooling but it need a massive case to fit in at 158mm in height

have added a sdd for boot and cache drive for o/s only, picked intel as good warranty and very good speed for size of drive, would never in a million years put o/s on raid myself so have added another drive just for this, pro's and con's, for me if raid goes down you have a re install etc, and yes my card is bootable and is hardware raided but you can't have it without, no settings either as it comes pre done

some say very basic, old design and poor cableing, but i've never had a problem with it tbh

raid0 gives good speed but only half the amount of use able space so first spec has 256gb, my choice has faster than raid0 speed and 480gb of space, and when i say quicker, read the spec

Maximum Read: 1000MB/sec
Maximum Write: 925MB/sec
Max I/O Per Second (IOPS): 130,000 IOPS (4KB File)

no matter what you do with raid in any sdd, it won't get these speeds or give you anywhere near the space, but yes 2x the price, but 4 sdd's drives on raid0 gives more space than my choice, but still doesn't beat the speed.

picked a 2gb msi card as it's cheap but very fast and stable for it's price, have used one last week for a low end gaming build and for the price was impressed, users won't be playing games but it's good to have the 2gb anyway if screen res or more monitors need it over 1gb on a slower card

have picked pro as home won't do the memory,

h88p://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/windows/desktop/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_7

Windows 7 Home Premium
4 GB 32bit 16 GB 64bit

Windows 7 Professional
4 GB 32bit 192 GB 64bit
 
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1 x OCZ RevoDrive3 X2 480GB PCI-E SSD - (RVD3X2-FHPX4-480G) £599.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £455.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance RED 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (CMZ32GX3M4X1866C10R) £179.99
1 x ASRock X79 Extreme4 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £167.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards £149.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £119.99
1 x Intel 330 Series 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £99.98
1 x Intel Liquid Cooling Solution CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011) £73.98
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
1 x Antec One Gaming Case - Black £36.98
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £1,971.85 (includes shipping : £12.50).



kept case and changed cooler job sorted, used a sealed liquid intel one, small and less noise, was tempted to use a pre noise dampened case and use all the budget but sealed intel one should make it better if not overclocked and keep it well cool, K2 of more use for OC,ing but yes something needed as cpu doesn't come with one
 
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Blue160 said:
Why bother with a £150 7850 if graphics aren't important? A £30 card would do the job just as well.
Click to expand...

true, but what about windows?

or any app/ program that needs more speed or works that bit faster with more memory etc, high screen res, double monitors etc etc

cut it down too much and it may impact on other things, but yes only picked it for 2gb memory tbh

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-279-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1984

would have done the job just as well, only £56.99 inc VAT and has 2gb, just didn't look that low down the list tbh and have used msi last week and was very happy with it, but agree with your points and will alter build now to add it, thanks, saved a bit more
 
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I don't see what could use 2GB of graphics memory without using any 3d graphics. 2D stuff takes a tiny amount of VRAM. No need for a frame buffer apart from anything else.
 
1 x OCZ RevoDrive3 X2 480GB PCI-E SSD - (RVD3X2-FHPX4-480G) £599.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £455.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £190.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance RED 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (CMZ32GX3M4X1866C10R) £179.99
1 x ASRock X79 Extreme4 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £167.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £119.99
1 x Intel Liquid Cooling Solution CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011) £73.98
1 x Sapphire HD 6570 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £56.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
1 x Antec One Gaming Case - Black £36.98
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £1,969.86 (includes shipping : £12.50).



altered vga, and not been so tight now with boot drive either and fitted a bigger one and faster one, just incase more apps are added to o/s

for me, leave win7 with all the bells and whistles on and use a 512mb or 1gb card, use windows score with default aero on, then alter the mix by adding a low end 2gb, it's faster, so to me for the little cost extra it's worth it, yes you can turn it all off, and use onboard if m/b has it and save the extra still, but for me i wouldn't so it's choice either way if it's needed or not

anything else?

as all comments are good advice and more than welcome, it all helps
 
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Didn't see an answer to mouse/keyboard/monitor question, but if desk space permits I would recommend going with dual monitors (some of my colleagues use 3 !). Having your main IDE / editor in front of you with web browser, online manual, log files etc to the side is so much easier on the eyes than alt-tabbing between windows.
 
peterwalkley said:
Didn't see an answer to mouse/keyboard/monitor question, but if desk space permits I would recommend going with dual monitors (some of my colleagues use 3 !). Having your main IDE / editor in front of you with web browser, online manual, log files etc to the side is so much easier on the eyes than alt-tabbing between windows.
Click to expand...

you won't read one as there hasn't been a answer for it as yet
 
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