New 'off the shelf' workstation..any advice?

[dmeyer]

On the PC side the general consensus "sweet spot" price/performance wise is as follows:

Decent L1366 Mobo (Asus, GigaBye, etc)
Core i7 920 CPU
nVidia GTX 260
12 GB RAM
SATA Hard Drive of choice
Decent PSU 600-700w from good manufacturer (Corsair, PC Power & Cooling, etc)

If you are not looking to build yourself and BOXX is out of the price range...are there any UK local boutiques that can get you something like this?

Also, having two video cards will give you virtually no performance increase in DCC apps. Running dual monitors may see a slight speed increase on 2 cards vs 1, but SLI'ing them will only help game performance.

[Benr]

What dmeyer said. That is exactly what I had built for me. The builder also overclocked my i7 920 to 4 GHz and it has been completely stable. It's not too hard to find builders, especially since this kind of system is also a sweet spot for gamers (except that they would benefit from SLI). This is different from when I built a system a system a few years ago and it really seemed worth it to go with a dual processor workstation.

[fatsober]

Thanks guys that is really helpful. I had (clearly incorrectly) thought that the two graphics cards would help with the view port but not so (?) and therefore that money would be better spent elsewhere.

I priced up the system last night and with an over clocked 920 (10-20%) the price is 1900 GBP which is bang on budget. I just wondered if there would be any advantage in upgrading the 260 to a 1gb 285 as this upgrade is offered for 100 GBP?

Cheers

[Jettatore]

"thought that the two graphics cards would help with the view port but not so (?)"

No, like they said, won't do anything for you. Could however possibly have an impact with some upcoming renderers like iRay, which do take advantage of multiple GPU's running CUDA. I wouldn't worry about it though, and you can always get a second one later.

"260 to a 1gb 285 as this upgrade is offered for 100 GBP"

It's a slightly better card, probably not quite worth the full 100 GBP extra, which is why everyone recommends the 260.

" the price is 1900 GBP which is bang on budget. (aprox $2,950 USD)"

I have no idea what your shopping market is like in the UK, but just so you know, over here state side, I could pay a pro-shop to build "DMeyer's" machine for me for approximately half that price. Just a heads up.

[fatsober]

"I have no idea what your shopping market is like in the UK, but just so you know, over here state side, I could pay a pro-shop to build "DMeyer's" machine for me for approximately half that price. Just a heads up."

I think that comes down to different markets- I have tried several companies and the price is similar. Interestingly though most of them really push the quadro cards and are quite suprised when you don't want one, even when you explain the reasoning behind the choice!

[Jettatore]

I would shop around. Companies that "specialize in graphic workstations" are usually the biggest rip-off artists in the world. I checked out a few of UK online vendors and did some comparisons and your prices are near identical to US parts.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/index.php

I can't vouch for them, but their prices at least seem normal. You have to ask around, until you find a system builder who will do the job for you at a decent rate. It could be as low as $50USD up to I would say tops $200USD extra for the actual building of the system/installing the OS. The price you quoted before still seems out of line now that I've looked at some of your shops.

[dmeyer]

One other thing to consider is within the next ~30 days you've got new product lines from both nVidia (GTX460,480) and Intel (6 core i7's) coming out. If the need is not super urgent could be worth a few weeks wait while you locate a builder.

[Exili]

8 and 12 cores amd magny-cours is probably coming soon as well
http://blogs.amd.com/work/2010/02/22/magny-cours-is-right-on-schedule-and-shipping-to-customers/
http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=32825&catid=2

[vlad]

... Interestingly though most of them really push the quadro cards and are quite suprised when you don't want one, even when you explain the reasoning behind the choice!

That's because when they see the premium price and the word "workstation" on the box, they dont investigate much further. Plus, they make a better margin on more expensive parts. Good thing you came here first ;)

[fatsober]

Good thing you came here first Absolutly!

I didn't know that 6 core i7's were coming out- but we can't really afford to wait. That said we'll probably be updating the kit again in 8-12 months so perhaps we can take advantage of prices leveling out then. You're right enough about shopping around- I did investigate ovrclockers.co.uk but when you start adding components the price does go up (albeit to a bit less than previously stated). The barebones i7 starts at near enough £900 (with 6bg RAM ATI card). Add to that another 6gb Ram, change the graphics card, add a small SSD, modest project storage, and we're looking at near enough £1500.

Thanks again for all the input guys very helpful

[Benr]

I think that comes down to different markets- I have tried several companies and the price is similar. Interestingly though most of them really push the quadro cards and are quite suprised when you don't want one, even when you explain the reasoning behind the choice!

Yes, but with the current "sweet spot" you can use system builders who normally concentrate on gamer's rigs. They won't be pushing Quadros, and they probably have a lot more experience overclocking too. The one I used charged a fixed percentage of the cost of the components.

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