workstation configuration price

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estefa

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Sep 26, 2013
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10,510
I need to buy a workstation and this is what a reseller from my country is offering me for 3.299,42 USD. I work with 3ds max, mudbox, premiere, after effects, photoshop.
I´d really appreciate some guidance.
For instance, I think the nvidia quadro k4000 is a good investment, but I´m not sure about the processor, I´m thinking I could change it for an INTEL I7-3930K 3.20 GHZ (12M CACHE, UP TO 3.80 GHZ). I need both speed and stability because I will be modelling, texturizing and rendering in this workstation (can´t afford and don´t have the space for a render farm). And I have read that xeon´s are worth it when dual, but I´m not sure if it´s better than an i7 if it´s a single xeon processor.


WORKSTATION INTEL XEON E3-1230 V3 with NVIDIA QUADRO K4000

 Case Coolermaster CM 690 ADVANCED II
power supply 700w Sentey
 Processor Intel Xeon 1230-V3
 Mother board ASUS Z87 WS
 Ram 32GB G.SKILL DDR3 4x8GB
 hard drive 1TB SATA III WD fAEX BLACK
 dvd burner Bluray LG
 NVIDIA QUADRO K4000 3GB
 Micro SSD 64GB
 Screen Samsung Full HD 22” LED S30022

Everything is helpfull, now I have an i3 4 gb ram imac with parallels that refuses to work anymore and I have no idea when it comes to pc or workstation components.

Thanks
Estefanía


 
Solution
bambiboom
estefa,

Sorry, I didn't have the idea that you were the same Estefania from Barcelona (that was 1977!), only that I only ever heard that name in Spain- and Spain is a place I also associate with expensive- too expensive- electronics.

I agree that none of the Xeon E5's offered seem very interesting. A workstation CPU needs to be as fast as the most demanding application requires. I believe you would be unhappy with any CPU having less than 6 cores (rendering) and less than 3GHz (rendering and 2D effects processing).

If you are looking at HP z-series, the HP z420 is sold with the E5-1650 (6-core, 3.2 / 3.8 - GHz) and as mentioned, that CPU costs only $600 in the US.

The Xeon E3's are actually very good, but limited...
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bambiboom

bambiboom

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Apr 7, 2012
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Estafania,

Are you perhaps in Spain? The price of $3,300 is a lot of money for a Xeon E3-1230 system. In the US, that system would cost about $1,600.

Yes, the Quadro K4000 is my first choice - that's an excellent idea. However, fro the CPU, I would recommend an LGA 2011 CPU- a Xeon E5 instead of E3. the memory bandwidth of the E5 is double that of the E3, there are more PCIe lanes- slots for extra cards, and most importantly, an E5 can have up to 8 cores- and soon 12 cores, but an E3 is limited to 4 cores. Rendering can use all the cores available, so I would suggest a 6-core LGA CPU and perhaps in 3 years, it cold be changed to an 8 or 10 core. Dual CPU's are attractive, but if you had a fast 6 or 8 core, that will be enough. The i7-3930K is very good, but the :K: is to allow overclocking- running at a higher speed, and I don't advise that for rendering, and in fact always think that it's better to use A Xeon with ECC error -correcting RAM and a Quadro GPU to avoid artifacts in renderings. . The 32GB RAM is a good idea as many times, it is necessary to use several programs at one time.

For Xeon E5-amonght the best cost / performance CPU's there is the E5-1650 which is six-core LGA 2011. In the US, costs only $600. It is actually the Xeon version of the i7-3930. I suggest a motherboard using the C602 chipset. and these will often support 256GB per CPU.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

PS > I asked about Spain as years ago I had a friend in Barcelona who was called Estafania. She was an architect.
 
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estefa

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Sep 26, 2013
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Sorry, not the same Estefanía. I´m from Chile and I majored in fine arts. And here everything is twice as much! Except salaries, but that´s maybe for another forum...
I`m not going to play so I really don´t need i7, I can go with xeon e5 but what they have in that store is the INTEL XEON® E5-2620 (15M CACHE, 2.00 GHZ, 7.20 GT/S INTEL® QPI) LGA 2011 or the INTEL XEON® E5-2609 (10M CACHE, 2.40 GHZ,) LGA 2011 for $600 and $500.
And if to the configuration above I change the processor for the i7 the costs goes up to $3.700
You might be wandering why I want to buy in a store, and it´s because of the 2 year warranty…

Another reseller is selling me this for $3.300 (And the xeon e5 that they offered me before in this store was Z620 Xeon E5-2603 4C 1.80 10MB 1066 A6S72AA and it costs $1100)

1 motherboard P9X79 LE, Intel® X79, ATX, 8DDR3(Quad Ch) 2 x PCIe3.0 x16, Audio 8-CH(HD) ASUS
RTS2011AC THERMAL COOLING SOLUTIONLGA2011 INTEL
CPU Core i7-3820 3.60 GHz 2011 pn BX80619I73820INTEL
1 hard drive NAS 2TB RED 3.5" (Rec QNAP) SATA III, 64 MB Cache NASWare Western Digital
NVidia Quadro K4000 3GB pny
4 RAM DDR3 8GB PC 1333MHZ DDR3 KINGSTON
1 DVD recorder +/- 24X Super Multi, SATA pn gh24ns95
LG 6
1 VM600M1W2Z Dokker /BlacX/Docking Station/Win./Midi Tower
1power supply ATX 850W, 80 Plus 24+4 pines pnSDP850-SS sentey
1 WINDOWS 7 PRO OEM 64 Bits Esp 1PK
1 keyboard 600 black MICROSOFT
1 Led 22" VIEWSONIC 10

I dont´think those particular xeon´s are worth it, what do you think?
And thanks for the help!!!


 
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bambiboom

bambiboom

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Apr 7, 2012
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estefa,

Sorry, I didn't have the idea that you were the same Estefania from Barcelona (that was 1977!), only that I only ever heard that name in Spain- and Spain is a place I also associate with expensive- too expensive- electronics.

I agree that none of the Xeon E5's offered seem very interesting. A workstation CPU needs to be as fast as the most demanding application requires. I believe you would be unhappy with any CPU having less than 6 cores (rendering) and less than 3GHz (rendering and 2D effects processing).

If you are looking at HP z-series, the HP z420 is sold with the E5-1650 (6-core, 3.2 / 3.8 - GHz) and as mentioned, that CPU costs only $600 in the US.

The Xeon E3's are actually very good, but limited to 4 -cores- so I would recommend the E5 or if necssary a six core i7 like the i7-3930. As it happens, the i7-3930 is (I believe) the same CPU as the E5-1650 except the E5 can use the magic of ECC.

Possibly, if it would reduce costs, you might consider using the Quadro 4000 instead of K4000. If more of your work is 2D instead of 3D, the 4000 has about the same performance in 2D and of course, the moving of polygons and textures / effects is CPU based.

Do you have any friends in the US that could send you components so that someone there could assemble a system for you? I ask as it's possible with careful shopping to buy new or almost new - installed but never used, and I've had very good luck with used CPU's and Graphics cards over the years.

For that matter, workstations like Dell Precision are very well constructed- made to run for years and all the time. Have a look at used Dell Precision T 3500, T5500 and T7500 and also the T3600- there were many of those sold with the E5-1650 and that model is only about 2-3 years old. I bought a two year old Precision T5400 for $500, added Windows 7 Ultimate, RAM, a 2nd CPU, and a Quadro FX 4800 - another $500- and have used it 20 hours per day for over three years with complete reliability.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

1. Dell Precision T5400 (2008)> 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16 GB ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 / Segt Brcda 500GB > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit > HP 2711x 27" 1920 x 1080 > AutoCad, Revit, Solidworks, Sketchup Pro, Corel Technical Designer, Adobe CS MC, WordP Office, MS Office > architecture, industrial design, graphic design, rendering, writing

2. HP z420 (2013) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.9GHz > 24GB ECC 1600 RAM > Firepro V4900 (Soon quadro K4000) > Samsung 840 SSD 250GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > Windows 7 Professional 64 > AutoCad, Revit, Inventor, Maya (2011), Solidworks 2010, Adobe CS4, Corel Technical Design X-5, Sketchup Pro, WordP Office X-5, MS Office


 
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estefa

Honorable
Sep 26, 2013
3
0
10,510
Well, my name is the spanish version of Stephanie (and the female of Esteban or Steve), that´s why it´s difficult if you don´t live in a spanish speaking country, to hear that name. And even here it´s not that common cause it´s "trendy" to have an english name. In fact, when that started it meant status and wealth, but now it´s exactly the opposite and it´s associated with poverty to have an english first name and a spanish last name, specially names like Jonathan, Jennifer, Scarlet, Michael and so on.

I think I´m going to buy the i7 processor, I don´t know anyone in the US or anyone traveling soon and as you noticed, the price for the xeon e5 it´s way too much. I work mostly with 3d, so I´m sticking with the k4000. Maybe in a while I can change to xeon´s but I need this computer now, I really can´t wait.
And everything costs here at least twice as much that in the US. For instance, the iphone 5 starts it´s price at $199 (16 gb). Here the lowest price for the iphone5 is $760 (here the currency is "pesos", it´s 380.000 pesos). And the minimum wage it´s 198.000 pesos (close to 400 american dollars) a month. Not to complain, but to explain why this is a big and important decision for me.

Thank you very very much, you have been really helpful! If everything works out as expected I´ll buy tomorrow and have the computer with me by tuesday!
Cheers ;)
Estefanía
 
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