Maxdroid,
In general, I'd say the Xeon E3 and Gigabyte GA-Z97X is a good basis. Have a look though at the Xeon E3-127
1v3. For about the same price, you get +100MHz. The Gigabyte GA-Z97X is also good- good slot arrangement and it has the M.2 Ultra 10GB/s SSD connection.
In my view, unless you're using many applications at once with very large files, 16GB RAM is probably sufficient. Use 2X8GB to start and that will allow you to have 32GB later.
Look into quite high performance cooling as rendering can push both CPU and GPU to their limits. During rendering I saw a Xeon E5-1620 reach 85C and the Quadro 4000 reach 105C.
Have a look at your storage needs. For one, the enterprise version of the Samsung may or not be a useful advantage- probably an Evo would be sufficient. You might consider having the SSD for OS, applications, and active files, and add a mech.'l drive, something like a 1TB Western Digital Blue or, better, WS Black (faster, longer warranty) for storage.
On workstations, I also like to set a partition on this drive for a system image that can restore everything immediately in case of catastrophic failure. You can also use the mech'l drive to really setup the OS / applications properly and then migrate to the SSD. This is useful because defragging puts unnecessary wear on an SSD. Set a partition on the mech'l drive smaller than the SSD, load the OS and cycle until all the updates are done, then use an optimizer like Diskeeper or PerfectDisk to place the files, defrag, and consolidate, then migrate the pristine, optimized disk to the SSD. Test everything, make final adjustments and then make a system image to the mech'l drive before extensive use- makes the image pristine.
The PSU seems about right, a 600W Seasonic would be my choice, but a very quiet one is a good idea.
The Quadro K4200 is an
excellent choice- in some tests,better performance than the K5000:
http://www.develop3d.com/reviews/Nvidia_Quadro_Maxwell_Kepler_CAD_Creo_Solidworks_CAE_iray_review
If you think you will not be using 3D CAD/ rendering extensively, have a look at the results with the K2200- quite close and sometimes better than the K4000- and $400 less.
The case is not mentioned, but I'd recommend looking at mid-tower cases by Lian Li and Corsair- if there's any rendering, give the case plenty of room to breathe, and room to add extra drives. It's a matter of personal taste, but I also like to have sober, non-distracting cases as well.
As for monitors, this is something I think is really necessary to see n person if at all possible. The coating, color, controls, stand, everything is important. I bought an HP 2711x mainly because it
doesn't have the non- glare coating. I'd rather dim the room to near black-out than stare at the milky, pebbly coating fro years. The Eizo is expensive enough to also consider Samsung, Viewsonic, and ASUS 2560 X 1440.
Not to throw a wrench into the whole thing, but before absolutely committing, have a quick look at LGA2011- Xeon E5 as there will be in three weeks (end Sept '14) a whole new series of new v3 Xeons and that platform can allow considerable expansion- start with a quad core and later change to a 6,8,10,12,14, 16, or 18 core, plus DDR4 2133. There are double the PCIe lanes of LGA1150, and double the memory bandwidth too. These are things that 3D modeling and rendering can use. More expensive yes, but also might delay replacing the entire system by three years- less cost over time with higher expandability and performance. If business takes off, the system can keep pace without the extreme interruption and higher cost of replacing the whole thing.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro 4000 (2GB)> Samsung 840 SSD 250GB /Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > AE3000 USB WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 > Windows 7 Ultimate 64 >[Passmark system rating = 3923, 2D= 839 / 3D=2048]
Dell Precision T5400 (2008)(Rendering) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys 600N WiFi > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit >[Passmark system rating = 1859, CPU = 8528 / 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]
2D, 3D CAD, Image Processing, Rendering, Text > Architecture, industrial design, graphic design, written projects
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram