Workstation ideas for a 4 monitor system

House055,

Given the Photoshop /Lightroom use, my inclination would be to change to a used workstation having a hyperthreading CPU with a higher single-thread (=clock speed) performance. How about:

Dell Precision T1650 Intel E3-1240 V2 3.40GHz 16GB RAM 1TB Quadro k600 W7 Pro > $325 or offer

The Xeon E3-1240 v2 is 4-core 3.4 /3.8Ghz, hyperthreading- that is 4cores and 8 threads. The Passmark average CPU mark is 9217 and the important single thread rating is 2038. For comparison, the i5-2400 figures are 5879 and 1740 and it is not hyperthreading > 4 cores / 4 threads. If you are doing any CPU rendering, the T1650 would be more than twice as fast. The 16GB of RAM is useful too and someday it could be increased to 32GB.

An important feature of workstation is that they are designed for long, slogs in workstation applications and are also very quiet-running. With a Dell Precision, user manuals, all the drivers, BIOS, and support can be obtained from a single source- dell.com.

There is more than half the budget left over:

Add a 240-256 GB SSD- for $70-100 (Samsung 850 Evo 250GB is $95) and 1 or 2TB Western Digital Blue $50 or $70 and a GTX 1060 having 4 Displayport outputs.

System: $325
SSD: $100
HD: 70
_____________

Subtotal: $520

Then, the important GPU:

EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING, ACX 2.0 (Single Fan), 03G-P4-6160-KR, 3GB GDDR5, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC), Only 6.8 Inches > $190

TOTAL= about $710

OR:

If you can add in the value of your current system when sold to the budget, consider:

MSI GeForce GTX 1060 DirectX 12 GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING 6G 6GB 192-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card > $260

TOTAL = about $810. < I think the 6GB version would be worthwhile regardless.

With either GPU, all you have to do is plug in the 3 monitors and touch screen. Performance would be better with 6GB memory for GPU rendering of large images and especially important if there was any video editing.

A nice feature of this approach is that you only need to plug in the GPU and drives plus load the programs- no assembly /wiring and the old system is converted into budget for the new intact, which means a fast changeover..

I changed over to dual monitors only three years ago and now am wishing there were three.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

CAD / 3D Modeling / Graphic Design:

HP z420 (2015) (Rev 3) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) / 32GB DDR3 -1866 ECC RAM / Quadro K4200 (4GB) / Samsung SM951 M.2 256GB AHCI + Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) + Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card + Logitech z2300 2.1 speakers > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit >> 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark Rating = 5581 > CPU= 14226 / 2D= 838 / 3D= 4694 / Mem= 2777 / Disk= 11559] [6.12.16] Single-Thread Mark = 2098 [3.24.17]
[Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1031cb / Single Core = 142 cb / OpenGL= 127.39 fps / MP Ratio = 7.24x] 3.2.17
[FryBench: 3:24 /Efficiency 2177.13] 3.11.17

Analysis / Simulation / Rendering:

HP z620 (2012) (Rev 3) 2X Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 / 3.8GHz) / 64GB DDR3-1600 ECC reg) / Quadro K2200 (4GB) + Tesla M2090 (6GB) / HP Z Turbo Drive (256GB) + Samsung 850 Evo 250GB + Seagate Constellation ES.3 (1TB) / Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe sound card + Logitech z313 2.1 speakers / 800W / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > > HP 2711x (27" 1980 X 1080)
[ Passmark System Rating= 5675 / CPU= 22625 / 2D= 815 / 3D = 3580 / Mem = 2522 / Disk = 12640 ] 9.25.16 Single Thread Mark = 1903
[ Cinebench R15: CPU = 2209 cb / Single core 130 cb / OpenGL= 119.23 fps / MP Ratio 16.84x] 10.31.16