Building a workstation

Final Fantasy Online Forums > Community Discussion > The Dork Squad

03.07.2012 6:02pm

Thread Creator

Raphael
Eternal Lurker

I've been using a MacBook Pro/MacBook Air for the past 5 years and I've never built a computer, so I don't really know where to start.

My budget is around 1000$ for the computer itself. It is intended as a work PC, so my primary use would be AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Revit Architecture, CATIA and the likes. Of course I'll want to run a few games, namely Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, maybe Skyrim, but I'm guessing that this shouldn't be a problem.

I'll (eventually) be using three Dell U2412m 1980x1200 24" monitors. I'm guessing that's relevant info.

From what I understand, I need a case, PSU, motherboard, CPU, GPU, RAM and HDD.

Case
I see some fairly cheap ones and some very expensive ones...so what am I looking for? Should I pick the other components first then choose a case to go with them?

PSU
From what I read, this is a very important part not to cheap out on, because it could cause many problems for the entire system. I'm guessing I need to choose wattage based on the other components and future upgrades, right?

Motherboard
Not a clue. I'm guessing compatibility is the thing to look for. Anything else?

CPU
Am I right in asuming that most of the CAD softwares are CPU-heavy? If so, would it be worth it to wait for an Ivy Bridge processor?

GPU
I know a NVIDIA Quadro is too much for my budget, so what should I look for? Is a Quadro good/average/bad for gaming, if I plan on getting one eventually? Let's assume I'd want to play a few games in 5760x1200. Would I need an AMD Eyefinity or NVIDIA 3D Surround card (are the cards even advertised that way?) or is there an other way to get this working? What about multiple cards, would it work well with CAD / would it be a viable upgrade path? Will a "gaming" card perform significantly worse than a "workstation" card (when doing CAD)?

RAM
No clue. More RAM is better; Faster RAM is better. Is there anything more to it than that?

HDD
I think a SSD would be all I need. I have 128 GB on my laptop and I'm always running out of space, so 256 GB is what I'd be looking for, right? Would I be better off with a 128 GB SSD and a second (1TB/2TB) HDD? If my main drive is big enough, are there other reasons for wanting a second drive?

I'm not in a hurry to buy; I could probably wait until december if need be, for better parts/prices. When is a good time to buy? Is 1000$ reasonnable?

You don't need to answer every single question I have, but a few starter tips would be greatly appreciated.

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03.07.2012 6:50pm

Southern Comfort
silently judging all of you

*cracks knuckles*

$1000 may be a little short for a CAD workstation. CAD is one of those "serious horsepower" applications that you just can't throw enough resources at. But I think we could build a pretty solid workstation for that much that could handle CAD, if a little slowly.

CPU: Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge are serious contenders, but they're not much of an improvement over the older Core i7/i5 chips. Of course, a lot of the love for the Core i7-2700k/i5-2500k chips are their ridiculous overclocking capabilities, which are something we're not doing. So if I were to make a recommendation, if you were going out tomorrow to by parts, I'd recommend a Core i5-2500k - but they're already becoming scarce, and that drives up the price. If you're going to wait, and I recommend waiting, grab a Sandy Bridge i5 CPU.

Motherboard: Basically, you want something with a good BIOS and that supports all the features you're going to need. You can avoid high-end gaming motherboards, because they're built around the idea of overclocking, and we're not doing that. One of the more solid motherboards from ASUS, MSI, or Gigabyte are good options, but don't blow too much money on this. You need to select it to match your CPU, so see what's up and coming when you buy. You do want at least two x16 PCIe slots, and as many RAM slots as you can afford, and a decent MOSFET cooling solution, and most importantly, good Amazon.com/Newegg.com reviews, nothing less than five stars.

RAM: Just pick the right stuff to match your CPU and is certified to work with the board. No need to get super-fast RAM if your bus is staying at stock speed, and remember that we are not overclocking. Kingston, Crucial, and Corsair are the big players, but Mushkin and G.Skill are just as good and a hair cheaper. Do get low CAS latency (I'm rusty in this department), and do fill your motherboard to the gills with it.

GPU: I'll answer this after some research. My initial gut feeling is that professional boards are just rebadged gaming boards at 4x the price, but a tiny bit of initial research is saying that you may need to buy one anyways to support CAD.

Now for the bits:

PSU: add up all the maximum wattage in your computer, multiply by 1.5x, and go looking for something in that range. Multiply by 2x if you think you'll ever run SLI/Crossfire. Read an absolute fuckton of PSU reviews. Most PSUs are made by the same three factories in China, then later badged and sold by third parties, so you need to read the reviews of each individual unit you look at to make sure you're not getting a bad line. Just make sure it's got enough connectors for your video card(s). 80+ Bronze certification or better will make your electric bill thank you.

HDD: This is why you should be waiting to buy a computer. Massive floods in Thailand have sent HDD prices skyrocketing, and it's a good question when the prices are going to come down. I have always recommended having two HDD's in your computer - put everything you don't want to lose in a format on one, and Windows on the other, and never the twain shall meet. And go ahead and spend the money on a 1 TB+ storage HDD, you'll never believe how fast you'll fill it up once you have the room. For that matter, buy two - one for the computer, one for an external, and make regular backups, I can never preach this enough, backups backups backups, if you haven't backed it up you don't want it and should delete it right now and get it over with. Sorry, sorry, I get a little worked up... SSDs are popular and the very definition of fast, but I'm not convinced on their lifespan. Myself, I would go with a large-cache 7200 rpm drive in the 500gb range (plasma rifle in the 40-watt range) for a boot drive, but you might feel an SSD is worth it.

Case: Does your motherboard fit? Is it solidly built? Are there enough fans? Do you like how it looks? Are there enough front panel options for your purpose? Can you put filters over your intake fans? Buy what's cheapest that answers yes to all.

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03.08.2012 4:04am

TheheirofGondor
Registered Member

SC took care of everything I could say but I'll add two notes.

First my vote is for an SSD. I got one a few months ago and my god it awesome. I can go from having everything on and running, hit restart, and have all my standard programs up and running again in under a minute. I've only had it for a few months so I can't speak to their life span, however I did get a 5 year manufacter warrenty with mine so that put my mind at ease. I definitly say get one, but make sure it has a solid warrenty.

Second, for video cards check out this: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html Their march review isn't up yet but should be soon and its quite simply the best way to detrimine the video card you want. Also on the last page there is a hierarchy chart which you can use to compare for power.

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03.08.2012 10:06am

(Edited on 03.08.2012 at 10:30am)

Southern Comfort
silently judging all of you

The video card problem is this: they disable some things in gaming cards that are only useful in CAD and rendering applications (mostly due to rendering speed - superfine antialaising and two-sided lighting isn't useful to the gamer if it takes ten seconds to render per frame). Now, while I'm sure CAD will run fine on a gaming card, I don't know exactly how useful the disabled stuff is. It might be worth it to buy the pro card and have those features available.

The features are disabled in the driver and firmware, so it's possible they could be re-enabled. I've just never took a good hard look at the professional cards or their market, though, so I don't know where to start looking for that kind of stuff.

Edit: Okay, I'm going to need some details about what you're planning on using the CAD software for. That's a little over $20k in software alone. Are you using it as part of your job, or just screwing around with it for learning purposes? Because further research into professional workstation graphics suggests you are entirely fucked if you plan on making a living with this software. Your budget should be closer to $10,000 than $1000 if that's your purpose.

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03.08.2012 11:58am

Thread Creator

Raphael
Eternal Lurker

Thanks for the help so far. To elaborate a little more on my current situation : I work as a construction surveyor, quantity surveyor, and drafter for a general contractor. At work I use an HP Workstation with an Intel Quadcore Xeon Nehalem 2.4GHz, a NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 and 16 GB of RAM (I think). My company pays me to get training for a lot of software, so I guess my use for the computer at home would be what you call "just screwing around with it for learning purposes". I believe I could get a significant pay raise in the near future if I get good enough, so that's an incentive.

Since work is a 2-hours drive from home, I was hoping I could work from home, at least part-time, but since they pay my living expenses and I don't have a family waiting for me, it's not really that big a deal. So what I'd like to do is be able to mess around with all this software in my free time. I do plan on eventually making a living with this software, but at that point I'll be ready to spend more on a dedicated work machine.

Once I calculate my tax return, I'll be able to decide if I'm willing to spend more on this rig. I definitely won't go over 2000$, though.

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03.08.2012 8:03pm

Southern Comfort
silently judging all of you

Okay, fair. Take all of the advice recommended in this thread, and spend all you can (and by that, $500+, preferably $800+) on a decent workstation graphics card. Nvidia Quadro looks like the best choice from here, if you can afford a model that supports CUDA. That should get you set up with a decent low-end CAD workstation.

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03.27.2012 9:16pm

Thread Creator

Raphael
Eternal Lurker

My tax return is over 10 000$, so I should be okay with buying whatever I need, within reason. For the moment I'm thinking of waiting for Ivy Bridge and building something with "consumer"/"gaming" components, because I'm guessing it's not worth investing money on a single "professionnal" part if the system is gonna bottleneck elsewhere anyway. I'm leaning towards an Intel i7 3770 with a GeForce GTX680 (or a Quadro 4000...or a FirePro V7900...I'm still torn).

One more question : Is there a way to run 3 monitors on a nVidia card without going the SLI route (2 on the GPU and 1 on Integrated Graphics, maybe?) or is it limited to AMD's Eyefinity cards, dual-slot nVidia cards or a SLI setup?

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03.28.2012 2:28am

Southern Comfort
silently judging all of you

It looks like Nvidia has enabled support of three monitors on the GTX 580 and the 600-series, to compete with Eyefinity. Either way, though, unless there's something wierd in the BIOS preventing it, it should be no problem to run 2 on the GU and one on the integrated graphics, so long as you don't try to game on all three.

Also, I must point out, all x86 workstations are built on top of high-end consumer hardware, with the sole difference being that expensive pro graphics card and the expensive software. I wouldn't even worry about bottlenecks, unless you plan on trying something that's going to take some super-heavy lifting. With the i7 you have six cores, and if you max you motherboard on RAM, you're good to go. Spending $$$$$ on dual-package Xeon motherboards for CAD use is massive overkill for someone still learning.

Or, as I learned from photography: lots of pros use cheap consumer lenses and bodies. When the tools are limiting your skill, rather than vice-versa, that's when you think about buying pro tech; otherwise it's a waste of money.

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