OK so I'm in India and my dad asked me to arrange 2 identical builds for him for his office. He publishes a newspaper and these computers will be used for designing the ads as well as designing the final layout of the paper, thus the softwares are pretty high taxing particularly on the CPU/RAM. Especially when working for a paper of size A1. Even though his current systems are Pantium 4s, and any upgrade will be leap year ahead, the work is quite slowing down. His workers have to arrange the layout in many parts and stuff... So here's the build, note that 2 of these will be bought. AMD Phenom II x4 920 Asus M4A78-E Gigabyte Superb 460W SMPS Corsair 2x2GB 4GB RAM kit @ 800Mhz 5-5-5-18 Sapphire HD 4670 1GB DDR-III 2x WDC 500 GB SATA 3.5" for RAID 1 Coolermaster Elite 335 (Non-Transparent) Samsung DVD Writer SH-S202, IDE Samsung 2233SW 22" 1920 x 1080 monitor This build is costing around 46,710.00 INR that is around 980$ in today's rates Now the questions are : How does a 4670 compare to a 9600GT? This GPU is mainly for the slight advantages that the softwares give when using GPU Acceleration. Would a 460W PSU be enough? It got a total of 14A on one 12V rail and 15V on second 12V rail. How would an AMD Phenom II x4 920 2.8 GHz compare to a Core 2 Quad Q8200, since this was only 20$ more. Should I get a PII x4 940 BE for around 10$ more? Is the motherboard good? I had to upgrade from the last one due to RAID compatibility. Does this build look good? :P
I think that looks like a great machine for the type of thing your dad wants to do. Don't quote me on this (perhaps someone else knows the numbers off hand), but I believe you're going to get better performance and lower power consumption out of the PII vs. the C2Q. Also, I believe that while the 4670 is probably slightly less powerful than the 9600GT - you probably will have less power consumption and it will probably do just as well with non-gaming tasks. I think the rig is pretty darn good the way you have it set up. Oh, and 460w should be more than enough to power that machine.
[QUOTE="theragu40"]Plus Quadro cards are effing expensive. A good thought though, for a computer in a professional setting.gigatrainer
Quadros are out of context, they got nothing to do with the kind of work my dad does. I agree, I was just trying to make it clear I wasn't flaming the guy. Quadros are advertised as "professional line" cards. If you don't deal with them on a daily basis (as I do) or have never looked into them, then they could seem like a legit option (though they are not in this case). He was wrong, but it wasn't a bad thought. That's all I was saying :)
[QUOTE="gigatrainer"][QUOTE="theragu40"]Plus Quadro cards are effing expensive. A good thought though, for a computer in a professional setting.theragu40
Quadros are out of context, they got nothing to do with the kind of work my dad does. I agree, I was just trying to make it clear I wasn't flaming the guy. Quadros are advertised as "professional line" cards. If you don't deal with them on a daily basis (as I do) or have never looked into them, then they could seem like a legit option (though they are not in this case). He was wrong, but it wasn't a bad thought. That's all I was saying :) Fair enough :), how does the motherboard look?
Looks pretty bare bones, but not bad by any stretch. I mean, it isn't as though you need a bunch of performance features if you're not using it for gaming. It doesn't appear to support RAID, but perhaps that won't be an issue for you. The onboard graphics for that mobo are actually pretty decent...would you really need the dedicated card if he's not doing any gaming? I guess you did say some of the apps he will be running are GPU-accelerated. Might still be worth it.
Looks pretty bare bones, but not bad by any stretch. I mean, it isn't as though you need a bunch of performance features if you're not using it for gaming. It doesn't appear to support RAID, but perhaps that won't be an issue for you. The onboard graphics for that mobo are actually pretty decent...would you really need the dedicated card if he's not doing any gaming? I guess you did say some of the apps he will be running are GPU-accelerated. Might still be worth it.theragu40
Yeah I guess, I'd like to be safe with a 4670, since the apps can take advantage of GPU acceleration and are growing more towards it. I don't think I need RAID support on it, my dad got a central backup system with RAID.
OK, I've built a few workstations, all for 3d-2d applications, but for what your father does you are better off with buying 2 iMacs (man that was hard to write down). They have a good screen and decent hardware (it's no i7, or phenom 2 x4 BE though) but most 2d apps are not even mutitreaded (photoshop cs3 is double threaded) so there is not the need for a super fast cpu. Also the imac will probably look better in an office....also you can install windows in it.
OK, I've built a few workstations, all for 3d-2d applications, but for what your father does you are better off with buying 2 iMacs (man that was hard to write down). They have a good screen and decent hardware (it's no i7, or phenom 2 x4 BE though) but most 2d apps are not even mutitreaded (photoshop cs3 is double threaded) so there is not the need for a super fast cpu. Also the imac will probably look better in an office....also you can install windows in it.
powerslide67
Dumbest advice ever.....Why should I spend 3x the amount of money for an iMac that can't do even half of the work? Even though Corel Draw may or may not support multi-core CPUs, it may in future. And we don't run 1 app at a time, the goal of this new build is to squeeze in as many task at one time as possible, several other applications are going to be running at the same time. Plus with this build we're looking for maximum survivability, we want it to last atleast 3 years. Oh and no one cares about the looks. No one other than staff can access that area.
OK, I've built a few workstations, all for 3d-2d applications, but for what your father does you are better off with buying 2 iMacs (man that was hard to write down). They have a good screen and decent hardware (it's no i7, or phenom 2 x4 BE though) but most 2d apps are not even mutitreaded (photoshop cs3 is double threaded) so there is not the need for a super fast cpu. Also the imac will probably look better in an office....also you can install windows in it.
gigatrainer
Dumbest advice ever.....Why should I spend 3x the amount of money for an iMac that can't do even half of the work? Even though Corel Draw may or may not support multi-core CPUs, it may in future. And we don't run 1 app at a time, the goal of this new build is to squeeze in as many task at one time as possible, several other applications are going to be running at the same time. Plus with this build we're looking for maximum survivability, we want it to last atleast 3 years. Oh and no one cares about the looks. No one other than staff can access that area.Yeah i thought you might answer like that.
This is the last workstation i built for an engineer (3d cad architectural packages like nemetschek allplan) :
OK, I've built a few workstations, all for 3d-2d applications, but for what your father does you are better off with buying 2 iMacs (man that was hard to write down). They have a good screen and decent hardware (it's no i7, or phenom 2 x4 BE though) but most 2d apps are not even mutitreaded (photoshop cs3 is double threaded) so there is not the need for a super fast cpu. Also the imac will probably look better in an office....also you can install windows in it.
powerslide67
Dumbest advice ever.....Why should I spend 3x the amount of money for an iMac that can't do even half of the work? Even though Corel Draw may or may not support multi-core CPUs, it may in future. And we don't run 1 app at a time, the goal of this new build is to squeeze in as many task at one time as possible, several other applications are going to be running at the same time. Plus with this build we're looking for maximum survivability, we want it to last atleast 3 years. Oh and no one cares about the looks. No one other than staff can access that area.Yeah i thought you might answer like that.
This is the last workstation i built for an engineer (3d cad architectural packages like nemetschek allplan) :
intel core 2 duo E7400
hdd sata 500gb
Sapphire radeon hd4670
4gb of ddr2
motherboard asus p5ql
The main pc he uses for 3d is this one though:
intel core 2 quad q6600
nvidia gforce 9800gt
hdd sata 500gb
4gb of dd2
motherboard asus p5kc
mine, for engineering/gaming is at the bottom
OK so? That still doesn't apply for buying a Mac. Even though it may be an overkill for now, its not being built for today. It is being built for maximum longevity.
[QUOTE="gigatrainer"] Dumbest advice ever.....Why should I spend 3x the amount of money for an iMac that can't do even half of the work? Even though Corel Draw may or may not support multi-core CPUs, it may in future. And we don't run 1 app at a time, the goal of this new build is to squeeze in as many task at one time as possible, several other applications are going to be running at the same time. Plus with this build we're looking for maximum survivability, we want it to last atleast 3 years. Oh and no one cares about the looks. No one other than staff can access that area.gigatrainer
Yeah i thought you might answer like that.
This is the last workstation i built for an engineer (3d cad architectural packages like nemetschek allplan) :
intel core 2 duo E7400
hdd sata 500gb
Sapphire radeon hd4670
4gb of ddr2
motherboard asus p5ql
The main pc he uses for 3d is this one though:
intel core 2 quad q6600
nvidia gforce 9800gt
hdd sata 500gb
4gb of dd2
motherboard asus p5kc
mine, for engineering/gaming is at the bottom
OK so? That still doesn't apply for buying a Mac. Even though it may be an overkill for now, its not being built for today. It is being built for maximum longevity.
Dude, i just gave you a baseline for a workstation...If you want something that performs well and lasts a lot get something like that.
OK, I've built a few workstations, all for 3d-2d applications, but for what your father does you are better off with buying 2 iMacs (man that was hard to write down). They have a good screen and decent hardware (it's no i7, or phenom 2 x4 BE though) but most 2d apps are not even mutitreaded (photoshop cs3 is double threaded) so there is not the need for a super fast cpu. Also the imac will probably look better in an office....also you can install windows in it.
powerslide67
the mac pro is you only option and those cost heaps more for no more power. there is no reason to get macs over pcs anymore since all the programs are on both. Imacs are terribly slow compared to the specs he listed, you can get a much better screen than what imacs have, and it wont go to waste in 3 years time when the system is outdated.
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