Building a Workstation, need some advice

[pixelharmony]

So I've finally decided to build decidated workstation for my photo/graphic work along with basic Sony Vegas 8 movie work.

The setup I have right now is a gigbit network with currently 1 server and 1 desktop.

The server is pretty much a large raid 5 box for data storage.

My work station is a e6600, 4GB Ram, P5B Deluxe, Raptor HDD. The system was OC'd to 3.2Ghz it did everything I needed relatively quickly except some larger Exposure filters\ and the rendering work in Sony Vegas.

What prompted this need was when my Raptor died, I felt crippled. Also since I'm newly married, so my permenant roommate loves to use my PC! Just another reason to build another rig

Currently, I'm thinking Xeon X3360 with 8GB DDR2 800. A good desktop board (Don't want to overkill with server boards + ECC memory). I was highly considering solid state, but I think I'm just going to stick with Raptors right now.

Any recommendations, builds, thoughts? Should I wait for the next run of Nehalem procs to come out?

[Meaty0]

Okay...I can't help you much but I'm about to build a new workstation myself. I note your thinking of using an Intel Xeon in a desktop board. Are there any desktops that use Xeons? I thought they only went into server boards and other twin CPU boards. Excuse my newbiness.

EDIT: BTW, the board I'm looking at is the Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6

[tim]

I wouldn't bother with Xeon, just get a fast E9xxx quad core machine. Personally they're not fast enough for me to bother upgrading, so i've decided to wait until after summer (winter US time) when the new i7 core will be out, and maybe have gone through a round of price drops. They require expensive DDR3 RAM, which will drop in price eventually.

Also skin SSD and raptor, just get fast large seagate disks IMHO.

[MaxxuM]

There really isn't much need for a true Workstation setup these days (Xeon) - they are too expensive IMO though I do use 5x T5400 stations at work.

With Vegas there just isn't any better way to go than Quad and the Q6600 is still king. Going dual core is pretty counter productive as renders will take twice as long.

Everyone loves spending other people's money so I'll refrain from recommending a setup unless you ask. First, don't bother getting the biggest and best of anything unless you just like to spend money. Second, don't bother with more than 512MB on a video card. Go with an Intel chipset if you want pure stability. Three, don't bother getting faster memory than 800Mhz unless you know what clocks are going to get you the best speeds. Getting super fast memory is a total waist if your motherboard is just going to lower its clock to be in sync with the processor. Five, super fast hard drives are a total waist of time/money if you don't have a lot of data moving from drive to memory. Photo editing and video editing are not known for their intensive data demands on hard drives and any speed you gain from a VelociRaptor or Raptor can be ofset by bigger hard drives. Meaning, with photo and video editing it is more ofthen than not better to go with larger drives than faster smaller ones. Anyone that tells you that a VelociRaptor is going to speed up your video/photo editing is just wrong. (Note, I have VelociRapors because I play games.) Five, if you plan on over clocking don't bother paying less than $150 for a motherboard - it's a waist of money IMO. The quality of the capacitors and the BIOS options needed to do a proper overclock begin at the $150 price point. The only exception is out of date motherboards that vendors are trying to get rid of (ex. XFX nForce 680i LT SLI). Six, go with an airy case - the Antec 900 and 1200 are very popular, but there are others.

[Bobster]

instead of Raptors - just get 4 Seagate SATAII drives and stick them in RAID10

[makaka]

I would say go with INTEL core i 7 for long use , those are 4 core processor (the cheapest will be around 300 $ and overclock it to 3.6-4 GHz most cpu will overclock to this level air cooled ) with A X58 motherboard (for 200 $ EVGA for example) and some DDR3 memory .
Currently Nehalem will be a way faster in multi-threaded task due to :
1) integrated memory controller , expect over 12 GB/s @ stock and with some OC as high as 20 Gb/s .
2) Intel HT new version : u will get 4 core real and 4 virtual
3) X58 chipset support SLI and Crossfire : NVIDIA will release soon Adobe primer with Cuda with will result in 10X performance boost .
I know it is not cheap but this is for long time and fast work

[tim]

Check out reviews here and here.

The standard i7 can't easily be overclocked, but the extreme edition can.

My take on performance, after reading those benchmarks, is the i7 should provide a good performance boost for heavy workloads, but due to DDR3 and motherboard costs won't be cheap. If you want the best get the i7, if you want something fast, good value and fit for the job get the E9xxx series until the 2nd revision of the i7 comes out.

[makaka]

Many review in the internet say that 4 GHz is doable with good air cooler and 1.4 V i read already 7 or 8 of them .
Extreme cooling will result in 5GHz + (check extreme system) .
It is not so hard to overclock core i7 processor :

System on base of these processors is overclocked even simpler than Core 2 Quad, which requires the fine adjustments of voltage and specific parameters.

source

[MaxxuM]

Originally Posted by tim

Check out reviews here and here.

The standard i7 can't easily be overclocked, but the extreme edition can.

My take on performance, after reading those benchmarks, is the i7 should provide a good performance boost for heavy workloads, but due to DDR3 and motherboard costs won't be cheap. If you want the best get the i7, if you want something fast, good value and fit for the job get the E9xxx series until the 2nd revision of the i7 comes out.

They are also going to be pretty expensive to start out with. The 940 is what I'm probably going to get and I think projected cost is going to be around $500-$600 last I heard. The Extreme will likely be near a grand. The motherboard and DDR3 tri-channel standard will also bring the price up.

[tim]

Originally Posted by makaka

Many review in the internet say that 4 GHz is doable with good air cooler and 1.4 V i read already 7 or 8 of them .
Extreme cooling will result in 5GHz + (check extreme system) .
It is not so hard to overclock core i7 processor :

source

Seems more difficult for the non-extreme editions.

Originally Posted by MaxxuM

They are also going to be pretty expensive to start out with. The 940 is what I'm probably going to get and I think projected cost is going to be around $500-$600 last I heard. The Extreme will likely be near a grand. The motherboard and DDR3 tri-channel standard will also bring the price up.

Anyone care to work out an approximate cost for the 940, with motherboard and 8GB of RAM, compared with an E9xxx chip with 8GB DDR-2? The E9xxx will likely come down a little too. I suspect with E9xxx will win quite easily in price/performance.

[makaka]

Seems more difficult for the non-extreme editions.

not so difficult currently Intel X58 motherboard has a few problem over 160-180 FSB , but most other motherboard will do 200 fine which is plenty enough for 4 Ghz using low end Core i7 version (940)
Agreed the free multiplier will help your overclock and to make the life easier , but currently who can afford those extreme version usually priced over 1000$ .
This is the 45 nm process so in the worst case a 3.6 Ghz will be easy .

[incendy]

I would wait for the i7 if I was you, they are so close to coming out and the starting prices actually seem pretty reasonable. DDR3 is getting so cheap too.

Right now I have two quad core Xeon's with 8gb of RAM and I can't say I have come close to maxing it doing any photography tasks but I am going to upgrade my room computer to the i7 for sure when it comes out. As for the drives I think I would wait on the solid state drives too and stick the the raptors

[tim]

Originally Posted by incendy

I would wait for the i7 if I was you, they are so close to coming out and the starting prices actually seem pretty reasonable. DDR3 is getting so cheap too.

Right now I have two quad core Xeon's with 8gb of RAM and I can't say I have come close to maxing it doing any photography tasks but I am going to upgrade my room computer to the i7 for sure when it comes out. As for the drives I think I would wait on the solid state drives too and stick the the raptors

Couple thoughts:
- i7 is fastest, but not best bang for your buck at release time. That's the way technology is. Good performance advantage for highly demanding tasks.
- Raptors aren't really worth the bother these days, big Seagate drives are fast enough.
- Solid state drives aren't mature yet, maybe in a few years, but right now they're not good value

All IMHO

[Bobster]

Originally Posted by tim

- Raptors aren't really worth the bother these days, big Seagate drives are fast enough.

All IMHO

well there's actually proof that Raptors aren't worth the dolla, so its more than just your opinion..

[incendy]

Originally Posted by tim

Couple thoughts:
- i7 is fastest, but not best bang for your buck at release time. That's the way technology is. Good performance advantage for highly demanding tasks.
- Raptors aren't really worth the bother these days, big Seagate drives are fast enough.
- Solid state drives aren't mature yet, maybe in a few years, but right now they're not good value

All IMHO

Have you checked out the starting prices yet? According to some of the benchmarks they are the best bang for the buck. As for Solid State I agree with you which is why I said to hold off. Raptors are very good drives although overpriced, but there is usually always sales around here so the price difference becomes pretty small.