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Thread: 10K budget to get to build 2 lightning fast workstations— I am serious !!

  1. #1
    Senior Member strat1's Avatar
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    10K budget to get to build 2 lightning fast workstations— I am serious !!

    10K budget to build 2 lightning fast workstations— I am serious !!
    The case must be be low key looking as possible per the agreement of my boss- so no reason to go crazy on that.
    Will be using it for
    OS is XP PRO
    Running--
    SQL SERVER apps
    TOAD for ORACLE and TOAD for SQL
    ADSI Edit
    A few FAT clients of some proprietary software.
    And as basic workstation.
    Vertual Servers for multiple apps

    This is what I have so far liasted as my wish list on NewEgg

    CASE
    LIAN LI PC-201B Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail

    PROC
    Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 Kentsfield 3.0GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80562QX6850 - Retail

    MB
    ASUS Striker Extreme LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX The Ultimate Gaming Motherboard - Retail

    VID
    XFX PVT80FSHE9 GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported HDCP Video Card - Retail

    STORAGE
    LSI LOGIC LSI00110 8-lane, 2.5Gb/s PCI Express SATA / SAS SAS3442E-R 3Gb/s 8-port IR - Retail
    1 Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
    2 Fujitsu MAX3147RC 147GB 15,000 RPM Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Hard Drive - Retail

    MONITORS
    2 per box SAMSUNG 204BW Black 20" 6ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor with Height Adjustments - Retail

    DVD
    LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model LH-20A1L-06 - Retail

    PSU
    OCZ ModXStream OCZ900MXS ATX12V / EPS12V 900W Power Supply - Retail

    FAN CONTROLER
    ZALMAN ZM-MFC1 Fan Controller Panel - Retail

    RAM PER BOX
    8 GB per box CORSAIR XMS2 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX - Retail

  2. #2
    Senior Member Lgbpop's Avatar
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    If this is a private company your list looks good. If it's for the Commonwealth, buy two of these - all Mass. govt. purchases go over budget!
    Thank God we're not getting all of the government we're paying for!

  3. #3
    Senior Member strat1's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lgbpop
    If this is a private company your list looks good. If it's for the Commonwealth, buy two of these - all Mass. govt. purchases go over budget!
    19K for One Workstation is bit much-- but I liked the design of the boxes and setups.
    1TB drive with 32mb cache
    Dual 30inch plasmas
    THAT IS SWEET****
    Thanks for taking a look at it- I will be ordering Monday so need to have this finalized.

    So True about MA—but if this was a state contract then we would pay 19K and still get a DELL Pentium III

  4. #4
    Extreme Member! BipolarBill's Avatar
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    WHy are you rigging up expensive gaming rigs? If these are to run databases and server apps, you can (and should) run Opteron and "working graphics" cards - like Quadro. You should also use workstation motherboards - perhaps dual CPU with dedicated memory banks for each CPU.

    While I can understand the Lian Li, a lockable Chieftech makes more sense - at 60% less cash.

    You're making the typical mistake of confusing hi-perf PCs and true workstations. You should get proven (very important), reliable workstation components - preferrably with registered RAM.

    As PC users, we don't mind driver issues and hardware glitches. We have time to work those out. Your boss doen't have that luxury. If you really need gamer performance on these boxes, please do tell us exactly what you intend to run on them. Let us help you make a judgement.
    MS MCP, MCSE

  5. #5
    Senior Member strat1's Avatar
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    I was hoping to hear from you--- thanks for the info Bill.
    I just picked out the best/fastest components I could find after a few hours of research. Since I do not have much time(end of fiscal year for us is tomorrow—I need to get this ordered from Newegg tomorrow) I do not know much about the Opterons and finding reviews / mobos is ever harder. I started by finding the best processor out there (from reviews) and built the PC around it. The drives were chosen because they are the fastest out there and I wanted to build a SCSI workstation.
    This will be used strictly as a workstation
    Running the following apps
    SQL SERVER
    TOAD
    ADSI Edit
    A few FAT clients of some proprietary software.
    VMWARE - A very processor intensive app that updates multiple attributes for 10K users from a flat file.
    Can you suggest any which of the OPTERONs and MBs I should look at ?

  6. #6
    Extreme Member! BipolarBill's Avatar
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    So you don't need 3D graphics at all. Why are you topping that out? Get an older DX9 6600 or 7600 and save big bux. Put that money towards an LSI SAS controller and start out with enterprise SATA drives on it. You can upgrade to SCSI later if needed.

    Opteron CPUs are not expensive or confusing. Use Newegg and filter for workstation/server motherboards for AMD Opteron. Tyan has good stuff. Feature the mobo as you like (mind the width!). Just be sure that it uses buffered/registered RAM. Then get the best Opteron that you can afford. Get Crucial RAM to match. If you need audio, see to that. Most WS/server mobo have onboard video, which can be easily overridden. Be sure that it has some PCI/PCIe slots! Many have only PCI-X. Once you apply these criteria, you will be automatically narrowed down to a mere handful of boards - making a decision very easy. Then you can look for other brands with the same features. It's how I do it.

    Don't be intimidated. This is not any harder than building a decent budget PC.
    MS MCP, MCSE

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    Senior Member strat1's Avatar
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