High Performance PC

[zakman123]

Hey guys,

I'm building a new PC for my brother, who wants a new high speed rig for remote access via Citrix to his work VPN.

What YOUR PC will be used for: Office & Citrix

What YOUR budget is: Aiming for C$1200~1500

What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from: Canada- Newegg.ca. NCIX

IF YOU have a brand preference: None whatsoever.

If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are: None

IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds: Absolutely no overclocking- default only.

What resolution will you be using? Want two IPS monitors..whatever the resolution is on those. Don't intend to game.

WHEN do you plan to build it? This week.
*

Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software? Windows 8, and a reasonable deal on MS Office if available.


QUESTIONS:

1. He seems to think he needs an i7 for this- I've never used Citrix so I don't know if this will make a difference or not. Any feedback on that will be welcome...
   
2. He wants a fast SSD & 16GB of RAM. Is 16 GB necessary for Citrix?
   
3. Can I get a mobo with built in dual monitor capability or do I need a video card?

The list I have so far:

CASE- Fractal Design Define Mini
CPU- Intel i5-3470k Ivy Bridge
MOBO - No idea? Something as rock solid and inexpensive as possible, with dual monitor capability if possible
RAM- CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3
SSD- Samsung 840 PRO Series 128GB SSD
HDD- Seagate SV35 Series ST1000VX000 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache*
VIDEO CARD- want to run two monitors- only reason for video card.
MONITORS- 2 x ViewSonic VX2370Smh-LED Black 23, IPS
PSU- ?
SPEAKERS- Any decent 2.1 set for music

Thanks guys!

 

[postmortemIA]

AFAIK Citrix is single threaded. Does not take much form host, beside connection. An i3 would do the same as i7. Best he can do is get low latency connection.

 

[Torn Mind]

I don't think VPN software is that CPU hungry. Best thing for him to do is to get a great internet connection and an Intel Ethernet adapter. But these things won't make the server computer at his workplace any faster.

 

[Cerb]

He seems to think he needs an i7 for this- I've never used Citrix so I don't know if this will make a difference or not. Any feedback on that will be welcome...

Total waste. It's going to be slow or fast based on how it's connecting, and the network speeds, more than anything*. Sure, you want a big fat core, rather than an Atom, but an i7 is going to be wasted. Not just be overkill, but be truly and totally wasted money.

He wants a fast SSD & 16GB of RAM. Is 16 GB necessary for Citrix?

Not remotely (pun intended). Hard to imagine more than 8GB being useful, for some time. In fact, even 8GB is only because it's still too cheap not to, for this kind of machine, even with recent price increases.

Can I get a mobo with built in dual monitor capability or do I need a video card?

Yes. Depending on your choices, it could go either way. But, there are plenty of mobos that can do the job, usually with DVI+HDMI, as outputs.

CASE- Fractal Design Define Mini
CPU- Intel i5-3470k Ivy Bridge
MOBO - No idea? Something as rock solid and inexpensive as possible, with dual monitor capability if possible

MicroATX Asus 7-series B, H, or Z? You should be able to find quite a few with DVI and HDMI (your selected monitors can take either).

With no gaming, number crunching, video editing, etc., there won't be much, if any, benefit from a fast expensive CPU. An i7 will only be 3% faster than the fastest i5, FI, if you don't have programs that can make use of it. The difference will be more with an i5 against an i3, but then it's still only 10-15%, and regular old office stuff hardly makes current CPUs sweat, unless you're talking about using Access as a real database (bad), or Excel as a computation platform for large data sets (bad, but common, and often doesn't scale to many cores).

Honestly, I think an i3-3120 (w/ ASRock H77M?) or A8-5600 (w/ MSI FM2-A75MA-E35?) would do the job just as well, be cheaper, and not be any real sacrifice in terms of longevity. Better monitors, a bigger SSD, a nice desk, a nice chair, a good mouse or trackball and keyboard, etc., would all be better places to put spare budget than a high-end CPU, for the proposed use case.

I don't think VPN software is that CPU hungry. Best thing for him to do is to get a great internet connection and an Intel Ethernet adapter. (em. added) But these things won't make the server computer at his workplace any faster.

That would be good for a case where GbE were a limiting factor, for sure, or maybe FPS gaming with CPU-heavy LAN drivers, but I'm not sure a couple megabits down the tubes is worth even that <$40 expense .

* So, if he has slow internet, like 2Mb/256Kb, or something, that will likely need to be improved upon. While there may be other factors, like client used, and the server setups, he will just have to live with any performance issues caused by the other end's choices.

 

[nsafreak]

Citrix is is very light on the CPU and is single threaded. My father was able to connect to his Citrix server at work with a Core 2 Duo E4600 and a good net connection and have it work just fine without any slowdowns or issues. You're overbuilding even with an i5 with the tasks he's looking at doing along with the 16GB of RAM. I'd scale it down to an i3 and use the onboard GPU to drive the two monitors, yes the IGP of an IvyBridge is capable of driving two monitors you'll just have to get an HDMI to DVI adapter for one of the monitors unless the monitors in question have an HDMI input. Most H77 & B75 motherboards have an HDMI & DVI out so you'll be set on that route. Really the total build cost for his purposes should be closer to $500 - $600 than $1200 unless he's using the remote hosting capability of Citrix for more heavy duty apps than we are aware of.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Citrix is is very light on the CPU and is single threaded. My father was able to connect to his Citrix server at work with a Core 2 Duo E4600 and a good net connection and have it work just fine without any slowdowns or issues. You're overbuilding even with an i5 with the tasks he's looking at doing along with the 16GB of RAM. I'd scale it down to an i3 and use the onboard GPU to drive the two monitors, yes the IGP of an IvyBridge is capable of driving two monitors you'll just have to get an HDMI to DVI adapter for one of the monitors unless the monitors in question have an HDMI input. Most H77 & B75 motherboards have an HDMI & DVI out so you'll be set on that route. Really the total build cost for his purposes should be closer to $500 - $600 than $1200 unless he's using the remote hosting capability of Citrix for more heavy duty apps than we are aware of.

Just an aside, but what is with all the HDMI outputs when most monitors still use DVI? I was really annoyed when I found I could not hook up two monitors to my HD7770 without getting a HDMI cable. Only one DVI output and no VGA. It came with an HDMI to DVI adapter, but is really annoying to have to buy a HDMI cable when I have loads of DVI and VGA cables already lying around.

 

[zakman123]

Thanks for all the feedback guys!

Nixed the i7 and discrete video card.

I’ve got a few more questions:

• Any difference between the i5-3330 and i5 3470 apart from clock speed? Is it worth spending an additional $25 on the i5-3470 for the HD-4000 graphics?

• Is the performance difference between an Ivy Bridge i3 and i5 worth the extra $50?

• It seems the major difference between B75 and H77 (for someone who doesn’t want to overclock or use RAID) is the lack of a second SATA 6 Gb/s port (does that matter for a 7200 rpm drive) and no HDMI (do I want to use a VGA port for an IPS 23 LCD or should I stick to DVI/HDMI)?

• Looking at following two boards- thoughts? ASUS P8H77, ASRock H77M-ITX

• Will this PSU (XFX ProSeries P1-450S) be sufficient? http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...irtualParent=1

• Worth looking at the SanDisk SDSSDP-128G to save $25 over the Samsung 840? Or is Samsung generally more reliable?

 

[Sleepingforest]

Since Citrix is single threaded, you could get away with an i3 just fine (the difference is that an i3 has 2 cores while an i5 has 4 cores). That PSU is fine, and since the warranty is the same as the baseline Samsung SSD, I'm going to direct you to this Sandisk drive instead (save some cash!).

 

[mfenn]

As others have said, your performance in Citrix is going to be entirely dependent on your Internet connection and the remote system. Almost anything you build/buy will be more than sufficient. If it were me, I'd go over to the Dell outlet and buy a $500 Inspiron on XPS and add an inexpensive dual-DVI card like the GeForce 610.

 

[Cerb]

Any difference between the i5-3330 and i5 3470 apart from clock speed? Is it worth spending an additional $25 on the i5-3470 for the HD-4000 graphics?

Unless he can use the added cache or full cores, there's not even a difference that's worthwhile between either of them and an i3-3220. HD 4000 has more EUs, but if that's ever needed, a $50-80 video card would be so much faster it wouldn't be funny.

Is the performance difference between an Ivy Bridge i3 and i5 worth the extra $50?

No, not unless he does something that will really bog multiple cores down, or needs lots of cache. For most office type uses, the difference will be absolutely none.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/11/26/intel-core-i3-3220-review/5
That's roughly what you're looking at, in terms of performance difference, and that performance difference only would matter when the CPU is actually slower than the human behind it, for some task. There are cases where it matters, but 99.9% of Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, and misc. web stuff is at a point where it's just not limited in a way that the higher-end CPU will help much.

Now, Intel does a great job of gimping their Pentium line. A Core i3 is very much worth it over those. But unless you do gaming, serious number crunching, software development, content creation, or something else really stressful, the benefits are slim to none, going beyond the i3.

It seems the major difference between B75 and H77 (for someone who doesn&#8217;t want to overclock or use RAID) is the lack of a second SATA 6 Gb/s port (does that matter for a 7200 rpm drive) and no HDMI (do I want to use a VGA port for an IPS 23 LCD or should I stick to DVI/HDMI)?

IIRC, HDMI is simply a choice by the mobo makers. The extra 6Gbps port could be used by another SSD, but no, it will make no difference with a HDD.

Worth looking at the SanDisk SDSSDP-128G to save $25 over the Samsung 840? Or is Samsung generally more reliable?

Good question. I wouldn't, but I also wouldn't buy a normal office user a brand new SSD, personally. I'd get something that's been around, and that uses 1st/2nd-party firmware, like the Intel 520, Plextor M5 (P has a longer warranty), Corsair Neutron, or Crucial M4 (slowest of the bunch).

 

[zakman123]

Thanks guys, I'm all set. It never ceases to amaze how incredible,friendly & helpful everyone is here.