- May 12, 2000
- 9,359
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My current workstation was built around mid 2003 and is starting to show it's age. I figured now was as good a time as any to build a new one. This workstation will be primarily for, well, work! No planned gaming or media work will be involved but plenty of IT related tasks. The new box will serve as my primary work PC, VM server for product testing and host a small SQL database.
I realize this might be boring to some, but many of us need high quality workstations for our jobs.
Here are the specs:
Case: Antec Atlas 550 w/ TP2.0 550 Watt PSU $139.99 @ Newegg.
I picked this case because its very professional looking, comes with the PSU and can stand up to a beating. It is replacing it's big brother, an Antec Titan 550 which houses my current workstation. The other nice thing is that the entire unit and PSU can be warrantied as one item if needed. I have been very happy with Antec's professional line of cases so I am sticking with them. Cheaper, fan-boy, LED Christmas tree cases aren't an option.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L - $78.99 @ Newegg.
I needed an inexpensive but solid motherboard. I picked this one for it's price and all solid capacitor setup. Overall feature set is irrelevant, there will be no over clocking or tweaking on this box. Reliability and stability are key. I chose not to go with an integrated video board because even for general office use integrated video is not up to my idea of acceptable.
Processor: Intel Q6600 Kentsfield - $279.00 @ Newegg.
Four cores will be a welcome speed boost. Having 10-15 CPU intensive applications running at any given time was starting to tax my Athlon XP 3200+. This should prove to be a worthy replacement. I thought about going for the next model up but for the extra $200 I didn't feel 266 MHz was worth it.
Memory: 4GB (2x2GB) Transcend DDR2-800 - $109.98 @ Newegg
The speed or over clocking ability is really irrelevant to me, what I do need is quantity. This lower cost ram enables me to buy more of it. My current workstation has 2GB and I am generally using about 1.8 of it at any given time. I plan to move to Vista so having an extra 2GB will keep things leveled out.
Storage: WD Caviar 160GB (16mb/SATA2/7200) - $59.99
I have my own dedicated, Raid-5 NAS that keeps all my critical data so storage wasn't a big concern. I almost went with a Raptor (I have them at home in personal boxes) but didn't feel the extra cost was going to get me much more performance for my application. I'll admit to being a WD fanboy, I love their Caviar line and have been using them extensively for years. Never had one die either.
Optical: 2xSony Optiarc 18X DVD-Burner/CD Burner (SATA) - $55.98 @ Newegg
I very rarely write anything to portable media anymore these days but when I need to, I need to. Being able to quickly duplicate a disk is also great. I may actually do this only a dozen times a year, but I'm usually in a hurry and being able to copy disk to disk is nice.
Video: Powercolor X1650 Pro 512MB - $64.99 @ Newegg
Chances are I will never utilize this card to it's full potential but knowing that I have SOME 3D capabilites just in case is nice. What I was really looking for was a mature video chipset and dual DVI connectors. This card fits the bill and for the price is hard to beat. And who knows, maybe once a year, maybe, this box will get dragged to a LAN party - but not likely.
Operating System: Windows Vista Business 64-bit OEM - $149.99 @ Newegg.
For about a year now a ton of the applications I use daily (mostly internal apps developed the company I work for) have been re-written for 64-bit. So far I haven't been able to take advantage of that fact. Also I need 64-bit to allow for my 4GB of ram. I am not an early adopter when it comes to operating systems, but Vista has been around pretty much in it's current form since July 2006 - minor chances were made at "official" launch and other changes have been made since then as well, but it's pretty much the same core. I feel the OS has proved itself to move into my daily workstation use.
Anyway. There you have it, my new and improved workstation. I will be clicking the "Submit" button just as soon as my boss approves the expense. Grand total is $939.90 + shipping.
Thanks for reading! Post your workstations if you want!
I realize this might be boring to some, but many of us need high quality workstations for our jobs.
Here are the specs:
Case: Antec Atlas 550 w/ TP2.0 550 Watt PSU $139.99 @ Newegg.
I picked this case because its very professional looking, comes with the PSU and can stand up to a beating. It is replacing it's big brother, an Antec Titan 550 which houses my current workstation. The other nice thing is that the entire unit and PSU can be warrantied as one item if needed. I have been very happy with Antec's professional line of cases so I am sticking with them. Cheaper, fan-boy, LED Christmas tree cases aren't an option.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L - $78.99 @ Newegg.
I needed an inexpensive but solid motherboard. I picked this one for it's price and all solid capacitor setup. Overall feature set is irrelevant, there will be no over clocking or tweaking on this box. Reliability and stability are key. I chose not to go with an integrated video board because even for general office use integrated video is not up to my idea of acceptable.
Processor: Intel Q6600 Kentsfield - $279.00 @ Newegg.
Four cores will be a welcome speed boost. Having 10-15 CPU intensive applications running at any given time was starting to tax my Athlon XP 3200+. This should prove to be a worthy replacement. I thought about going for the next model up but for the extra $200 I didn't feel 266 MHz was worth it.
Memory: 4GB (2x2GB) Transcend DDR2-800 - $109.98 @ Newegg
The speed or over clocking ability is really irrelevant to me, what I do need is quantity. This lower cost ram enables me to buy more of it. My current workstation has 2GB and I am generally using about 1.8 of it at any given time. I plan to move to Vista so having an extra 2GB will keep things leveled out.
Storage: WD Caviar 160GB (16mb/SATA2/7200) - $59.99
I have my own dedicated, Raid-5 NAS that keeps all my critical data so storage wasn't a big concern. I almost went with a Raptor (I have them at home in personal boxes) but didn't feel the extra cost was going to get me much more performance for my application. I'll admit to being a WD fanboy, I love their Caviar line and have been using them extensively for years. Never had one die either.
Optical: 2xSony Optiarc 18X DVD-Burner/CD Burner (SATA) - $55.98 @ Newegg
I very rarely write anything to portable media anymore these days but when I need to, I need to. Being able to quickly duplicate a disk is also great. I may actually do this only a dozen times a year, but I'm usually in a hurry and being able to copy disk to disk is nice.
Video: Powercolor X1650 Pro 512MB - $64.99 @ Newegg
Chances are I will never utilize this card to it's full potential but knowing that I have SOME 3D capabilites just in case is nice. What I was really looking for was a mature video chipset and dual DVI connectors. This card fits the bill and for the price is hard to beat. And who knows, maybe once a year, maybe, this box will get dragged to a LAN party - but not likely.
Operating System: Windows Vista Business 64-bit OEM - $149.99 @ Newegg.
For about a year now a ton of the applications I use daily (mostly internal apps developed the company I work for) have been re-written for 64-bit. So far I haven't been able to take advantage of that fact. Also I need 64-bit to allow for my 4GB of ram. I am not an early adopter when it comes to operating systems, but Vista has been around pretty much in it's current form since July 2006 - minor chances were made at "official" launch and other changes have been made since then as well, but it's pretty much the same core. I feel the OS has proved itself to move into my daily workstation use.
Anyway. There you have it, my new and improved workstation. I will be clicking the "Submit" button just as soon as my boss approves the expense. Grand total is $939.90 + shipping.
Thanks for reading! Post your workstations if you want!
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