Putting together business/developer rig

[Mr Bob]

I'm building a business/developer computer, just wanted to do a quick post here before ordering all the parts, see if anyone had any comments or wanted to chime in on the direction of the build.

I already have an old case, pci x16 video card, and an HX750 watt PSU that I'm bringing over to this build.


I want something for under $800. I decided to spend less on the CPU (went with core i5 over the i7 for $90 less), and put that toward an SSD drive.

The primary use of the machine is for heavy multitasking, business applications and photoshop.

I'm not too sure about the motherboard, haven't dealt with ASRock before. I need something to support 2 video cards, 2-4 sata 6 slots, and 2+ USB 3.0.

Any thoughts before I move forward with the order? GPU/PSU/case are already here.

Intel 520 Series Cherryville SSDSC2CW120A3K5 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820167093
$184

ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157271
$121

Intel Core i5-2500K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115072
$210

CORSAIR XMS3 8GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145356
$49 X 2 (16gb with 2 sticks, upgrade to 32gb in future)

ASUS 24X DVD Burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827135204
$25

 

[Mr Bob]

I've been looking at a more expensive board, something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128506 GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3P LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

The more reviews I read on ASRock, the more I see bad support reviews. I'd rather spend an extra $100 and know part of that money is going to running quality support.

 

[pauldun170]

Based on your stated purpose, I'd go with the following
i7-2600 - $300
Mobo chosen is fine 121
Whatever pair of 4 gig sticks are recommended by Asrock ($35-$40)
DVD burner - whatever is on sale for under $20
Thats about 480 so far
184 for that ssd
Another 110 for a 1 TB drive

The primary use of the machine is for heavy multitasking, business applications and photoshop.

I need something to support 2 video cards, 2-4 sata 6 slots, and 2+ USB 3.0.

You are skimping on the CPU when the cpu is the most important piece
For a development machine, I'd go with the the i7 over the i5 and I prefer 2 nics (dual onboard or one onboardf and a cheapo PCI nic) in my own dev boxes.


Why the need for 2 vid cards and what cards are you using?

Another option is 6 core\ 8 core AMD procs based on what your requirements are.
2500K is fun and all for gamers and OC hobbyist but for real work I'd either cough up the change for the i7 or figure out if the single thread performance hit of AMD will have enough impact on what I need to do to rule it out

 

[Mr Bob]

I was looking at benchmarks on that 2600 vs i5 2500 and really didn't look like it was worth it. I don't HAVE to build a machine up to $800, just something under.

Any other suggestions on a motherboard? I was eying that gigabit as well as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131790 ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

 

[DSF]

You seem to be equating more expensive with higher quality in terms of your motherboard. More expensive = more features would be a slightly more accurate statement, but even that is a loose relationship.

Gigabyte and Asus are both fine choices, but you don't have to spend $200 to get there.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...me=Intel%20Z68

Gigabyte has Z68 boards for as low as $90 AR, you just have to choose the one that has the features and ports you need.

 

[pauldun170]

I was looking at benchmarks on that 2600 vs i5 2500 and really didn't look like it was worth it. I don't HAVE to build a machine up to $800, just something under.

Any other suggestions on a motherboard? I was eying that gigabit as well as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131790 ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

As a developer,
Benchmarks are fine, but real world is closer to multiple benchmarks running at once.
However, since I don't know what you will be running (besides PS) I'll assume you know what suits you.

Asrock is fine...dont over do it on the motherboard. Its just money down the toilet in your situation.
Also skip the K series intels. Why are you worried about overclocking?

 

[Ken g6]

OK, slow down. First, are you building this computer for internal use, or are you a retailer building a computer for a company? If the former, I suggest you get a pre-built computer from a trusted brand, like Dell, that comes with support.

Otherwise, if you don't like ASRock, how about an ASUS P8Z68-V LE mobo? Do you really need 4 sata 6(Gbps) slots? (They're only better than sata 3Gbps for SSDs.)

Edit: Oh, and for a cheap, fast, but not-officially-supported CPU option, assuming you'll have a discrete video solution, you could get a Xeon E3-1230, which has hyper-threading.

 

[Mr Bob]

ASUS P8Z68-V LE looks like a pretty good board. I like the 4 Sata 6 slots on the other (more expensive) ASUS, but I could always use that PCI slot with a 2-3 port Sata 6 card for much less $$

Gigabyte has Z68 boards for as low as $90 AR, you just have to choose the one that has the features and ports you need.

- What's support like with Gigabyte?

Also skip the K series intels. Why are you worried about overclocking?

- The K is currently the same price, so I picked that one.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

OK, slow down. First, are you building this computer for internal use, or are you a retailer building a computer for a company? If the former, I suggest you get a pre-built computer from a trusted brand, like Dell, that comes with support.

answer this please!

 

[mfenn]

If you're worried about support: go directly to HP/Dell, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Custom-built rigs are fine as toys (I've got a ton of them), but it seems that you're in a situation where support is an overriding concern. Instead of spending money trying to get "high quality" aftermarket components, you should instead spend that money on a proper workstation with support agreement.

 

[Mr Bob]

Support is always a concern... my BFG video cards and Corsair ram have lifetime support, the RMA process is smooth and includes advanced next-day replacement. Intel/ASUS provides next business day replacement parts for their motherboards too.

Go check out the support policy for ASRock - you have to physically ship your motherboard to them, wait for them to process it, and hope they approve the RMA. What are you expected to do in the meantime? Sit around while your parts ship via ground? Have you read the reviews on these guys? Horrible, horrible support.

From a business POV, you want quality products that are backed by solid support/warranty. Dell is ok if you have a larger budget and don't mind being limited to 1/2/3 year warranty.

Last Intel computer I built was right when the Core 2 Duo stuff was coming out, haven't caught up on the newer builds just yet.

And then to answer your question, I've built around 10-12 computers for friends/family over the past 15 years, I also resell quite a few Dell desktops/servers - so I have a bit of experience in both sides. Dell doesn't even have business desktops that support (by support I mean backed by Dell's support - not saying those MBs aren't capable of it) 16GB+ RAM.

 

[DSF]

I've never dealt with Gigabyte support because I haven't had to RMA a board from them. I returned one to Newegg when there was a minor issue (NB heatsink bracket was broken) but that was handled by Newegg, not Gigabyte. I suspect it was shipping damage anyway, as a hard drive from the same shipment was DOA as well.

 

[elconejito]

Maybe a little more info on what it is your doing? Photoshop can vary greatly from doing small web graphics to a hundred layer poster size PSD. If you're pretty much opening one large file and working on it for a long time, invest in RAM and CPU. If you are running batches of actions across hundreds/thousands of files (ie a photographer workflow) then invest in some large and/or multiple SSDs instead of the RAM & CPU. Regardless, Photoshop CS4 & higher will take advantage of all the cores you can throw at it (CS3 not so much), so the more the merrier. The GPU here doesn't make a lick of difference to anything accelerated *unless* your using the 3D plugin. The tiniest integrated GPU (although, not sure about Intel graphics) can accelerate the OpenGL features in Photoshop, definitely don't need dual GPUs. Unless you mean to use the 3D plugin, in which case I feel for you (it's horrible, IMO).

Heavy multi-tasking, invest in RAM. Once the programs are open they will just sit in memory. An SSD only helps when you're opening the application, so you could even get away with a regular HDD.

Business applications can mean a lot of things. MS Office apps? They don't challenge much of anything. An SSD might make it a little more pleasant opening Word and Powerpoint. If you're running some sort of DB based application like maybe accounting software with a lot of data, then an SSD would be really helpful.

 

[Mr Bob]

I just ordered everything this morning, went with the mid-range priced ASUS board - primarily for the support behind it, and there are lots of Newegg reports of DOA ASRock boards lately.

That i5 is definitely not the fastest CPU, but the difference in cost between the 2500 and i7 2600, doesn't really justify the performance increase - it's just priced too high right now.

Maybe a little more info on what it is your doing?

I'm usually running this all day long:

- IE (<5 tabs)
- Chrome (10-30 tabs)
- FF (40-50 tabs)
- Dreamweaver CS5 (10-20 pages)
- Photoshop x64 CS5 (5-20gb files, usually 5-10 per day, then lots of photo resizing through scripts - some times around 100-200 per batch)
- Outlook 2010 (2 accounts around 8-10gb mailboxes each)
- Lots of Word/Excel docs throughout the work day
- CRM application for work (just a basic desktop app)
- MSP application for work (fairly resource heavy app with I/O)
- OpenVPN
- A couple VMWare workstations running in the background (only powered on when needed)
- Decent amount of 200-800mb rar/zip archives each week, nothing too serious
- Filezilla, Dropbox, MSN, Skype, LogMeIn (very lightweight, but on 24/7)

 

[mfenn]

Support is always a concern... my BFG video cards and Corsair ram have lifetime support, the RMA process is smooth and includes advanced next-day replacement. Intel/ASUS provides next business day replacement parts for their motherboards too.

You've already ordered, so I won't belabor the point too much, but support goes far beyond replacing parts. For example, a unified source of support means that there is no blame game bouncing around different vendors. You instead call up one company and they fix it, even if it means a guy showing up at your office with a whole new computer the next day (or within 4 hours if you so choose).

Dell doesn't even have business desktops that support (by support I mean backed by Dell's support - not saying those MBs aren't capable of it) 16GB+ RAM.

This is just straight up wrong. Every single Precision can support more than 4GB of RAM. The baddest one can actually go up to 192GB.

 

[Mr Bob]

This is just straight up wrong. Every single Precision can support more than 4GB of RAM. The baddest one can actually go up to 192GB.

- You're going to shove out 3-4 times more $$ for the precision line. I probably should have specified their "base business desktops" (under $1000, closer to the budget I put in my initial post).

Sorry, but from a business perspective, the cost doesn't come close to offsetting the value of having to only deal with Dell support - Dell support is by far some of the best around, but cost wise, not really worth it.