New workstation, CPU and GPU assistance

[tom182]

Hi folks,

I need to do a well overdue upgrade on my workstation - but took my eye off whats happening in the hardware industry over the past couple of years and would appreciate any guidance from the forum
Can't wait any longer for next gen chips, have to jump now and get busy building it.

Budget is €2.5-3k(max!)
I am looking at an Intel setup, Intel Core i7-4930K hex seems to be a solid chip, Is there any remote justification of almost €400 extra for the Intel Core i7-4960X - 3.6GHz - Socket 2011 Model??? i cant see it!!

the other bits I'm look at are

MOBO: Asus P9X79 WS Intel X79 Socket 2011 Work Station Class Motherboard Socket 2011
HD OS Samsung 512GB 840 Pro Series Basic SSD - Solid State Drive -
HD Storage 2+3 WD or Samsung TBC
cooling: acasa venom ultra akccx4002hp 1 fan
PSU: Corsair Enthusiast TX V2 CP-9020042-UK 750W Power Supply
RAM: 64GB DDR3 TBC
Graphics: This is a complete head wrecker, budgeting about €600, are AMD not an option if I want to use VrayRT? if so then I guess I am looking at GTX card of sorts -

would appreciate any insight you guys have of similar budgets/builds. just don't want to overlook something stupid.

thanks
Tom

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Hi folks,

I need to do a well overdue upgrade on my workstation - but took my eye off whats happening in the hardware industry over the past couple of years and would appreciate any guidance from the forum
Can't wait any longer for next gen chips, have to jump now and get busy building it.

Budget is €2.5-3k(max!)
I am looking at an Intel setup, Intel Core i7-4930K hex seems to be a solid chip, Is there any remote justification of almost €400 extra for the Intel Core i7-4960X - 3.6GHz - Socket 2011 Model??? i cant see it!!

the other bits I'm look at are

MOBO: Asus P9X79 WS Intel X79 Socket 2011 Work Station Class Motherboard Socket 2011
HD OS Samsung 512GB 840 Pro Series Basic SSD - Solid State Drive -
HD Storage 2+3 WD or Samsung TBC
cooling: acasa venom ultra akccx4002hp 1 fan
PSU: Corsair Enthusiast TX V2 CP-9020042-UK 750W Power Supply
RAM: 64GB DDR3 TBC
Graphics: This is a complete head wrecker, budgeting about €600, are AMD not an option if I want to use VrayRT? if so then I guess I am looking at GTX card of sorts -

would appreciate any insight you guys have of similar budgets/builds. just don't want to overlook something stupid.

thanks
Tom

Looks more or less good to me...

I would go with water cooling H100i series for example. I would go with i7 4930k - there is no point of getting the 4960 model.

GTX 780 Ti - or highest with biggest memory option for GPU.

[Donald2B]

Looking pretty solid. I'm putting together an identical machine right now for one of the modelers in our office. It's pretty solid. Here's my breakdown:

Only change I would make would be to use a little nicer PSU...Corsair AX or HX series would be a nice step up. Plus they are fully modular, reducing the amount of cabling and allowing for better airflow.

GPU: I would just go with a decent GTX 8 series card with a decent amount of VRAM and you are good to go!

My current build stats:
Mobo: Asus Sabertooth X79
CPU: Intel 4930k
Cooling: CoolerMaster 212 EVO
Memory: G.Skill 64GB
SSD: Corsair Force 3 GT 240GB
HDD: WD Black 1TB (Storage)
PSU: Corsair AX 860i
Graphics: nVidia Quadro K4000 (We do LOTS of engineering work so it's needed)
Case: Corsair Obsidian 650

[tom182]

Much appreciated guys,
I'll look into the watercooling , these cpu's should be clocked right??
at least now I know I barking up the right tree for budget/etc...

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I haven't looked in too deep on the motehrboard u took... But I'm pretty sure you can savely overclock 4930k to around 3.8+ghz with no need for extra tweak except for setting multiplier for 38. If u sure u wont OC 100% then maybe u can get cheaper motherboard...

[urbanite]

I have got pretty similar rig but you can try Noctua D14 LGA 2011 cooling system. I7 is OC but temp is low and system is very quiet (Fractal Design Define R3 case).

[tom182]

parts arrived today i went with the Noctua D14 LGA 2011 cooling system - shock horrow that thing is bloddy massive

2 questions:
I can put win 7 64pro or win 8 64 on it but I absolutely hate win 8 -admittedly only used it on non touch laptop - from what i'ver read here I am leaning towards sticking wth win7, any remote reason to opt for win 8?

OS HD is a 1tb samsung ssd, is the general idea to partition this into two (c and d) and throw progslike Max etc onto the D partition? thats what i used to do just checking that this still holds up

cheers

[MoonDoggie]

Generally with any workstation machines I recommend people go with Raid-1 setups (Mirrored Array) I'm sure it might be too late to recommend now, but picking up an identical HD could possibly save you a lot of heartache down the road if one fails.

[tom182]

yeah I could do that - not too late, I have a 1TB ssd for the OS progs and a 3TB for data/client, you mean to do Raid1 on the 3tb data disk? and take a mirror of OS drive when required i.e. when MAX and co and installed......
is that what you would advise?

[MoonDoggie]

Yeah, wherever you're storing your projects (probably on your 3tb data drive), I would most definitely RAID-1 that drive. And install only necessary software on the OS drive. Hopefully you'll never need that extra drive, but if you're already spending enough money on that computer, that extra $120 you will be super happy you did.

[Donald2B]

I agree with Colin.

I run a RAID 5 storage array at home for all my projects just in case something goes sideways...I can still recover data.

[t1t4]

But don't think of your RAID as a backup. If your file system becomes corrupt or you delete something you didn't mean to you can still lose data.

I'm in that situation now. Well kind of maybe. In my case most of the time I have a NAS RAID 10 (or 0+1 striped and mirrored) and two backup drives which are both RAID5. One on site backup and one off site that I swap every month or so. I never have both the backups on site (at home) at the same time in case of an "act of god" or robbery. I had taken my onsite backup drive off site while on vacation and got lazy for the last month and didn't bring it home. And now I have learned my lesson. I normally have an automatic weekly backup of my NAS RAID where I keep ALL of my data. I don't keep anything but applications and temp files on my systems. I also regularly image my systems to the NAS to make rebuilding them easy if one does fail. That happens from time to time and with an image it usually only takes an hour or so to get a system back if there is a drive error or I muck around with the OS to much and break it. Happens from time to time -:]

Anyway my NAS RAID had a drive fail (has happens a few times in the past with no issues), I swapped it and it rebuilt. Then a different drive had an error, swapped that and it was rebuilding then something went wrong. Apparently some of the parts that make the filing system work got corrupted. So I usually have a week old or less backup which would make recovering not to bad except like a fool I had left my backup drive offsite for the last month and a half. So I'm sure I have all my data from last year and before but I may have lost everything since the new year. If I didn't have a back up at all I would be very very sad. As it is my raid manufacturer is helping me try to save the data but there is a good chance it's gone.

So the lesson learned which I already knew but clearly did not pay enough attention to is that -- RAID IS NOT A BACKUP. You should backup regularly if you care about your data. If you really care about it you should do something more like having two backup drives, one onsite one offsite that you swap regularly. Or backup to the cloud if that is easier or cheaper for you.

[MoonDoggie]

I do not disagree that you should backup _as well_. But your raid solution did save you a couple of times you mentioned "(has happens a few times in the past with no issues)". So I'm sorry you're in recovery mode, but the RAID solution is a cheap and effective emergency backup solution. But you bring up a good point. Regularly backup your important data to an offsite location as well.

[t1t4]

Yes having a RAID is pretty great for being mostly redundant (or fast or fast and redundant depending on the setup) but just wanted to make clear that it's no replacement for a good backup system.

Even with a redundant raid setup if your not backing it up you are risking losing all of the data on it even if that risk is lower than a non raid system.

[tom182]

i feel your pain t1t4, i had a HD fail about 9 yrs ago, was able to get data recovery firm to salvage about 60% - lost some key work, yeah I think NAS would be a worthy investment (or cloud), i guess if a ssd drive fails then there is even less chance of recovery compared to standard HD's? i'll go ahead with the second 3TB internal for Raid,

anyone using win8.1 and actually sees it as an improvement over win7 when on a workstation?