Midrange System Buyer's Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on September 11, 2012 12:35 AM EST- Posted in
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- AMD
- Intel
- Ivy Bridge
- Radeon HD 7000
- NVIDIA
Midrange Workstation
If you are considering building a midrange workstation, one important question you need to ask is whether your workloads will benefit from Hyper-Threading. This is the most important difference between the Core i5-3570 and Core i7-3770 CPUs. Anand previewed and reviewed the Core i7-3770 at length, and given that the cost differential between the two aforementioned chips is about $100, they're worth reading. Succinctly, workloads heavy on compression, encryption, multi-threaded audio and video transcoding, and multi-threaded software compilation are among the more common tasks that benefit greatly from the addition of the i7's Hyper-Threading. Many functions in Adobe Creative Suite 6 benefit from Hyper-Threading.
In my experience, Hyper-Threading increases productivity in certain SAS and Excel functions but not others. While we don't have the i5-3570 in Bench yet, comparing the previous generation i5-2500 (non Hyper-Threading) to the i7-2600 (Hyper-Threading) will give you a sample of applications that benefit from Hyper-Threading. Because so many productivity titles benefit from Hyper-Threading, we're recommending the Core i7-3770 here. Note that if you are interested in overclocking, you'll need to spend a few more dollars on the multiplier unlocked i7-3770K. While overclocking modern CPUs is often unproblematic (especially with modest overclocks that don't entail overvolting), a workstation needs to be as stable as possible, so we are not recommending an overclocked CPU for this build.
A second important question is whether your workloads will benefit from GPU acceleration. Many popular productivity titles like Sony's Vegas Pro 11, Adobe CS 6, and MATLAB, as well as more specialized software titles like those that model electrochemistry and align DNA sequences, can complete certain tasks much faster when accelerated by a GPU than when the work is done solely by the CPU. A more thorough discussion of GPGPU is outside the scope of this article; suffice it to say that if you are not already familiar with GPU acceleration, it is worth researching whether your workloads will benefit from it. If you are already familiar with GPU acceleration, you likely know which GPU models best fit your needs. Less expensive GPGPU-purposed video cards are typically within reach of a midrange workstation builder's budget, but for the sake of simplicity, one is not included in this build.
No workstation should be without an SSD—nothing improves overall system responsiveness like an SSD—so we include the Samsung 128GB here. Windows 7, Office 2010, and Adobe CS 6 will all comfortably fit on a 128GB SSD but you'll likely need more storage. If you're a heavy Photoshop user, you might want to consider adding another SSD to use as a scratch disk. You can certainly upgrade to higher-performance 7200RPM drives or add more storage drives as necessary, but 2TB will give you plenty of storage space to start.
The Intel BOXDH77KC is, in my experience, a reliable motherboard with plenty of expansion slots; it includes a slot for an mSATA SSD if you prefer to use that either in place of or in addition to the Samsung 830 128GB SSD. The 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Kingston DDR3-1600 RAM will likely be sufficient for most workstation users; if not, another 16GB kit can be added for 32GB total (note that you'll need Windows 7 Pro/Ultimate to benefit from more than 16GB). Powering everything, we're recommending the SeaSonic S12II 430B. This is an extremely well-built unit that will provide your components with stable, clean power. It's also very quiet.
Workstations come in legion configurations, and most people want them to be quiet and look clean. Fractal Design's Define R4 was reviewed by Dustin recently, and I agree with his pertinent conclusions: it is flexible, quiet, has great thermals, and is a very good value at just over $100. It can accommodate multiple, larger GPUs for GPGPU computing, many hard drives for lots of local storage, and is very easy to keep clean because of its many fan filters. It's also available with a windowed side panel if you want to impress people with your computer building skills.
Finally, this build includes a copy of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. You can get an overview of the differences between Windows versions at Microsoft and Wikipedia. Some of the more relevant and important differences between Professional and Home Premium are the former's support for more than 16GB of RAM, Windows XP mode, domain join, and integrated backup and restore features. Here's our final baseline workstation--many higher end users will want to add an appropriate GPU, which is easy to do.
| Component | Product | Price |
| Case | Fractal Design Define R4 | $110 |
| Power Supply | SeaSonic S12II 430B | $60 |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3770 | $309 |
| Motherboard | Intel BOXDH77KC | $110 |
| RAM | Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 | $75 |
| SSD | Samsung 830 128GB | $100 |
| HDD | Western Digital 2TB Green | $110 |
| Optical Drive | Lite-On IHAS324 | $20 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Professional 64-bit | $117 |
| Cost: | $1,011 | |
That takes care of our primary builds for this guid, but read on for some additional concluding remarks.
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Grok42 - Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - link
I agree, managing space across 2 drives on a Windows system is a complete pain. One day MS will release an OS that roots all the drives from a root path like Linux/OSX and either mounts drives as folders or just sees all the storage as one big pool of space like ZFS can. Until then you need to pick a system drive that will hold all the installed applications you intend to ever use.That said, I also think HDDs are pretty much useless to talk about for system builds these days. All the builds I read about use a small 60GB-128GB system SSD and then throw a larger HDD as a 2nd drive for almost a $100 additional cost. I think 99% of builds would be better served by going with a 250GB SSD for $30-$60 more and calling it a day. You should have to manage the space for applications. If you have a large video/music/photo collection well, that is what external drives or NAS systems are for.
antef - Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - link
I don't find the management all that difficult. Everything gets installed on the SSD, except for games which get installed on the hard drive. All personal documents/music/pictures are on the hard drive. That's it.juhatus - Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - link
Also you can use mklink /j in eleveted command prompt to keep some games on ssd. works great for example steam..Aikouka - Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - link
I don't recall it being noted in the article, but SSDs seem to go on sale almost every other week. For example, NewEgg has the Samsung 830 128GB ($90), Vertex 4 128GB ($90), Sandisk Extreme 120GB ($80), Agility 4 256GB ($145), and Intel 330 240GB ($160) (note: latter two are after mail-in rebate).These deals can be *great* for savings. After rebate, you can get an Intel SSD that has twice the capacity compared to the one that was brought up in the article for only ~$55, which is only about a 50% increase in price for a 100% increase in capacity. That's a fantastic value! =)
demonbug - Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - link
That's a good point, SSD choice might just depend on what's on sale at the time - there are quite a few drives that seem to be more or less comparable with prices that vary 20% or more week to week. That makes it hard to recommend one based on price/performance as this measure is so unpredictable. I just picked up a 128GB M4 from Amazon for $80 a couple days ago (I think it was a one-day sale; almost went with the 256GB for $164, but that exceeds my spur-of-the-moment purchase threshold); it might not be quite as fast as some of the newest contenders, but at that price the choice was pretty clear.exostrife - Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - link
I'm a bit baffled how none of these use an AMD setup.rscoot - Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - link
Because if you're buying AMD for anything other than a few niche situations in the mid range CPU wise you are wasting your money. This is coming from someone who was almost exclusively an AMD consumer from 2001-2006. Their CPUs are just not competitive in this arena right now.just4U - Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - link
I build computers based on Intel and Amd .. 30-40 a year infact with a ton of hands on experience. Even in my home right now I have a older PhenomII 920 setup along with my 2700K build. Both are fine for anything you throw at them game wise.. as are the majority of CPUs on the market today.For your average gamer/user (whatever) if you put up two identical systems (not crippled either..) one based on ivy bridge the other based on Amd's FX.. their not going to notice a whole helluva lot of difference. Their games will run fast on both setups.. as will their other programs/apps. Benchmarks may tell a different tale but don't be fooled... Amd does have a decent cpu. It's just not as good as Intels is all and only experienced users or those using certain programs will ever know the difference.
just4U - Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - link
As a for instance.. I've found that for the most part AMD's FX line is fairly comparable to the i7 920 in alot of things. While that cpu is older now it's no slouch.. hell I doubt the majority of people owning computers out there even have that much cpu power and are still sitting on older Athlons and Core2s... Even there though.. the C2D set a new standard and we've been moving up in baby steps since then. If you have a E8400 or better with 8G of ram (overkill) and atleast a 7750/550TI (or older equivelents..) you've got a competent setup. Throw in a ssd .. even better.. as that's the single most notable upgrade most will likely make or even notice.JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - link
The issue is that AMD's chips are slower and use more power, which is a double whammy. If you get an Intel CPU, you could potentially pay for the cost difference over the life of the PC just in power savings At idle, Intel i7-3770K (their highest power part) is 15-25W less than the FX series and older Phenom X4 chips.Under load, the difference is anywhere from 50W to 100W. So less performance while drawing more power and you save about $130 at most compared to i5-3570K. At full load, you'd pay for the difference in under two years if running 24/7. At idle loads, it would be more like $17.50 per year in power savings, and far less if you power off at night.
Even so, for my money I would rather have the faster system using less power rather than making do with older components. But that's why I'm an enthusiast and not an average user. Most of my extended family is still running Core 2 Duo/Quad or Athlon X2/X4 PCs while I'm running IVB laptops and Bloomfield desktops (with one IVB desktop).