Holiday 2012 Workstation Buyer's Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on December 10, 2012 3:20 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
- AMD
- Intel
- Ivy Bridge
- Piledriver
- Holiday 2012
Conclusions
As stated plainly on the first page of this guide, it's critically important to consider whether to build a workstation yourself, or to buy a pre-built from a company that can provide support. If you're capable (and willing) to support the workstation yourself, or if your system isn't mission critical (like a prosumer-grade photo or video editing system that can be offline for a few days without impacting your wallet), then a DIY workstation can be a good value and enjoyable experience.
Before putting together a workstation, be sure to be especially cognizant of your storage and graphics cards needs, as these will be wildly variable between different workloads. Regardless of whether you need low or high powered components, pay attention to prices over the holidays. Component costs are especially dynamic this time of year, and you can save a lot of money by doing your research and watching for sales.
As always, AnandTech's General Hardware forum is a great place to share information with fellow PC enthusiasts, and the Hot Deals forum is full of useful tips for scoring cheap parts. Those interested in GPGPU computing can check out our Video Cards & Graphics forum for information on how various models perform in different scenarios. We also welcome you to share your workstation specifications and what you use your workstation(s) for in the comments section.
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Blibbax - Monday, December 10, 2012 - link
What made you pick the i7-3770 over the cheaper Xeon E3-1230V2?stickmansam - Monday, December 10, 2012 - link
Yeah I was wondering about that tooslatanek - Monday, December 10, 2012 - link
From what I read on the 1st page of this guide I understand it's a guide focused on consumer/enthusiast grade workstation where your work is not involved in serious money/critical appliances. I mean, c'mon guys is that so hard to get? It's written right there in the introduction. So stop just outsmarting each other out with statements about what is and isn't a workstation. Nowadays a workstation doesn't even mean that much - what is that different in a modern workstation vs. enthusiast PC? Frankly, not much. It's basically the same architecture, layout etc. As I've said before - go and read again, it's written right there:"If your computer is more than important (i.e. mission critical), DIY is rarely a good idea."
Am I the only one who read the whole article before posting a comment? I get the impression that some of you just looked at the components choice lists and went on trolling.
As a reply I say:
"anything that runs ECC is not worth writing about, cause guys using those "things" are too focused on their job to even bother reading about it".
Nah, just kidding ;-)
Cheers
JonnyDough - Monday, December 10, 2012 - link
"Though Piledriver chips don't match Intel's highest-end performance processors, at certain price points, Piledriver CPUs are worth consideration because they can outperform equivalently priced Intel products (with a few qualifications)."However, the difference in power usage may make the Intel system still a better deal.
beaker7 - Monday, December 10, 2012 - link
Cupcake article. The parts in the high end build are neither high-end nor workstation class. A 3930k could be used in a budget situation, I suppose.Current high end is:
E5-2687w Xeons
SuperMicro dual LGA 2011
1600 Mhz ECC RAM
etc
lunadesign - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
+1000 (I totally agree)Uncognoscenti - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - link
Would appreciate some elaboration regarding criteria for selecting Windows 7 over Windows 8 in this application.kadajawi - Wednesday, December 19, 2012 - link
I find it hard to believe that you do not specify a CPU cooler in that build. The Intel stock heatsink is loud, and sometimes even inadequate. I have had i7 overheat/slow down because the CPU just gets too hot. Switched it with a Xigmatek Gaia, and the thing was not only silent, but also so cool that the thing could be overclocked from 2.66 to 3.8 GHz (I did also switch the lousy case for a Xigmatek case).Also the 3570K can be an interesting CPU for a workstation. All 3D workstations I have built use the 3570K on a Z77 board by Asus (P8Z77-M), cooling is provided by a CoolerMaster 212 EVO, encased in a Xigmatek Asgard XP, power supply is a Seasonic S12-II Bronze 620 (one of which died within a few months). The systems run pretty good and are rock solid at 4.2 GHz. For OS and software the Intel 320 SSD was used. Impossible to hear unless under full load. The performance easily rivals the i7 PCs that were already there.
harth234 - Friday, August 9, 2013 - link
More guides please!It's been half a year!