Help me pick the right desktop
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Pretty new to professional workstations and want to get some feedback from any peeps here that have made purchases like this ( maybe even recently ).
My goals/requirements:
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I'm a responsiveness snob. It's what keeps me from using OS X or being able to not tear my hair out on a dual-core. My end-game with any new computer purchase is to get as close to 0 ms as possible on my budget for all non-long-running tasks.
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I run a full web development stack w/ a web server, various app servers, a handful of databases. Planning to start virtualizing more and will be digging into learning Linux ( Docker and containerization is the first super compelling reason I've come across to finally dig into it past the shallow end ) in the next year. I'd prefer to do so from inside Windows and try out a handful of different options, at first at least.
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I multitask way too much, it's unavoidable at my job. Main developer of a very small company where I need to pinball around between departments and make various things happen as quickly as possible, I'll often be carrying on 3-4 simultaneous Slack conversations and working on 3-4 separate codebases with a thousand windows and tabs open, and it's only going to get more complicated moving forward w/ a new virtualization workflow. I have hit various usage scenarios ( though it's not a daily thing ) where 16GB, in past experience, proved to not be quite enough RAM, hence the what may seem like overkill quantity of RAM in my configs.
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Cores. As you'll see below, the workstation I'm looking at purchasing has way too many cores for a mortal like myself. That said, I've been working on a hot new web app for a very long time now and am thinking of hosting its perpetual private pre-release at my home, where I have very high speed fiber. If I do that, it'd be extremely nice to not have to maintain a separate system and to just port-forward to my workstation and be able to monitor everything about the usage all from the same box, hence where I think an excess of cores and RAM might come in handy.
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My lifelong dream is to get into industrial design and make some things. I toyed around with 3D modeling a bit in college on a few leisurely nights, but have never invested time into it, and plan to in the next year. Hence the desire for a rig that can handle that kind of workload ( my 5750 most definitely can't ). My knowledge of 3D modeling and ID software is pretty limited, so for all I know an abundance of cores might come in invaluable here too ( or it may be 100% graphics card, IDK ).
Current setup: a mutilated T110.2 that I Frankensteined
Xeon E3-1240 v2 ( 4 cores, HT, 8MB cache, 3.4-3.8 Ghz )
32GB DDR3 1600
Radeon 5750 Pro ( you can laugh, it's the only card I could get to run on this motherboard that could support 3 monitors, 3 other much more current and higher-end ones just killed the ability boot when plugged in )
Add-in SATA III card w/ 2x Samsung 840 Pros in a Raid 0
Price: $1038 on sale w/ about $70 in add-on cards ( SATA III and USB 3, graphics card was left-over from another system and free ) and I had the SSDs leftover from other projects.The system I'm leaning towards: Precision T5810
Xeon E5-2697 v3 ( 14 cores, HT, 35M cache, 2.6-3.6 GHz )
32G DDR4 2133 ECC
Quadro K2200
2x 512GB SSDs ( these may be PCIe, the refurb listing doesn't specify )
3 Year Hardware Service with Onsite/In-Home Service After Remote Diagnosis
Windows 8.1 Pro license
The price after taxes and a massive coupon is a little over $4k.So my questions are:
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Is $4k a decent price for this hardware given my preference to not assemble my own? Can I do much better? If so how/where?
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Is it pretty capable of handling my requirements above? I believe it can take a 2nd K2200 card, so if that's the one weak point I could theoretically pop another one in, I think Dell sells them for under $500.
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Does anyone see any glaring misallocations of $ with this setup? Would I be better off buying a cheaper setup w/ a professional graphics card and going w/ something like the new Intel PCIe SSD? Do I desperately need an add-in RAID card? Is the K2200 overkill? Underkill?
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What am I missing? Fast processor, ample RAM, professional graphics card instead of a gaming one for a decent modeling station. Is that about right?
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Scott recently schooled me on how installing a type 1 hypervisor silently converts the host os to a VM behind the scenes and accompanies a performance hit. If I want to run Hyper V, is that going to reduce the host vm's performance to the point that I can feel it? If that's the case am I better off running a 2nd box ( probably my current T110 ) for all virtualization?
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Do you think I'll feel a responsiveness drop going from the baseline 3.4 Ghz to 2.6? I'm very, very scared of that scenario.
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Any general feedback that may benefit me on this. I'm definitely a newb to hardware in a lot of ways.
Thank you!
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@creayt said:
- Is $4k a decent price for this hardware given my preference to not assemble my own? Can I do much better? If so how/where?
Given the gear listed here, it seems pretty reasonable for commercial gear.
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The problem with running a hypervisor is that you're not meant to SIT infront of it anymore, generally.
For example, if you installed ESXi (any version) you can't actually work directly on the machine, you'd have to have another machine to remote into the server from.
I don't know how this will work if you decided to go with Hyper-V? Even if you went with Windows 2012 R2 server instead of Windows 8.1 Pro, I have no idea how responsive the system will be on the local display.
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I agree with Scott, seems like a reasonable $/gear
For your usage scenario, especially hosting stuff & VM stuff, I'd split you off into a slick render box and a server. I can suggest some gear if you'd like that will blow your mind.
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@MattSpeller said:
I agree with Scott, seems like a reasonable $/gear
For your usage scenario, especially hosting stuff & VM stuff, I'd split you off into a slick render box and a server. I can suggest some gear if you'd like that will blow your mind.
Please do!
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@Dashrender said:
The problem with running a hypervisor is that you're not meant to SIT infront of it anymore, generally.
For example, if you installed ESXi (any version) you can't actually work directly on the machine, you'd have to have another machine to remote into the server from.
I don't know how this will work if you decided to go with Hyper-V? Even if you went with Windows 2012 R2 server instead of Windows 8.1 Pro, I have no idea how responsive the system will be on the local display.
Thanks.
To clarify, I don't mean running Hyper V Server as my host OS. I mean Windows 8.1 as the host, which supports running Hyper V atop it. It just adds the Hyper V management tool and enables VM creation and management, so it's a supported use case for 8.1, in fact it's just a few clicks to turn it on:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/hyper-v-run-virtual-machines -
@creayt http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TTkpYJ
Easy upgrade to 128gb of ram later
6c 12t CPU
absolutely sick m2 ssd "Sequential Read: 1170MB/s, Sequential Write: 930 MB/s, Random Read (QD=32): 122K IOPS, Random Write (QD=32): 72K IOPS"other storage is what servers are for
you'll need to research a gfx card that's suitable for what you're doing. I put in a GTX970 as it's $/performance is obnoxiously good.
also needs psu, case, etc etc.
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@creayt I wouldnt run VM's on your render box unless it's a type 2 hypervisor like virtualbox - also VM's are what servers are for.
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$0.02 - wait until august when Intel launches their new CPU's and you'll get a better deal on their current lineup or move up to the new stuff
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for the server, grab a deal on ebay that has SATA bays and you can get cheap drives to fill it.
another route would be someone like xbyte and config yourself a monster through them
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If that's true, then you are going to want to stay far away from Hyper-V, VMWare or any other type 1 hypervisor as GPU passthrough on these sorts of things can be tricky.
I would rather play it safe and go with VirtualBox as @MattSpeller suggested, having one main OS that is used for GPU intensive projects and provisioning VMs for other things as needed.
Bonus - Vagrant works extremely well with VirtualBox which should be nice for your web development needs!
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@MattSpeller said:
@creayt I wouldnt run VM's on your render box unless it's a type 2 hypervisor like virtualbox - also VM's are what servers are for.
I think the main argument for using VMs on your workstation as a developer is so that the development environment you're coding and testing on can more exactly resemble your code's final deployment situation, not to mention the ability to experiment w/ scary things and then reverse them in one fell swoop. I know there are a lot of articles on it, but up to this point I've never done it myself full-time.
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@MattSpeller said:
@creayt http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TTkpYJ
Easy upgrade to 128gb of ram later
6c 12t CPU
absolutely sick m2 ssd "Sequential Read: 1170MB/s, Sequential Write: 930 MB/s, Random Read (QD=32): 122K IOPS, Random Write (QD=32): 72K IOPS"other storage is what servers are for
you'll need to research a gfx card that's suitable for what you're doing. I put in a GTX970 as it's $/performance is obnoxiously good.
also needs psu, case, etc etc.
That's pretty epic, and cheap! I'm definitely going to comb over this stuff and do a ton of Googling. That M2 drive is epic ( even if I don't get how it can put up those numbers w/ what Amazon says is a 5Gb/s connection. Thanks!!
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@MattSpeller said:
$0.02 - wait until august when Intel launches their new CPU's and you'll get a better deal on their current lineup or move up to the new stuff
Are these the v4s or something totally new? I can't say I'm up to date at all on the processor market.
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@creayt said:
@MattSpeller said:
$0.02 - wait until august when Intel launches their new CPU's and you'll get a better deal on their current lineup or move up to the new stuff
Are these the v4s or something totally new? I can't say I'm up to date at all on the processor market.
New architecture same 22nm package - should be a decent bump in performance but time (well, reviews) will tell. Most exciting is the new mobos should better support M2 and possibly have two slots (omfg raid0 m2's)
The server can dish out VM's for you. VirtualBox will do it if you really want but why reduce the performance of your render box (or save money on less ram or something).
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http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-POWEREDGE-R510-2-X5660-24GB-RAM-H700-12-BAY-/171833967783?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item28021a44a7 - Edit: better deal on this one and it includes a not shitty RAID controller. It does not include drive caddies so keep that in mind.
Throw some more RAM at it and fill it full of cheap SATA drives in OBR10 - I'd suggest the cheapest 1TB drives (or whatever is cheapest $/GB) - the more drives you have running the faster your RAID10 will be.
Install VMWare or whatever other flavor of hypervisor floats your boat and you're off to the races. With the one I linked above you've got 12c 24t to work with - that'll easily do way more VM's than you'd need, your only limitation will be how much RAM you stuff in it.
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@MattSpeller said:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-POWEREDGE-R510-2-X5660-24GB-RAM-H700-12-BAY-/171833967783?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item28021a44a7 - Edit: better deal on this one and it includes a not shitty RAID controller. It does not include drive caddies so keep that in mind.
Throw some more RAM at it and fill it full of cheap SATA drives in OBR10 - I'd suggest the cheapest 1TB drives (or whatever is cheapest $/GB) - the more drives you have running the faster your RAID10 will be.
Install VMWare or whatever other flavor of hypervisor floats your boat and you're off to the races. With the one I linked above you've got 12c 24t to work with - that'll easily do way more VM's than you'd need, your only limitation will be how much RAM you stuff in it.
Ahhh, I see where you're going with this. I should mention that:
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I work from home full time in a tiny apartment and don't have an ability to set up a rack or anything.
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I have the luxury of not needing much drive space or having a concern for redundancy at all. I use version control and any media files I deal with locally are testing images so I'm fine w/ 256GB total, comprised of a single drive or a Raid 0.
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If I do go the separate route I do have this T110 available to run VMs off of, which does fit in my closet ( where it lived before I ditched my Retina iMac a week or two ago ).
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I'll be developing/rendering off of a NetGear A6210 wifi adapter ( currently what the T110 is using ), and have no other choice but to go wireless w/ my 2 new puppies around. Do you think developing off of VMs served off of a separate box ( which can be hardwired to the router ) over wifi could introduce enough latency that the responsiveness might suffer? I'm already a stickler for instantaneousness, I'm not sure I could deal with that on every save, switch, test, repeat. The VMs won't be performing major workloads simultaneously with the exception of if I run the private betaware from home, in which case that'd be always on. So the 8t of the Xeon E3-1240 v2 might be ok.
I appreciate all of the help! This is very educational.
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@creayt Mmmmmm ok I'm with ya now.... hmmm.... let me chew on this for a few mins....
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@creayt Massive overkill commence: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zYM9ZL
6c 12t (overclock this hard)
64gb RAM
2x 512ssd's raid0 (because you'll eventually want more space + they're cheap)
1x 3tb backup drive, omit if you want but backups can save you a ton of time and can be run when you're not using it for other stuff... my internal sysadmin won't let me build a system without a backup system/drive/array
watercooling to keep noise way down in apartment
noctua fans to replace cheap case fans to keep noise down
Asus GTX970 to keep noise down (this model cools passively without turning the fans on until you use it for something like rendering)
PC P&C expensive power supply because failure isn't an option when you use it to make your living. Also gold efficiency rating so it's quieter and pumps out less heat.
I contemplated a horizontal case or similar but you can really do whatever you want with that part of it. I put one in that was well reviewed but go pick one out that speaks to you.Run something like virtualbox and you can host as many VM's on this bad boy as you have RAM to allocate to them.
$2800USD
Next step up from here is going to a customized server. Buying something like the one I linked below on ebay and then pimping it out with cool stuff like the above parts. Only reason to look at this is because of RAM* - consumer ATX boards just do not support more than 64GB super reliably - (128GB in the next lineup coming in August).
*or dual CPU but if you end up needing more than the 6c12t monster can provide you REALLY need to think about going to a separate server for your VM's
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I looked between the Dell Percision T series and the HP z800 when getting my current workstation (24 cores). I end up getting the HP platform it was more flexible had way more SAS and SATA ports and better all around build quality.
