Hello all. I've built PCs in the past but never a dedicated workstation build. I've been researching hardware requirements/performance/benchmarks and have put together two builds that I'm going to propose to my boss. I would appreciate any feedback on ways to improve my builds. I've put two together because this is new ground for everyone and we don't really know where the performance/cost balance is.
Build is for a capital project manager at my job. This is a pure workstation build. He's getting the latest version of Solidworks. I spoke with him this morning and he will be working with assemblies for large industrial equipment in our processing plant. He will be doing minor simulation (testing models he's building out) and a lot of building design and rendering of those designs.
I've put a build together and would appreciate any feedback that you can offer. I've put notes at the end of the post regarding my component selection.
CPU - i7-7700k
GPU - P4000 8GB
SSD - 500GB M.2 Western Digital Blue
RAM - 16GB DDR4
MOBO - MSI-B250
Monitor - ? Is 4k really what we need? If so I'd rather put it on the budget line now than later.
Notes:
MOBO: This seemed like a good workhorse that will get the job done.
CPU: My research shows SW is primarily single thread, so Intel makes more sense for this. I'd love to support AMD but I need reliability and performance. Lots of benchmarks to support Intel.
GPU: Workstation GPU is a must. Again research shows Quadro to be superior in to Firepro in the majority of tests. Quadro also seems to be more reliable from what anecdotal evidence I can find on forums. **This is the biggest X-factor for me.** I have no idea what level of performance he needs based on what he is doing, I'm going off specs for this. **If you have first hand experience with these cards and can relate to me specific types of use so I can get a reference point I would be very appreciative!**
Storage: Everything I've read says get the SSD for speed. I figured why not go M-SATA since prices were comparable to 2.5" drives and it's two less cords I have to manage. We have network storage for everything else so I'm not worried about space.
RAM: I went with a single 16GB stick of RAM so we can easily add more up to 64GB if we find he needs it. My research shows 16 should be good but better safe than sorry.
Everything Else: Modular PSU because once you go modular you never go back. I have the 300R personally and I think it's a great case. Fans because we need airflow. Cooler becuase it works and seems to be well regarded. Blu Ray drive because I have no idea if he'll need to burn high capacity disks with projects on them.
Thanks for reading this far, if you have any suggestions or need more information please let me know.
Message was edited by: Matthew Miller Added question regarding 4k monitor