Help with building a workstation.

[sweetca]

I helped put together a component list for a pretty good gaming machine for my cousin. He really got into the hands on aspect of building one's own computer. He now wants to build a couple of workstations for his dental office. He asked me for a component list. I really wanna help, but I don't want to screw up anything critical when it comes to putting together a work-related setup. I don't really know what motherboard's or CPU's are optimal for work-stations, compared to gaming motherboards for example.

- His requirements are medium/medium high on specs. He runs a dental program that deals with a lot of images. Here is a link to the application's system requirements:

https://pattersonsupport.custhelp.co...ware/HWREQ.pdf

Note: He would rather future proof his setup, and so, I woud look at these specs as a bare minimum, ie. more RAM, faster processor, etc...

- Capacity requirements are low and so he prefers to do a 256 SSD, and no standard hard disk drive.

- Budget is not a critical issue. Rather, he wants maximum up-time, stability, etc... The stuff you would think more important when it comes to work.

- No need to consider Monitors, KB, Mice, Speakers, and other random peripherals.


He is a really great guy. So rather than botch this up, I thought I would call on the AT community for some assistance. Thank you very much.

 

[nsafreak]

Well, the link you provided didn't work so I did some guesswork and used the requirements listed in this document here. Here's what I came up with:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($214.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus B85M-G Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($77.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($133.60 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($159.99 @ B&H)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 450W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($132.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $850.52
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-26 23:05 EST-0500)

The RAM can be dropped down to 8GB or perhaps even 4GB although I would probably go with 8GB as a minimum. I went with Windows 7 Professional since this is going in an office enviroment just in case he needs to join a domain. The case is really a personal choice thing, I just went with the best built and plainest looking one that would fit in an office setup.

 

[sweetca]

Thanks, this is fantastic. I appreciate you taking the time. Also, sorry about the fail-link. This looks very much like what I thought I should get. Really, the motherboard and CPU were throwing me off.

I know Asus is a great motherboard maker for enthusiast systems. Do you think it's a good stable solution for an office too? I always heard Intel made rock-solid mother boards, but I don't know squat about them.

 

[nsafreak]

Really the big 3 that I typically look at are Gigabyte, SuperMicro and Asus. Gigabyte because they actually design the reference boards that all of the other manufacturers go by. Asus since they have been around for such a long time and are typically reliable. And lastly Supermicro since they have been building workstation class boards for a long time. Intel boards are nice and are solid but they really aren't any better than the big 3.

 

[sweetca]

Makes sense.

One last thing (I hope), with respect to the CPU, should be looking at an Intel Xeon processor?

 

[nsafreak]

If he was doing some heavy duty 3D editing or he was putting it into a server I would say yes he should be looking at a Xeon. However since he's just doing image processing it really isn't needed unless he's looking at much higher resolution images than I think he is.

 

[sweetca]

Ok, thanks again for everything!

 

[bononos]

.....

 

[Torn Mind]

What version of Eaglesoft will he be using? Those older than 15 will require a 32-bit system.

It also requires members to be in the now-gone "Power Users" group. Microsoft says you can apply a security template to the group to get the same permissions as those old power users group. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771990.aspx

 

[Blue_Max]

If he wants to have his hand in building (rather than just buying HP/Dell/IBM for the support system) he might like:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856101134 which has a 3 year warranty and is a tiny system that will stay out of the workers' way, possibly even VESA-mounted right to the back of the monitor!
Add a good SSD and 4-16GB of laptop RAM (depending on your needs) and a processor - less "fiddling" required and a tiny unit!
One thing - this one is SO small, it's limited to 65W processors so be a little more cautious as to your processor choice. I doubt this app would ever need more than an i3, but 65w i5's and i7's exist in an "S" variant (I had one - they're great!)
Heck, I had one of these, too: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115094
If it's going to run 24/7 and this is enough horsepower (and likely is) you may as well use 35W instead of 55-65!

 

[mfenn]

- Budget is not a critical issue. Rather, he wants maximum up-time, stability, etc... The stuff you would think more important when it comes to work.

Avoiding failure is a small part of uptime (aka. availability). What you do when (not if) a failure occurs makes much more of a difference in terms of maximizing availability.

For that reason, I recommend going with Dell/HP/Lenovo workstations with on-site support contract. You'll pay more up front, but that cost goes towards making sure that spare parts will be available within 24 hours 5 years from now. A home-built machine cannot make the same guarantee.

If you do end up going with a self-built machine, buy an extra machine's worth of spare parts and keep them on-site. Buy multiples of important and likely to fail components like the SSD, motherboard, and RAM.

 

[Blue_Max]

If you do end up going with a self-built machine, buy an extra machine's worth of spare parts and keep them on-site. Buy multiples of important and likely to fail components like the SSD, motherboard, and RAM.

VERY good points!!
Keep a couple hard drive or flash drive images of the rig as well (no need for expensive SSD for a backup!) In the event of Windows going completely berserk, you can reload the image quickly. Hopefully there's a server to hold everyone's accounts and data on (which also gets backed up regularly.)