LGA1366 vs 2011 for 4k 6k 8k vidwork?

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Argh... i'm starting to feel like a box of corn flakes the way I seem to keep 'changing my mind' but I keep learning unexpected things, or the economics change. I feel I must profusely apologize for spamming up the board to pick brains but you guys have the knowledge I lack and sometimes I don't give good advice it's proper credence the first time around because I don't know whose right.

Here I was set on the Quanta Windmill (dual LGA 2011) and now that i'm nearing the time to buy the prices on boards and 'most relevant cpus' are up 50% with horrible '72hr only' DOA warranties as good as it gets. I feel like I missed the boat and it no longer makes sense chasing it. My budget for upgrades was fixed - my needs haven't reduced.

I had to remind myself "my TOP goal is to have enough RAM in 3-6 available computers" and although I want to be "future ready" to some degree that was mostly in reference to planned expansion in a known direction rather than unplanned. Like editing 4k video now, later 6k and hopefully 8k will happen but this is mostly a kick in the RAM - will CPU differences really matter that much from Nehalem to Ivy Bridge for instance at similar 3.3ghz speeds if they both have 96gb or 128gb of RAM? Are the additional hassles of the Windmill boards (quirky setup, very limited pcie slots, wierd PSU hacks needed, only two SATA drives) even worth putting up with?

I've eyed used workstations but $50 shipping costs make me balk a bit too... some good deals but 6 computers makes that $300 of shipping... why am I shipping heavy cases around when I mostly just need the motherboards I mean? I was ready to build custom wood cases for Windmills, i'll do the same for oddball mobos with otherwise good features in things like SSI EEB form factors if I have to.

My stated workloads over the next ~6-7 years are not expected to change - Adobe CC (incl Premiere and AfterEffects), 3D Studio/Maya, some game development for Unity/UE4 including VR headset stuff being the most demanding. Looking for Intel 5520 based motherboards instead of the X58 stuff is showing me 9/12/18 dimm slots of the cheap DDR3 I want to use and even stock speed Xeons of certain models seem fast enough. Not perfect, but I don't want to spend 2-4x as much for 30% more performance. When 2x the money doesnt double the performance my interest wanes.

Seeing industry standard PCIe 2.0 x16 slots means modern GPU's which still don't really bottleneck at those speeds - a 1070 GTX probably run modern VR decently with a 3.3-3.6ghz pair of quad cores even of the Nehalem generation, or are there some unexpected featuresets which make a 10x benchmark difference on newer programs i'm not aware of?
 

i386

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I'm glad I'm not a consultant, you would be a difficult customer ._.

2011:
+ some new instruction sets (=commands) that can accelaerate certain workloads
+ usb 3.0 (do you have a 10+ gbit/s uplink?)
+ pcie 3.0 (uses 64b/66b encoding = less overhead, some new power saving features)
+ support for up to 16cores (v1) or 18cores (v2)
+ support for 32gb ram sticks and 8 ram slots/cpu
+ "more power efficient" platform

1366:
+ cheap
- "limited" io: usb 2.0, sata 2, pcie 2.0
- maxes out at 6 cores/cpu
- support for max 16gb ram stick (officially, as 16gb were the biggest ram avalable at the time) and 6 ram slot/cpu
 
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Blinky 42

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If you are trying to work with video using the latest and greatest software, get as new a CPU as you can afford and setup with lots of memory (64G+). If you are aiming for lower than that then just pick up a used workstation at a local big computer store or a refurb dell or HP one and put a new GPU in it and call it done for the next 9 months.
As others have mentioned in several threads, having more insight into what you want to try and optimize for would help direct you to better choices with regards to high speed lower core counts or high core counts at lower speed as I suspect you don't have the budget to go after both if you are looking at Quanta windmills. Some software does a lot of offload to the GPU, some workloads need lots of main memory, some need a few high speed cores as they can't multi-thread well.
Also - stop overthinking it. ;) Unless you buy current generation hardware, whatever you get will not last for years - you will probably have it around for ages but it will get relegated to a file server or 3rd desktop on your desk at some point for older software you have to keep around for some reason.

If you can't quantify what your needs are yet, you can get a workstation that will accept a real recent GPU and not be annoying to deal with on your desk and get some experience with the apps you need to use to see where to invest in for the next round of hardware and just accept the next round is < 12 months away.
 
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nk215

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I still have a 1366 setup and power it on from time to time to backup my VMs. The 1366 board Tyan S7012 has 18 ram slots (9 per CPU) so it can take tons of cheap ram - I have this board.

A dual X5650 setup gives about the same performance of a single E5-2670v1. You should be able to pick that up for around a $100-$120 or so.

Having said that, I have no idea if a dual X5650 can do what you need. You can get one, try it out with an a GPU and see for yourself.

Why not take the budget of all 6 cheap computers and put into 1?
 
I'm glad I'm not a consultant, you would be a difficult customer ._.
I feel guilty enough already. :-/ I'm just trying to double-check my head - it's a learning process. Thanks for putting up with my confusion.

2011:
+ some new instruction sets (=commands) that can accelaerate certain workloads

1366:
+ cheap
To me, this is the primary part of the comparison. It's mostly a question of "which workloads get a mega speed up from the newer cpu?" I'm only going one step newer cpu, not all the way to Skylake.

It's like when they brought in AES-NI it accelerated encryption rates by a factor of 10x to 40x I think - and when h265 encoding was put in hardware that's gone from something requiring an absolute TOTL six core overclocked to something realtime on a mid level cpu with power left over.

I'm mostly trying to determine is there anything critical that LGA2011 cpu's do, for the expected software i'm planning on running, which is like that? Mega massive speedup 10fold kind of thing.


If you are trying to work with video using the latest and greatest software, get as new a CPU as you can afford and setup with lots of memory (64G+). If you are aiming for lower than that then just pick up a used workstation at a local big computer store or a refurb dell or HP one and put a new GPU in it and call it done for the next 9 months.
As others have mentioned in several threads, having more insight into what you want to try and optimize for would help direct you to better choices
I thought I was communicating what I was optimizing for.. though I try and remention it in most posts because I assume most arent reading what I say elsewhere.

I need to run multiple AV studio things and the big bottleneck programs are Adobe CC, 3d rendering, and modern game engines. Although i'm current on things like an Adobe CC subscription (educational status) that may not continue after school. Things like Davinci Resolve i'll probably stay stuck with the free version. Things like Windows 10 will stop updating at some point but should still work as a guest OS under ESXi - alternately I may have to go back to a Win 7 or 8.1 and just keep things offline. I expect 'software aging' to kick in where if what I have is good enough I stop upgrading software and just run what I already have for a few years. So if I reach a point where i'm editing 8k video and content with the performance for the workload the install gets frozen in time and it should still work fine for years after.

I only have to optimize for realtime operations - I dont care too much if final processing after I walk away takes 5 hours or 12 hours or 20 hours all that much. I'm not on such tight deadlines or doing such volume that that is a big problem. I just need a responsive system while i'm sitting at it. Having a second workstation is also part of trying to optimize that to start one operation going then hit the monitor switch and work on another part of the project while previews are rerendering.

My big thing is I start thinking about if I save $200 here then I can afford a better GPU or SSD over there... or i'm looking at my dSLR options, or what extra lens I can get. It's not a total lack of any money - it's having too many things competing to spend that money on and trying to get the most out of it so I can get into paying jobs ASAP. I've already missed offers that would have paid a few hundred here, a few hundred there, and bootstrapped me up quick to better hardware once i'm on the ground floor.


you don't have the budget to go after both if you are looking at Quanta windmills. Some software does a lot of offload to the GPU, some workloads need lots of main memory, some need a few high speed cores as they can't multi-thread well.
Also - stop overthinking it. ;) Unless you buy current generation hardware, whatever you get will not last for years

If you can't quantify what your needs are yet, you can get a workstation that will accept a real recent GPU... and just accept the next round is < 12 months away.
Well thats it, someone suggested the Windmill two months back and I was like "yay, salvation!", but then both those prices went up, and I found I could get used workstation motherBOARDS for less than I thought realizing shipping 60lb workstations around the country wasn't needed. :)

I can throw up to single a 1080 GTX in even a PCIe 2.0 x16 as far as I know, my understanding is it's not a bottleneck to lack 3.0 on anything yet. That's my main planned upgrade path whenever bitcoin implodes and people jump out.

Once I have a few fast workstations, with good GPU and SSD, it's not that it has to last for years - just that I expect income to go to other things. Like a better dSLR, lenses, lighting gear, audio gear, more hard drives for the NAS, more tapes for the Ultrium offline media archive of all projects, or even just stupid daily crap like repairs to the car or an unexpected medical copay. I'm thinking too much because right now thinking time is free - if I just had hardware already i'd be $2000 ahead this fall alone that I missed opportunities on. But I can't guarantee when that work will come in so I dont want to borrow and gamble either, I just bootstrap up a piece at a time because that's safe. I don't have a good paying job to recover from a bad purchase like many people.


I still have a 1366 setup and power it on from time to time to backup my VMs. The 1366 board Tyan S7012 has 18 ram slots (9 per CPU) so it can take tons of cheap ram - I have this board. A dual X5650 setup gives about the same performance of a single E5-2670v1. You should be able to pick that up for around a $100-$120 or so.

Why not take the budget of all 6 cheap computers and put into 1?
Right see that's EXACTLY my thinking. Someone else suggested that exact board, and i'm searching and seeing those exact CPU's and wondering why not do that? I dont even know if I need dual sockets, part of that plan was whats needed just to fill the RAM sockets with cheap RAM.

As to why not one, because this isn't just one for me - my just before Christmas post I had a computer implosion on my single workstation already and it wasn't my fault or even a hardware failure, just Windows deciding to shit the bed for no reason and nearly making me fail a final project. I NEED a backup, I also need to work with 4k Fall 2018 (I was fine with 2k video this last fall on my current system, but my current system choked on 4k still jpegs in Premiere for a stop motion animation), and it's not just me - I focus more on video but my girlfriend is in graphic design and 3d rendering. And a friend thats helping us on a game project needs a computer to code on that will run Unity and UE4. So were up to four already (3 people, and 1 backup machine), #5 is we all meet in a city 250 miles away and I hate hauling the PC by hand walking on the ice risking a fall. I had a fall on xmas but I wasn't carrying the computer, just something else which broke. I'd rather just set up something there and leave it.
 

TomUK

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I was in a similar boat last year, and was planning to get a few cheap but large socket 2011 systems to supplement my dual X5660 worststion.

I would not go back to lga1366 - you can't really call it a modern platform these days, and the motherboard have held there value really well considering how cheap the CPU's are, but stuff of that era is SATA 2, no M2, only USB 2 and one generation back on PCIE as well.

I think 2011 is still a good choice at the right price, and you get much more modern boards and features.

In the end I went for one single expensive modern system, and I do everything with that one system, so it's like a lab in a box. I don't have to sacrifice a load of space and power, but yeah - total memory and compute power is less that if I'd had a few servers and a 10g network.

I've found Threadripper performance to be excellent, you get loads of expansion options, modern stuff like NVME raid, U2 ports, ECC support etc. Drivers and firmware have improved to the point now where most Virtualisation stuff works. I did have major reservations about being limited to 128gb of RAM - but I feel this is somewhat negated with extremely performant storage - and a decent memory bandwidth.

I do miss having a big pile of servers - but I've ended up with a much more efficient and usable setup, which I'm more productive in.

The few times I've needed more power I've used Azure or AWS - they are really cheap if you just need a lot of power for an hour to a couple of days.

I would definitely consider if you need more than one awesome system with better components than loads of older kit - it might be a false economy - technology moves on.

Sent from my STV100-4 using Tapatalk
 

wildpig1234

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I'm glad I'm not a consultant, you would be a difficult customer ._.

2011:
+ some new instruction sets (=commands) that can accelaerate certain workloads
+ usb 3.0 (do you have a 10+ gbit/s uplink?)
+ pcie 3.0 (uses 64b/66b encoding = less overhead, some new power saving features)
+ support for up to 16cores (v1) or 18cores (v2)
+ support for 32gb ram sticks and 8 ram slots/cpu
+ "more power efficient" platform
which v1 cpu are you talking about with 16 cores and v2 with 18 cores?
 
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wildpig1234

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1950x TR went as low as $800 during BF. that was not bad.... however the ddr4 prices just completely kill it for me.... I guess we will have to wait for ddr5 to come out to get any discount on ddr4?

or it could be worse with ddr4 stays about the same and be forced to pay even more for ddr5?
 

i386

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I had mixed them up. v1 xeons (sandy bridge) cpus have 8 cores max, v2 (ivy bridge) 12 cores.
 

Evan

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Eventually memory will fall, still surprised it has stayed as high as it has so long but NAND seems to have started to ease a little so maybe that’s a good sign.
 

TomUK

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Threadripper has no built-in limitation for ram, you are only limited by avalable udimm sizes (and budget :p).
Post on reddit about an alienware pc with threadripper and >128gb ram: AMD Threadripper supports up to 256GB of RAM (9:42) • r/Amd
But right now with available motherboards you are limited to 128, as in that's the most the Mobo vendors (alienware aside?!) currently support on the ASrock, Asus, Gigabyte and MSI boards.

Sent from my STV100-4 using Tapatalk
 

wildpig1234

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1950X TR is like one of the fastest single cpu available. however being only 1 socket that's the problem. you can add another cpu with v3 and v4 and becoms significantly faster than 1950TR.

I don't know how much faster AMD can make a single cpu becomes.... because that is the only way to speed up a TR based WS is to upgrade that single cpu completely...
 
I was in a similar boat last year, and was planning to get a few cheap but large socket 2011 systems to supplement my dual X5660 worststion.

I think 2011 is still a good choice at the right price, and you get much more modern boards and features.

In the end I went for one single expensive modern system, and I do everything with that one system

I would definitely consider if you need more than one awesome system with better components than loads of older kit - it might be a false economy - technology moves on.
Well let me through you a curveball. :) Is anyone here aware of a way to have MULTIPLE USERS use the same PC? (I mean other than virtualization - which is part of why I want to learn about that, but is there another way besides that?) Because a big part of my problem is how to have two and sometimes three of us work at the same time on different projects. If we had one bigger power system, if we could somehow have three separate keyboards, mice, and independant displays - i'll be sold. Or it might change my plan for '3-6' systems to at least 1-3 newer systems. Heck if it worked well enough that one Adobe CC license would let one user load Photoshop under one monitor/keyboard session then Premiere under another because it's technically on the same machine and even OS bootup that's even better/ a must have - but I know virtualization wont do that.

LGA 2011 is still on the 'possible' list, just like even Quanta Windmill is - because one 'strategy' with the LGA1366 was just spend as little as possible on the mobo/cpu and migrate the DDR3 RAM to an LGA2011 system when the right deal presents itself. Instead of spending a few hundred more for faster cpu's, just spend next to nothing, and plan to take the RAM with me when I go Ivy Bridge later. (like after I have a chance to pick up a carload of used Ivy workstations somewhere saving on shipping in the summer, or maybe the Windmills are back down in price)

Until the coin is dropped on ebay nothing is committed, I just research slowly because I have time and because the cost of a mistake is basically waiting six months until the next school loan. A miscalculation in August had me not able to get new hardware until now - if I miscalculate again, I wont see anything better until next August.

I'm trying to have the right hardware ready in time for Aug 2018 because thats when I hope to start editing 4k.
 
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nk215

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Well let me through you a curveball. :) Is anyone here aware of a way to have MULTIPLE USERS use the same PC? (I mean other than virtualization - which is part of why I want to learn about that, but is there another way besides that?) Because a big part of my problem is how to have two and sometimes three of us work at the same time on different projects. If we had one bigger power system, if we could somehow have three separate keyboards, mice, and independant displays - i'll be sold.
What you described is called a Multi-Head system.

Basically, it's a single PC with multiple GPUs shared by multiple users. Each user has his/her own keyboard and physical monitor connected to the different GPU of the said PC. Video editing or game is possible with such setup. Basically, everything is shared but the GPU and USB ports used for keyboard/mouse.

See how those 4 sets of monitors/keyboard connected to the same red PC?

Snap4.jpg
Multi-headed VMWare Gaming Setup

It's not cheap mostly because it requires Quadro cards to work in a reliable way in ESXi at least. AMD/GeoForce setups are hacks unless you want to use KVM. There are discussions about such setup in the ESXi subforum on here.

Another setup is Zero clients connecting to a ESXi host. This only works up to photoshop and light CAD jobs. Can't really edit video/game with Zero Clients (unless they are old games).
 
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Joel

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Lots of good info here already.
Also - stop overthinking it. ;)
This! You sound a lot like me, perennially stuck in analysis paralysis.

I've already missed offers that would have paid a few hundred here, a few hundred there, and bootstrapped me up quick to better hardware once i'm on the ground floor.
If this is the case, then your indecision is literally costing you money and you absolutely should make a decision (and preferably make one that doesn't require 50,000 other decisions to be made!). This exact reason is why many photo/video professionals insist on the latest/greatest hardware, because 5 seconds here, 10 seconds there waiting on a slow computer absolutely add up.


Personally my general recommendations are:
- If your budget can swing it, absolutely go with 2011 because its newer, more power efficient, and more future-proof but not so new that it requires $$$$ just to get 128GB of memory (DDR4).
- I'd stay away from the Open Compute chassis because they are odd and have too much other stuff to figure out (power, V1 only, non-standard rack mounting).
- CPU: I'd go with 2667v2 if possible. an 8 core part with high clock speed, dual CPU capable.


Specific options:
- Supermicro 6027tr-dtrf. Dual node chassis similar to Wiwynn, more expensive but you get: standard 2u format with hotswap bays, V2 support (may need to have a V1 CPU available for bios upgrade), can take small GPUs inside that use motherboard power only (GTX 1050/Ti or RX 560).
- Lenovo D30. Tower form factor, standard format motherboard and high watt PSU included, available for ~$300-500, can take large GPUs.
- HP Z820. I don't like this one as much as Lenovo because everything is proprietary (motherboard, PSU, fan cables, etc.).


In fact, for video editing the GPU is really more important than CPU power, so the D30 is probably your best bet. These days, gaming GPUs are so hard to find that you'd likely be better off with a workstation GPU.
 
What you described is called a Multi-Head system.

Basically, it's a single PC with multiple GPUs shared by multiple users. Each user has his/her own keyboard and physical monitor connected to the different GPU of the said PC. Video editing or game is possible with such setup.

It's not cheap mostly because it requires Quadro cards to work in a reliable way in ESXi at least. AMD/GeoForce setups are hacks unless you want to use KVM. There are discussions about such setup in the ESXi subforum on here.

Another setup is Zero clients connecting to a ESXi host. This only works up to photoshop and light CAD jobs. Can't really edit video/game with Zero Clients (unless they are old games).
And yes on some level i'm aware of this, I remember seeing I think a Linus Tech Tips video on it awhile ago. But what I was specifically wondering is if there was any way for an otherwise normal Windows install to do the equivalent of two monitors, one Wordpad document in each, and two keyboards/mice - each slaved to a specific monitor. Just on the same user login - to handle multiple mice/kb and force input to go to only one app window.

The VMware solution still uses up multiple licenses for say Adobe CC - each virtual install has its own virtual Windows 7/10 and it's own Adobe CC. I'd like to have two users on the same Windows login so that each could use a different program within Adobe CC - say one on Premiere, and the other on Illustrator. I mean if I paid for outright installs of Premiere and Illustrator on one PC each I could set it up so that two separate computers could have two separate users doing that too.

If I could do that it reduces how many 'seats' I need for the meanwhile from 6 down to 4, 3 or even 2 depending how I plan other things.


Lots of good info here already.
This! You sound a lot like me, perennially stuck in analysis paralysis.

If this is the case, then your indecision is literally costing you money and you absolutely should make a decision
I'm not immobile, it's more like i'm never afraid to both recognize i'm possibly making a mistake and to correct it as soon as seen. If I have a clear destination on my map that's 500 miles away, and I start my planned route, and halfway there someone discovers a way requiring some backtracking that even with that saves 30 miles i'll turn around instead of save face.

I'm just trying to get to my destination on the least time/fuel/cost possible, whether carwise or computer wise.

I'm THANKFUL when people point out a better, more direct route to my goal, even if it involves backtracking and looking like a dummy. I just realize that I look like a pinball at times bouncing around between different possibilities. Learning is all about taking steps in the wrong direction, realizing there's a better way, then correcting.


Not everyone knows my situation but the relevant factoids:
- Student and expect to be so for 3-6 years depending on choices I make about grad school or whether things like part time made short film submissions at festivals turn viral. Even a brand new workstation is obsolete by then and i'm not doing this fulltime until after graduation.
- No source to borrow more money most of the time, just my maxed school loans. If I screw up a larger buy, like $1200-2000 of planned workstation upgrades that I want to last for the next 3-6 years of projects, to try and work that off with the kind of work available to most college students can get is hundreds of hours. I realize the economics is totally different for most people here that i'm guessing are clocking $40-100/hr. Try paying the credit card off at $7.75/hr before tax if the hoped for job falls through and my economics make sense.
- If i'm going to spend hundreds of hours, I would rather learn things that pay an ongoing dividend from that education. Such as learning something I consider inevitable or/and necessary or/and saving only hundreds now but maybe thousands of dollars in the future. Like it seems like I have to probably learn MacOSX anyway, or learn about ESXi for the long term anyway, so adding consideration for compatibility with those into the buying plan is just correcting a future mistake before it happens.

Paid work I expect to get once I have the tools for AV studio, but because it's intermittent the economics of upgrading are NOT THE SAME for me. Nor are energy use. I just need the ground floor minimum of a tool that can do the job at all.

It's like a shovel is a horrible way to dig a ditch, especially a deep one. A small Bobcat skid steer is going to be far faster, but if it's a really big ditch then you need bigger equipment to do it efficiently.

I'm the guy that needs the minimum possible size skid-steer, trying to tackle the largest job which is POSSIBLE to do, but which i'm fully aware is not efficient/really punching above my weight on that one/which would normally be done with far better suited equipment. It's only worth doing because i'm only having to do it a few times yet if I succeed it's my ticket out of the poverty cycle earlier than graduation. Next time opportunity knocks I can say yes because those few jobs pay for the upgrades to bootstrap up to something better. Does that make better sense of why I feel forced into my position?

The easiest solution for everyone is to write a check to solve their problems, no question. Never argued about that. For people without full bank accounts and without the combination of credit plus a job to pay off a mistake more easily, we only have time and creativity. I realize I probably annoy people with my constant posting but all I can do is apologize for being substantially poorer than the average user here, I don't know what else to say. :-( I still see no fast track out of my situation except pinching pennies with carefully researched buying until they scream and getting in the minimum feasible hardware for expected/planned jobs, and then getting lucky again when an offer is there.


Personally my general recommendations are:
- If your budget can swing it, absolutely go with 2011

In fact, for video editing the GPU is really more important than CPU power, so the D30 is probably your best bet. These days, gaming GPUs are so hard to find that you'd likely be better off with a workstation GPU.
Well the only reason I was even considering LGA 1366 still is because of this shift to GPU focus for things like Adobe CC. Does it really buy me that much more to get a 15% faster CPU I mean? Or alternately if I save $50 per cpu (times six workstations) and I can throw a better GPU or SSD in there doesn't that buy me more speedup instead? Thats the main kind of weighing i'm doing at this point.

I mean here, i'll list some decisions do I consider darn near permanent and very unlikely to change:
- This site has completely sold me on SAS controllers and SAS Expanders, as well as old-gen 'enterprise' gear in general. I've abandoned all silliness about SATA expanders and such nonsense. I have my NAS and Ultrium writing boxes all planned out/hence no longer asking questions about them. What i'm planning will either work or not but i'm committed so i'm finally quiet on it until it's built. They were going to be built first, but I saw the rising prices of Windmill gear and thought I might have to jump on workstations first, and then got caught up in researching the alternatives to THAT at the same time.

- Virtualization is good, but neither overdo nor underdo it. For awhile I was trying to combine everything into 'just one PC' which got too convoluted, so I re-separated certain plans for simplicity.
- That said, Virtualization is useful, interesting, and I want to learn about it. (see thats a commitment of probably dozens more hours just to get working but I think it will pay for itself in years to come, just not overnight - no small AV studio i'm a part of will have 100k/year for some computer specialist and if I have that skill that by itself is marketable)

- For Workstations, i'm committed to DDR3 ECC RAM based systems. (gave up all thinking about DDR2 despite some questions for awhile) Whether early LGA1366 or the latest LGA2011, whether a used workstation or Quanta board or bought older dedicated motherboard - it's narrowed at least that much. Maybe that's not enough "skid-steer" for doing certain jobs, but it's what i've decided i'm willing to risk and afford with my excess student loan money this spring - right or wrong. Now I hope to make that hardware stretch as far up and into the future as possible. Since I don't know which of the three general strategies is right (whole workstation, Quanta, or "just a used mobo") i'm sorta exploring all three in parallel a bit further. An unexpected market opportunity could make me jump on anything - a dual node Quanta dropping to $120 w/PSU i'd buy in and work around the hassles. Good value whole workstations locally, i'd buy in if I can avoid big shipping charges. Both those are opportunities which may not happen though - so my fallback plan is still ebay some Intel 5520 based mobos - can ship from anywhere without much overhead cost, even to kit out six workstations - and then I will at least not be bottlenecked at 4k next fall, and maybe it'll even last quite a bit longer with enough RAM.

Sorry for the length of this, i'm trying my best to explain why i'm probably... frustrating... and please understand I AM thankful for most of the advice I get. I keep putting new notes and insights in my buying plans (ie "Lenovo, not HP, here's why" in my notes now) but as i'm still waiting for a certain student loan appeal to work itself out (looking like mid Feb unfortunately), until I have cash in hand ready to click order somewhere, the research continues for another couple weeks.
 
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tullnd

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USA
I'm still confused by the number of PC's. You want one for yourself, and a backup. You also want one for your girlfriend to use, but her needs seem to probably be a bit lower than yours. You also need one for another friend...who's needs don't seem to be nearly as intensive as yours. Then you also want one for remote use? That's 5 units.

Is the remote one for full on programming, or just occasional demo, small updates? Cause I'm thinking, a used laptop would work great for that. If you need to do "real" work, you can remote into your home system(which will be idling) and do the heavy work there via remote desktop. The only drawback is that 1) the file would be located on the remote computer, so it may take time to transfer back locally(if that's even gonna be necessary) if any updates are done and need to be shared(do they?) or is this just a group working session you need to show the stuff on. 2) You'll need to invest in a proper UPS for at home to maintain power/availability of the home system.

As for the backup computer...can't your girlfriend's unit act as that? You said yourself, your previous issue was software. Hardware failures aren't that terribly common. As long as you setup a regular backup of your data and create images of the OS after you configure it, you should be able to re-image a machine within a few hours and have it operational again. Sure, you may be under a tight deadline and need access to another computer in the meantime...can't you use your girlfriend's PC for a few hours if this happens in a crisis situation? Frankly, her's doesn't need to be quite as beefy as yours, just good enough to work. I don't see the need for a 3rd computer sitting at home just idling, waiting for an unlikely to occur hardware failure.

If anything, having a laptop solution for your travel would be great, cause then you could have that laptop as a backup computer if push comes to shove.

I feel like your listed 6 computers(I count 5 that you tried to justify, not sure where 6 came from) is just totally skewering your budget.
 

voxadam

Member
Apr 21, 2016
107
14
18
Portland, Oregon
What you described is called a Multi-Head system.
At least in the Linux world multiseat is generally considered to be the more appropriate term for a system that allows for multiple users to be logged in concurrently using local displays, keyboards, mice, and whatnot. The term multihead is generally reserved for a system where multiple displays are made available to a single user.

Xorg multiseat - ArchWiki
Multiseat - Gentoo Wiki
Multiseat - Ubuntu Wiki
Windows Multiseat Gaming — Martin Ueding
Multiseat configuration - Wikipedia