Not 100% sure if i'm in the right category...
So i'm considering a "new" (used) workstation... esp after sudden hardware failure literally on college finals week "worst of all possible times" making it clear I better start searching... and my understanding is just like ServeTheHome was to my knowledge the first site to start popularizing the use of ex-enterprise hardware for home servers (like SAS chassis/Expanders and such) being a better value than you can even DIY... the same may well apply to used workstations as well - with Xeon or Opteron cpu's and ECC RAM of DDR3 or even DDR2 era. Including because secondhand Xeon/Opterons seem WAY cheaper than any comparable desktop of past eras, and even used ECC RAM is far cheaper (1/3 to 1/5th, is that right??) than any new desktop RAM when I start wanting 16-32gigs, while being superior (the nature of ECC) for actual work where you leave things up 24/7 and are processing important things - CAD/CAM, video processing for days sometimes, etc.
My understanding is it may make more sense to buy some place's used workstation and then upgrade whatever I want/need - mostly hard drives/software but possibly RAM if needed and video card - including to SSD's, consumer video cards, consumer hard drives and such. I would like to get in in the lower level of cost, with a plan to upgrade better in the future. (ie - might start with four cores and a single cpu even on a dual socket system if available, then throw in a pair of fast 6-8 cores later if it works like that/can scale up that much on the same board) Dont even know if overclocking is possible or needed... open to be schooled.
Does anyone want to suggest good starting points for where to start this learning process? For comparison my current video workstation (for things like Adobe CC, and later will have to do some CAD) is a six core AMD Phenom II with 24gigs DDR3 - i'm curious what systems cost (starting with something not much slower even - just for a backup system potentially if it's super cheap) to things that are faster and at the peak of their value in relation to doing this kind of work. (ie i'm not sure how much faster a modern Skylake is but I wont be buying a Skylake... whats a good solid used system to go for... do I go dual socket? Do I go 4-6-8 core or something else?)
I'm not sure where the value sweet spots are to where there's a solid power upgrade, vs the point where things get older and not really any cheaper. Not TOO worried about power consumption/not a huge issue - I don't plan to leave things up 24/7 anymore if I have multiple PC's in the future. (going to separate always-on tasks from workstation tasks) I dont really need a big cpu processing upgrade honestly (esp when alot is being done on GPU's more and more) - just steps towards redundancy and multiple seats so a downed computer doesn't muss up everything like it did the last few days. Thinking 3-4 workstations for 2 people (having 1-2 backups or something I can leave on all day processing 6k video from a Panasonic GH5 while starting another project).
I may want to play around with client side virtualization - like having a standardized VMware session that I can load across more than one workstation - with enough additional RAM or whatever it requires (i'm guessing 8gig more, to my 24gig current workstation so maybe 32gig minimum target?) to run smoothly. Just something that if I have 'problems' in the future I can literally save the VM and load it up on a different workstation hardware without interrupting my work.
So i'm considering a "new" (used) workstation... esp after sudden hardware failure literally on college finals week "worst of all possible times" making it clear I better start searching... and my understanding is just like ServeTheHome was to my knowledge the first site to start popularizing the use of ex-enterprise hardware for home servers (like SAS chassis/Expanders and such) being a better value than you can even DIY... the same may well apply to used workstations as well - with Xeon or Opteron cpu's and ECC RAM of DDR3 or even DDR2 era. Including because secondhand Xeon/Opterons seem WAY cheaper than any comparable desktop of past eras, and even used ECC RAM is far cheaper (1/3 to 1/5th, is that right??) than any new desktop RAM when I start wanting 16-32gigs, while being superior (the nature of ECC) for actual work where you leave things up 24/7 and are processing important things - CAD/CAM, video processing for days sometimes, etc.
My understanding is it may make more sense to buy some place's used workstation and then upgrade whatever I want/need - mostly hard drives/software but possibly RAM if needed and video card - including to SSD's, consumer video cards, consumer hard drives and such. I would like to get in in the lower level of cost, with a plan to upgrade better in the future. (ie - might start with four cores and a single cpu even on a dual socket system if available, then throw in a pair of fast 6-8 cores later if it works like that/can scale up that much on the same board) Dont even know if overclocking is possible or needed... open to be schooled.
Does anyone want to suggest good starting points for where to start this learning process? For comparison my current video workstation (for things like Adobe CC, and later will have to do some CAD) is a six core AMD Phenom II with 24gigs DDR3 - i'm curious what systems cost (starting with something not much slower even - just for a backup system potentially if it's super cheap) to things that are faster and at the peak of their value in relation to doing this kind of work. (ie i'm not sure how much faster a modern Skylake is but I wont be buying a Skylake... whats a good solid used system to go for... do I go dual socket? Do I go 4-6-8 core or something else?)
I'm not sure where the value sweet spots are to where there's a solid power upgrade, vs the point where things get older and not really any cheaper. Not TOO worried about power consumption/not a huge issue - I don't plan to leave things up 24/7 anymore if I have multiple PC's in the future. (going to separate always-on tasks from workstation tasks) I dont really need a big cpu processing upgrade honestly (esp when alot is being done on GPU's more and more) - just steps towards redundancy and multiple seats so a downed computer doesn't muss up everything like it did the last few days. Thinking 3-4 workstations for 2 people (having 1-2 backups or something I can leave on all day processing 6k video from a Panasonic GH5 while starting another project).
I may want to play around with client side virtualization - like having a standardized VMware session that I can load across more than one workstation - with enough additional RAM or whatever it requires (i'm guessing 8gig more, to my 24gig current workstation so maybe 32gig minimum target?) to run smoothly. Just something that if I have 'problems' in the future I can literally save the VM and load it up on a different workstation hardware without interrupting my work.