Every so often I build a nice workstation for myself. As much as I like building servers, I am completely nervous every time it comes to make a workstation because I grew up with some jet engine/ leaf blower hybrids. @MiniKnight challenged me to build something better than my December 2013 Workstation build, and I think that is a challenge worth taking up so here it goes.
Old build
This one went through a few iterations. The build runs well under 35dba even playing a 3D game. Absolutely awesome!
Specs
Reasons for the new build
More to come soon.
Old build
This one went through a few iterations. The build runs well under 35dba even playing a 3D game. Absolutely awesome!
Specs
- Dual Intel Xeon E5-2630 (switched to lower TDP chips from the original ones)
- Supermicro SC732 Chassis
- 2x Cooler Master Hyper 212+
- ASUS Z9PE-D8
- 128GB (8x16GB) DDR3 1600MHz ECC RDIMMs Samsung
- NVIDIA Quadro K4000
- Mellanox ConnectX-2 EN 10GB SFP+
- Crucial M500 960GB SSD
- HGST / Virident FlashMax II 550GB
- Seasonic 650w 80Plus Gold power supply
Reasons for the new build
- I now run more VMs than ever on my primary workstation and 128GB of RAM is simply not cutting it anymore, even using Dynamic Memory with Hyper-V. Photoshop 64-bit loves eating RAM
- Apparently I have an addiction to running Chrome and IE tabs. Frankly, this is absolutely scary
- When I built the December 2013 build I used 960GB Crucial M500's. Large and relatively inexpensive for their day. With all of the VMs that are run locally, there are GC jitters
- The old system is 12C/ 24T - I think there is room for improvement even though Windows has only 488 processes running right now - and before anyone thinks this is strange - there is absolutely a ton of stuff already open so I can switch between tasks quickly
- I want a faster video card (note this is a want not a NEED since gaming is infrequent to say the least.)
- I was challenged and I can
- CPUs: Dual Intel Xeon E5-2650 V3
- Supermicro SC732 Chassis - small and quiet with some versions running at under 22dba
- 2x 8-in-1 5.25" bay enclosures one for Intel SATA one for LSI SAS
- 2x Cooler Master Hyper 212+ (or equivalent)
- Supermicro X10DAC
- ASUS STRIX-GTX970-DC20C-4GD5 - 0db fan mode sounds great!
- Mellanox ConnectX-2 EN 10GbE
- Storage -
More to come soon.
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