Thoughts on building a workstation vs buying one

Hey, I've built hundreds of PC's for purposes ranging from gaming, to a school computer, to the family computer, HTPC...etc. I've got a few clients that are asking about workstations. They do CAD (solidworks mostly) and would like a powerful machine at home. Anyone have any experience or input? Thanks for the help.


PS - I have the video card part figured out. I'm more interested in the rest of the rig.

There's not a lot different between a workstation and a high-end desktop PC except the video card.

Usually the storage systems are different as well, with workstations almost universally running SCSI.

What video card did you plan on using?

-MrD

Not that much different than a high end gaming machine - other than video. Like Digital said, you may want to go SCSI, but I am not totally sold on this. Most 'real' workstations will be Xeon based, but there is no reason you could not go with an Opteron or even an A64 instead. I am personally not sold on any Xeon right now in terms of price or performance - compatability issues were proven to be BS a long time ago. Hell, the last study I saw showed that Intel processors actually had more compatability problems than AMD processors.


Key points for a workstation...

Powerful CPU, possible need for dual CPU.

Lots of memory, 1GB min, 2GB+ recommended.

Fast HDD system, SCSI ideal but expensive, SATA is a decent alternative. Also look at backup options, a decent backup solution is nice to have.

The right video card - not a gaming card.

Not to toot my own horn or anything (well, maybe a little toot) but this thread inspired me to write-up a 'how to build a workstation' thread at a different forum, so I figured I'd link to it here if the OP was still interested.

http://www.fix-it.org/thread973.html

-MrD

Thanks for the input guys. As for video cards, I'm pretty much leaning toward an nVidia product. Between the solid modeling and CAM systems, most seem to be nVidia friendly.

Thanks for the input. SATA is a good idea though. Would a RAID setup be helpful? Assuming a decent backup is in place, a RAID 0 might add a bit of speed?

Thanks again.

Depending upon the complexity of the designs and file sizes being used, you'll want to max the memory. My workstation has 4GB memory and I rarely have more than 150MB available when working with large image files. I use an older 3Dlabs video card with IIRC about 384MB memory. It has served me well.

You'll also want to stick with commercial grade workstation hardware - motherboards, ECC memory, power supply, APC fully regulated backup power, ...

AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processors have about the same capabilities at the same price levels. Those are the only processors you should consider. I favor Intel products because of the bad track record of the chipsets produced for AMD processors.