Hmmm I think you may be right.... Just so much dollar
I know a few of you are in the IT industry so wonder if you can help?
I find myself having to process enormous amounts of data at the moment as well as editing some pretty processor intensive footage (filmed in 360).
I have about £1K to spend on a workstation (not much)... Looking on ebay I can get a 4-5 year old HP Z600 with 12 xeon cores, 48gb memory, reasonable
gfx card etc for around £700...
For more money I could build a custom machine but would probably only end up with 4 or 6 physical cores and less memory... but the parts would be
brand new and using the latest tech....
Thoughts? Second hand older tech with high spec or brand new tech with lower spec?
It may depend on what software you're planning to use. It's pointless having multiple cores if the software won't use them. If the
package is designed to use graphics power, then a smaller CPU and a dual/quad graphics card build could be more efficient. Lots of memory is always
good, but it's also taken a huge jump in speed in the last five years. Again, smaller but faster memory could be better.
Overall, I'd buy new to take advantage of recent advances in power.
The software mainly needs cpu and memory, graphics isn't a big part of it weirdly...
Hmmm I think you may be right.... Just so much dollar
You could do some comparisons before you buy;
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
Thats' a very interesting graphic... Amazing that some of the "cheaper" I7 chips are faster than the thousand dollar + xeon chips
I personally don't rate home built PCs. People like Apple and Dell spend millions on developing their workstations and generally making sure
they work reliably. I know a few people (10+)including myself who have built their own and within a year some component has failed. I have been using
macs for sixteen years and for the last five a team of people using macs without a single hardware fault.
I know others will disagree but this is my experience. I suppose it's the same with cars. My kit car isn't as reliable as my vw golf!
Its a fair point... but I am typing this on a PC I built 6 years ago and apart from hoovering out the cobwebs its still going pretty well for what
it was designed for... 4gb of memory and two cores just don't cut it anymore!
The ready built workstrations I am sure are optimally balanced as it would be quite easy to build a diy computer and inadvertantly build in
bottlenecks...
Playing with this website is quite interesting.. https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/
Its a tossup... buy a 6 yearold properly designed but abused ferrari or build a brand new kit car?! 
[Edited on 4/4/16 by tegwin]
quote:
Originally posted by Irony
I personally don't rate home built PCs. People like Apple and Dell spend millions on developing their workstations and generally making sure they work reliably. I know a few people (10+)including myself who have built their own and within a year some component has failed. I have been using macs for sixteen years and for the last five a team of people using macs without a single hardware fault.
I know others will disagree but this is my experience. I suppose it's the same with cars. My kit car isn't as reliable as my vw golf!
I'd go with something like this
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/titan-neutron-intel-core-i5-i7-quad-core-micro-atx-gaming-pc-fs-090-og.html#t=b3c1d7fu
2 years parts and labour as well.
quote:
Originally posted by tegwin
Thats' a very interesting graphic... Amazing that some of the "cheaper" I7 chips are faster than the thousand dollar + xeon chips
quote:
Originally posted by Irony
People like Apple and Dell spend millions on developing their workstations and generally making sure they work reliably.
my mantra for computers is one of cart before horse. I say this from the perspective of trying to convince people to specify the right machine to
complete the task. Too often a shiny laptop was spec'd when a base station was appropriate, or a multi-core where the software didn't touch
the sides.
My advice, and I am sure that you are already doing this is always to determine what the software will run best with, Solidworks for example, publish
a list of requirements and graphics cards that deliver the best performance.
On another note, I have found the Dell Outlet to be of good value in the past.
hth
It's just a shame that the Mac Pro doesn't use nvidia graphics chips otherwise I would have considered one of them mainly because of the way
they look!
I have just ordered a 6 core i7 5820 3.3ghz chip for £280 which seems reasonable!!
Just need a motherboard, gfx ram and ssd
And good advice above, I did look at the suggested spec for the software I intent to use 
[Edited on 5/4/16 by tegwin]
From experience at work where we've bought built workstations I'd go the ready built route and capture someone else's effort. You'll benefit from an overall warranty and support should you need it. There is a valid argument that ready made PCs are bloated with unnecessary software, but you strike me as able to kill off or remove what you don't need - I certainly did on my £1,00 HP laptop at work.
Nick, that would have been my preferred route as I'm short of time but the cost of a similar spec machine brand new from one of the big names is pretty high especially as I already have the case/power supply etc.
^^ just to echo HowardB, if its being built for a specific software package then go with the recommended spec for it.
apart from anything else the software developers of the professional packages often have that recommended spec in mind when making the new versions,
so future upgrades should be ok too... (at least for a while)
Personally I work in an office full of HP's ranging from the near top spec workstations down to the cheap and nasty stuff, we've had
problems with nearly every single one of them, about half of which could be put down to software issues and poor installation (a certain IT company
that employs barely trained monkeys 
) but that doesn't explain the numerous hard ware failures... especially the fact that the more
expensive one seem to brake more often
When my turn came for a new machine about 6 years ago I talked the boss into letting me build my own, part of the deal was that I'd do it cheaper
so I limited my self to under £400 and got an i5 750 (quad core LGA1156 2nd gen) with a basic £30 ASUS MB, 2Gb of cheap but decent corsair RAM, GTS250
graphics card, a 500Gb 7200rpm HDD and a £40 PSU, this was perfect for the 32bit XP install I needed at the time.
Then a couple of years back we changed to x64 win7 - instead of a brand new i7 HP machine I was offered, I got some more RAM, a second HDD and copy
of win7 - this means my machine is now 4 years older and 1 to 2 generations of CPU out of date next to all the other ones in the office, yet mine has
been as fast if not faster and far more reliable (I've done nothing to it except fix software bugs caused by the IT muppets)
My main PC in the house is even older (1st gen i7 920) and with a little upgrade to the graphics and an SSD its going stronger than ever
(could have got away with the old graphics card even longer if I hadn't cooked it by forgetting to clean it 
)
There is nothing wrong with home built PC's if they are built from good (or at least half decent) quality parts and you've done your
research to make sure they will work well together....
I haven't bought a pre-built machine since 1999 and mine have all lasted longer and worked better then the pre-built ones other folk I know have
had
Speaking only as an amateur I'll start by picking 1 or 2 CPU's that look like the best bang for the buck,
Then I'll find the motherboards that will fit them and narrow them down to a few ones from good makes (usually a cheap one with the min feature I
need, a top end one with all the toys and mid range one, give me some wiggle room on the price if it adds up to a silly number) - ASUS are still my
personal favourite
Then I'll download the manuals for the short listed MB's (decent makes have decent manuals in my experience) and check the detailed specs
for all the major parts, that way I know what the limitations of the board are and won't go wasting cash on fancy super fast RAM if the board
can't use it and so on.
(I might even check the RAM compatibility if they publish a list of tested ones - ASUS are good at this)
Then its just a case of picking all the rest of the bits, double checking them against the MB spec etc....
[Edited on 5/4/2016 by mcerd1]
[Edited on 5/4/2016 by mcerd1]
quote:
Originally posted by Slimy38
quote:
Originally posted by Irony
People like Apple and Dell spend millions on developing their workstations and generally making sure they work reliably.
Yep, I'm one of the disagreers!! I've had more trouble with prebuilt kit than I have done with self builds. Particularly Dell, their business PC's are solid but anything remotely powerful is very unreliable.
quote:
Originally posted by coyoteboy
Dell etc make lovely solid cases, but that's about it.
)