$7,000 Workstation Build. Thoughts?

I have a client that just approved the build / budget for a new workstation they are needing.

I've looked at dual socket boards and tons of Xeons but those can get rather pricey really really fast.

For what they need, they want the AMD Firepro 9100 16gb workstation video card. I went ahead and decided to just go with an Asus x99 WS board that supports 128gb of ram. With that I've paired it with the Intel 6950X.

With water-cooling, 128gb of DDR4 2133 ECC ram ( I priced them for 64gb ) they turned around and asked for 128gb. A Samsung 512GB 950 Pro NVMe, etc etc

My 12% build fee it comes to just under $7,000 grand.

I know the memory is overkill but it's what they want.

The 10 Core / 20 Tread Intel 6950x @ 4.0ghz to 4.2ghz should be about the same speed as 2 x 10 core Xeons running at 2.0ghz. Or, am I wrong?

These guys totally trust me, I've done good work for them in the past and I do not want to build them the wrong thing, not at $7,000.

They mainly work with Solidworks which is CPU driven but they also just heavily invested in some other modules for Solidworks and or other CAD software.

I would really appreciate some thoughts into this from people that actually build, deploy and maintain workstations for customers in regards to CAD design.

The customer is a 2 person team, designer and sales guy. He works from home. His end goal is reduction in render time. He is currently using a 5820k @ 4.5ghz and has been very happy with that system. I've promised them at least a 50% increase in render power with the new system.

At the end of the day I just need something that can seriously crunch numbers for hours on end as some of their renders take several hours. With the 64gb ( now 128gb ) the Samsung NVMe with it's 2,500mb read speed, the 6950x, the Firepro 9100, I've eliminated every possible bottleneck.

Here is the build list:

Intel 6950x 10 Core / 20 Thread Boxed CPU $1750
128gb DDR4 ECC Server Memory 2133mhz speed $725
Asus X99-E Workstation / USB 3.1 $599
AMD Firepro 16gb Workstation 9100 $2,200 - $2,300
ATX Mid Tower Case $160
Blu-ray / DVD Burner Combo $99
1000 Watt PSU ( top of the line ) $200
Corsair Water Cooling 280mm Radiator $130
Samsung 512gb 950 Pro NVMe $350
Toshiba 4tb 7200 Storage Hard-drive $150
Misc $100

12% Build Fee / Test / Deployment $700

$7.000 aprox.

Nice. Putting together a high end rig myself with an i7-6950x. You can't use it with ECC RAM however.

I would personally run an Asus Z10PXX MB or Asrock Rack server MB (there are some Open Box on NE) with 2x E5-2650V3 processors. You are getting double the core/thread count for near the same price and a server quality board. If you went with more RAM slots they can upgrade RAM down the line or you can get smaller DIMMs. If it's for a professional workstation I personally wouldn't overclock at all, but that is just preference. There is also a used video card (don't know if that is an option) on Amazon for $1500.

The 6950x doesn't support ECC memory? Huh?

ECC is only supported for Xeons. Intel's datasheet shows no ECC support for the 6950x: Intel® Core™ i7-6950X Processor Extreme Edition (25M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz) Specifications.

There's a lot of blow back over the 6950x because of the price but you do get a lot of cores running at insane speeds, 4.3 Ghz seems to be what people are hitting on the upper end. Xeon's don't support overclocking. I guess the question is do you need top end speed or lots of cores and more stability.

Some of their projects / renderings are auto related. So ECC, data integrity are pretty important.

Once the renderings are done, they get sent to their clients and it's not uncommon ( correction - engineer says this has only happened a few times ) for them to fail / have errors. I'm talking Fiat / Chrysler and recently Tesla for a project on the Model 3.

We need RAW speed. The engineer is a one man team and he is working his ass off. If I can save him 4 hours on an 8 hour final render that means everything to these guys.

how important is ECC in the grand scheme of everything. I can steer these guys any direction. Most of my workstations are for clients on a budget. I build a lot of workstations from off the self gaming system parts and I just get them super stable for long long render times.

I occasionally have clients who want the $25,000 workstations but ....... those are very uncommon. One or two a year, 2015 ... I sold none of those super high end systems. I've built many supermicro workstations with Xeons. Most of my clients want super high-end performance at 2k to 3k. I get complaints when I don't use ECC but so far, it's not been a big problem.

I guess ECC steams from a need back in the day where memory wasn't exactly in it's purist form compared to today's tech. They needed a way to make sure the math was right, a 2nd line of a defense if you will.

I'm just finishing a similar system for similar usage. My customer wanted Nvidia after researching all the test results available on line. The new M6000 shows around 10% better render times in Solid Works over the W9100. We also went with the 6900K w/Corsair H115i as Solid Works really doesn't make use of the 10 cores of the 6950 and runs stock a little faster. Customer also wanted 128GB memory and that is the only thing I run above stock. Used G.Skill 2800mhz (XMP at 1.35V)($630 with cooling fans @ newegg). Used an Asus X99 Deluxe II for it's included Thunderbolt card. Also used the new OCZ RD400A 1TB NVMe w/PCIe AIC ($790 @ newegg). Same specs as the Samsung but it really seems a lot quicker (better driver ?) I like WD Black drives for storage (48 drives over last 3 years without a single failure). Customer also loves the Corsair 650D Mid-tower case as it has a external SATA port in the top of the case that he uses for his back-ups. I agree with the 1000W PSU (I use Corsair HX1000i) I install Win 7 Ult. 64 bit because corporate hasn't approved Win 10 yet. I think your cheating yourself with the 12% build fee (I charge a flat $1000).
Could you please tell me where you are buying a W9100 for $2300 as best price I can find is $3000??????

Made a few changes to the build based on feedback here. Thanks.

Still looking for any additional feedback and or suggestions. Thanks will be given.

I plan on ordering all the parts end of the week or weekend and possibly the following week. I do plan to record the build in hopes of monetizing the video. I've got a friend that has a gaming channel and he has several 100k plus views on a his videos that he says pay him around $350 - $380 per 100k. That will be a fun experiment in it's own right.

two xeons will always be faster but many programs cant use 88 threads or really anything above 12. i have a dual e5-2670 build i use for solidworks and it sucks. i have to disable all but two cores and lock the cores at their max speed for solidworks to run right. this is with a firepro s7000 overclocked whitch is more than capable of decent preformance (it preforms around w9000 levels) and 44 gigs of ecc ram

Before starting this build i'd get more specific info on the programs they are using any how many cores/threads can be utilized.

As others have said don't get a 6950X and try to pair it with ECC ram.

SixFootDuo said:

Made a few changes to the build based on feedback here. Thanks.

Still looking for any additional feedback and or suggestions. Thanks will be given.

I plan on ordering all the parts end of the week or weekend and possibly the following week. I do plan to record the build in hopes of monetizing the video. I've got a friend that has a gaming channel and he has several 100k plus views on a his videos that he says pay him around $350 - $380 per 100k. That will be a fun experiment in it's own right.

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"What kind of programs will he use? If he's using Adobe programs, then a GTX 980 Ti (don't know if the new 1080's are yet supported) offers the best price/performance, even compared to the most high end workstation GPU's.
Unless you have 10 bit displays and edit in 10 bit, don't go with the workstation cards for Adobe programs."
==> I didn't read OP fully, no Adobe programs... Ok, go with some Firepro or Quadro cards.

The 6950x is quite useless for your purposes. Just get Dual Xeon and ECC memory: you need reliability for a system like this. ECC memory is just essential for this kind of budget. (even though my budget workstations don't use it, I would certainly go with it if the budget permitted)

Get 2x 8-core Xeons, I think this is where the sweetspot is currently between high clockspeed and high corecount.

Do NOT watercool workstations. I have seen Apple's that had their watercooling start leaking. Look at the actual power consumption of the CPU's you are using and then decide between a Hyper 212 EVO or a Noctua.

12% for a system is a strange way of working, as a client, I'd prefer to get a flat rate instead of a %. Then I know for sure you are going to search for the best prices.

Henri108 said:

"What kind of programs will he use? If he's using Adobe programs, then a GTX 980 Ti (don't know if the new 1080's are yet supported) offers the best price/performance, even compared to the most high end workstation GPU's.
Unless you have 10 bit displays and edit in 10 bit, don't go with the workstation cards for Adobe programs."
==> I didn't read OP fully, no Adobe programs... Ok, go with some Firepro or Quadro cards.

The 6950x is quite useless for your purposes. Just get Dual Xeon and ECC memory: you need reliability for a system like this. ECC memory is just essential for this kind of budget. (even though my budget workstations don't use it, I would certainly go with it if the budget permitted)

Get 2x 8-core Xeons, I think this is where the sweetspot is currently between high clockspeed and high corecount.

Do NOT watercool workstations. I have seen Apple's that had their watercooling start leaking. Look at the actual power consumption of the CPU's you are using and then decide between a Hyper 212 EVO or a Noctua.

12% for a system is a strange way of working, as a client, I'd prefer to get a flat rate instead of a %. Then I know for sure you are going to search for the best prices.

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i second the air cooling their is just much less that can go wrong with 2 hyper 212 evos and if you go with xeons 212 evos are more then enough

cdabc123 said:

i second the air cooling their is just much less that can go wrong with 2 hyper 212 evos and if you go with xeons 212 evos are more then enough

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Heck, my 5820K's are at 4.2Ghz with a voltage that was Prime 95 stable at 4.2Ghz. And they are perfect with a 212EVO. These put out way more heat than a Xeon.

Unless you are planning on doing a high overclock air coolers are fine. All-in-one water coolers like the Corsair H100 have become very popular and are a bit more effective than any air cooler. I've not heard of any issues with them leaking though of course that's always a possibility. I've had an H60 running continuously for 6 years in my previous build and it was flawless. Plus I think a water cooler is easier to keep clean. Unmounting the radiator and taking off to clean or even replace the fans is doable without touching the CPU, cleaning and reapplying TIM.

So like anything there are pros and cons.

heatlesssun said:

Plus I think a water cooler is easier to keep clean. Unmounting the radiator and taking off to clean or even replace the fans is doable without touching the CPU, cleaning and reapplying TIM.

So like anything there are pros and cons.

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I clean about 100 systems a year and water coolers are a bitch to clean... An aircooler is just:
Hold fan with one finger and blow through the aircooler with high pressure air. DONE
With a radiator, you need to take off the fans at a minimum, otherwise it gets stuck between the fan mounts and will come out later, making the whole system (or floor around it) dirty again.

Henri108 said:

I clean about 100 systems a year and water coolers are a bitch to clean... An aircooler is just:
Hold fan with one finger and blow through the aircooler with high pressure air. DONE
With a radiator, you need to take off the fans at a minimum, otherwise it gets stuck between the fan mounts and will come out later, making the whole system (or floor around it) dirty again.

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I've been cleaning Corsair all-in-ones like you describe with an air cooler for six years. I don't let more than two months go by before doing though. I think that's the important part. Just keep things clean on routine basis and it's much easier than trying clean out a year or two of gunk. Anyway, just my take on it.

I have been using Corsair AIO's since 2011. Over 50 units and not a single leak. Did have 1 pump fail while I was still doing system burn-in but Corsair replaced with no questions. The customer hasn't cleaned any of the systems and all still cool fine (Engineering offices with AC).

heatlesssun said:

Unless you are planning on doing a high overclock air coolers are fine. All-in-one water coolers like the Corsair H100 have become very popular and are a bit more effective than any air cooler. I've not heard of any issues with them leaking though of course that's always a possibility. I've had an H60 running continuously for 6 years in my previous build and it was flawless. Plus I think a water cooler is easier to keep clean. Unmounting the radiator and taking off to clean or even replace the fans is doable without touching the CPU, cleaning and reapplying TIM.

So like anything there are pros and cons.

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I had my H100 leak. I contacted Corsair and they had me mail the dead hardware for them to inspect and then they reimbursed me fair market value for the items. It ended up killing an SR-2 motherboard and a Geforce GTX 670.

Sgraffite said:

I had my H100 leak. I contacted Corsair and they had me mail the dead hardware for them to inspect and then they reimbursed me fair market value for the items. It ended up killing an SR-2 motherboard and a Geforce GTX 670.

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why did you have to say that my 980 ti and sr-x motherboard need to live for awille. did they just reimburse the value of the cooler?

The final build came out to $8,250 something.

I'll be building the system over the weekend and testing / tweaking Monday and Tue with delivery toward the end of next week.

I spent a lot of time looking at dual socket boards and xeons. Just very costly and the performance isn't there. This guy wants to rock and roll from the word go. 4.2Ghz 10 Core - 20 thread / 128gb 3000hz quad channel / 2700mg read speed SSD along with a 16gb 9100 Firepro.

I have a 2013 dual E5-2687W build I did for another client that I took back in on a trade-in that I let him play around with, Firepro 8100 and 128gb of ram, SAS 15k cheetas and he didn't seem too impressed.

I did look at some of the 8 core and 10 core Xeons but the cost would have been slightly more that what I've already spent plus the guy likes bells and whistles. He uses the system in his home, movies and music, the board actually has a built in DAC so that will be cool. Using the new Asus Rampage Pro 10.

I've used a lot of AIO water-cooling and never had a leak. Could it happen? I suppose it could. These guys have accidentle damage coverage. I am sure it's not going to be an issue. I'm also going to pay the $50 insurance for the 6950x which was part of the budget and that's through Intel directly.

I'm going to shoot the build with a GH3 and 20mm pancake lense for Youtube, at least that's the plan. I'll get it edited and linked hopefully when I get back from Vacation.

Oh the 12% is something they asked me to charge them. They actually told me to add on 15% to the build. I settled at 12%. I'll end up making around $800 dollars for maybe 8 to 10 hours of work. The first system I built for them 7 years ago when they were tiny was a flat $250 + they bought me lunch. Their clients have grown and they are paying me better these last few years. It's not that hard putting a PC together.

Software is Solidworks and Hyperworks mostly. He has a 4k display. They also need to have multiple models open at once. While there will be some rendering, it's less of a focus in the near term I'm told.

Some of my clients have done projects for Ford, Nascar, Dupont, Fiat / Chrysler, a few products in Walmart and other national chains with the newest client being Tesla on the model 3. I've not designed anything, just built the workstations that did all the modeling and rendering. I did try and get one of the engineers to hide his initials in one of the designs / molds but he just laughed it off saying, maybe one day.

cdabc123 said:

why did you have to say that my 980 ti and sr-x motherboard need to live for awille. did they just reimburse the value of the cooler?

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I've had 2 H100i AIO watercoolers have a pump failure.
I went custom watercooling for the first and air cooling for the second. But will move away from watercooling alltogether, it's just not worth the temp difference in terms of reliability.
I'd really like to see the performance difference between a system like you build here and a regular 5820K system with a 980ti or something similar. I'd prefer to have two of those systems, so you can render on the one and work on the other than having an overpriced workstation that never gets the use it deserves.

cdabc123 said:

why did you have to say that my 980 ti and sr-x motherboard need to live for awille. did they just reimburse the value of the cooler?

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They sent me a brand new cooler as well. Both the replacement cooler and the other original cooler are still going strong. I don't think the leaks are very common overall.

Interesting.
I'm looking at a dual proc e5-2687w-v4 system as soon as they hit the streets.
While yes the 2cpu mobo's don't have all the "bells&whisles" right out of the box , it's nothing money can't fix.
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I say stay away from watercooling.

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edit : here's why I'm going with the dual xeons : 80 PCIe lanes.

Not trying to poop on anything.. but I will be shocked if you get 4200mhz with 100% stability across all cores. I'd guess closer to 3800, a higher clocked 6 core would probably be better.

geforce man said:

Not trying to poop on anything.. but I will be shocked if you get 4200mhz with 100% stability across all cores. I'd guess closer to 3800, a higher clocked 6 core would probably be better.

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4.3 seems to be the sweet spot and I'm 100% stable thus far at that. Hell the boost clock on these things is 4 Ghz so 3.8 is actually below rating.

Solidworks 2016 Multi Core Performance

Even for the multi-threaded portions of Solidworks (including simulations), we would recommend getting the latest generation, highest frequency quad core CPU you can. At the time of this article, this would be the Intel Core i7 6700K 4.0Ghz Quad Core.

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It looks like final rendering is the only place where scads of cores make a real difference.

And if he's already looking at a machine running 6+ cores at 4.5Ghz, you're going to have a REAL tough time delivering 50% more performance...

Chas said:

Solidworks 2016 Multi Core Performance



It looks like final rendering is the only place where scads of cores make a real difference.

And if he's already looking at a machine running 6+ cores at 4.5Ghz, you're going to have a REAL tough time delivering 50% more performance...

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if the program can utilize 32 threads or more its easy to get double or even quadruple the performance of a 6 core at 4.5 however solidworks is not that program and for someithng like it a 6 core overclocked will be the best you can get

cdabc123 said:

if the program can utilize 32 threads or more its easy to get double or even quadruple the performance of a 6 core at 4.5 however solidworks is not that program and for someithng like it a 6 core overclocked will be the best you can get

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Only for actual renders though. For everything else, once you get beyond about 8-10 threads (not cores, threads), you don't see any sort of huge performance increase.

A hex-core CPU can supply those 8-10 threads and still have a couple left over to keep the OS running uninterrupted.

What about using SSD drive for OS and number crunching then have a 4TB SATA spinner?

heatlesssun said:

4.3 seems to be the sweet spot and I'm 100% stable thus far at that. Hell the boost clock on these things is 4 Ghz so 3.8 is actually below rating.

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100% stable as in Prime95 FMA/AVX stable? or 100% as in gaming and daily usage stable? Most guys bragging about their "100% stable system" will also say Prime95 AVX is unreallistic blah blah blah.... Hope you're not one of those guy.

Update: System was built and deployed to the customer.

But .... this was one of the worst bad luck cases ever.

The motherboard was defective with a slight bent pin. First time I had ever seen this. I opted for a refund and bought something locally. Then the CPU would not post. I got tons and tons of random error codes on the motherboard. So I had to RMA the CPU back to Intel. This took around 10 days.

To make a long story short, I ended up putting in 100+ hours into the build with all the trouble shooting, travel and delays. Customer was eventually very happy and is enjoying the machine.

I will say this. I used my first Gigabyte board in a very very long time ... years and I am very impressed with the board. The reason I say this is that Asus has a lengthy boot up time and I had become used to this with their boards, the 2011-v3 for awhile now. Also their x79 chipset boards. Not only that, their USB seemed slow to initialize. The Gigabyte boots very very fast and their USB is almost instant. USB 3.1 is amazing and the speeds are incredible.

Just a follow up question as I didn't see this thread before, was there a reason he specifically wanted the AMD firepro cards over the quadro cards? In my experience in the CAD world, I got incredible support from Nvidia, but did not get the same from AMD. Support was the main reason I chose Nvidia for all the CAD/Solidworks builds I did for customers and myself in the past.

Yes, with the Firepro it came down to preference. Plus I got an amazing price on a w9100 16gb Firepro.

He works mainly in Solidworks which is 100% cpu driven. There might be some GPU hardware support but I am not sure.

I will say this. One of the fastest systems I've built. with 128gb ram, 10 cores / 10 threads, everything is just super snappy and quick. He is seeing a 55 - 60% performance gain.