Build for a fleet of business PCs + server

J

Josephson_Junction

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 21, 2012
Messages
69
Long story short is that I'm helping out a medical billing business that has five ancient PCs (clamshell design Dells + two Compaqs with AGP) in need of replacement. A server is also needed. Never hurts to get some extra thoughts, right?

User PCs:
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Medical billing primarily via Kareo (software) and PracticeFusion (browser-driven), although there's other software as well (some of which requires Windows XP Mode, such as Medicare Claims Express). Lots of messing around with Excel and Access, along with some usage of Word as well. One of the largest factors though is heavy multitasking.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$700 ($564 taking the Win7 license cost into account) per PC, not including tax/shipping. The smaller the cost the better, though.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Bentonville, Arkansas, United States.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, RAM, motherboard, case, HDD/SSD, PSU, input devices, display.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Some keyboards/mice and displays may be re-used.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
2x 1920x1080 displays per PC. It will likely be only one per PC at first though because of cost constraints, but that will eventually change.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
It could be any time between now and March, most likely January or February.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
USB 3.0, SATA 6Gbps if an SSD is to be used.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
We have two Win7 Professional x64 licenses available. We'll need three more.
Click to expand...
I'm considering the In Win BL040.300TB3LF for the case. It comes with a PSU, but I don't exactly have much faith in it... I would probably end up replacing it with one of Seasonic's TFX PSUs.

For the processor and motherboard, I'm very tempted by the Trinity APU offerings since they can drive dual displays quite well and compete with the SB/IB Pentiums (the A8-5600K looks very nice). The only problem is that there's no FM2 equivalent of the DQ77MK. :mad:

Because of how little user data will be stored on these, I'm tempted to go the SSD route; perhaps a 60GB one in each system.

I'm considering the HP LA2206x for the display.

Server:
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
SQL Server, HTTP/DNS server along with ScrewTurn Wiki (intranet access only), file/print server, Lync, active directory, automatic daily backups.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$1250, not including tax/shipping. The smaller the cost the better, though.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Bentonville, Arkansas, United States.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, RAM, motherboard, case, HDDs, PSU, input devices, display.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Keyboard, mouse, and an older 1024x768 HP LCD.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
Server will be accessed mostly through Remote Desktop Connection, but there's also that 1024x768 LCD I mentioned.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
It could be any time between now and March, most likely January or February.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Built-in RAID 1 functionality that supports at least six drives total would be nice.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
We don't have a server OS license currently.
Click to expand...

Case I'm considering is the ARK SR6850BK. Two of the external 5.25" bays will likely have hotswappable trays placed in them at some point.

Motheboard: Supermicro MBD-H8SCM
Processor: AMD Opteron 4234
Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333 Kingston (registered and ECC per motherboard)
PSU: Seasonic SS-560KM
Regarding storage, the initial setup will probably have two 500GB 7200RPM drives in RAID 1.

I'm open to all suggestions and questions.
 
Yeah, for a small business its hard to beat a Dell/HP esp since they will need support.
 
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