Need a business oriented budget build

SilverSliver

SilverSliver

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I am always focused on the high enthusiast end so I am really out of the loop on bang for the buck mid range stuff focused on business use. Trying to justify not ordering a Dell at this point just for simplicity and ordering the panels separately.

This will be used to run IHS Petra, which is not very demanding at all. I will be needing to run 2 or 3 monitors, likely 27" Korean panels.

Quad core or better CPU, 16 gigs of ram maybe. Not sure about storage. Petra is very file intensive, loading raster images for a lot of things and pulling data from drives but again - not very demanding. Would a large SSD be cost effective at this point? On my current workstation, Petra pulls everything over a network on a server with a standard drive and is reasonably fast doing so.

Budget is maybe $1500 or less, sans monitors. If I don't need to spend that much, I don't want to.
 
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Some additional questions:
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? UEFI? etc.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
 
United States, assume ordering from Newegg or Amazon. I have no access to Fry's or Microcenter.

Building/buying immediately

No specific motherboard features required -- only criteria is I need to be able to run two or three monitors via DVI-D.

I have a transferable OS, 64bit.
 
How's this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($35.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($389.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card ($154.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($139.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1234.92
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-07 19:53 EDT-0400)
 
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SpeedyVV said:
How's this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($35.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($389.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card ($154.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($139.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1234.92
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-07 19:53 EDT-0400)
Click to expand...

Seems nice. The SSD is probably not cost effective. Think I will try a larger drive of some sort. Any recommendations? Also, any more cost effective video cards for 2+ DVI-D options? I don't really need much horsepower there. Would the normal 750 work? Thanks for taking the time to put together such a good list.
 
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You are welcome.

Definitely get an SSD as your boot drive.

How much storage do you need?
 
Another option for the video card is the Radeon R9 260X which can ouput to 3 monitors for about $130. Or you can cut back to a 1GB R7 250 for $80 to run dual monitors, and run a third monitor off the i5's own iGPU, but I have no idea how practical that actually is.
 
Here is what I ended up going with. Two monitors on this one. Going to try using the onboard video of Haswell.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($239.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($30.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($136.97 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($89.99)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($159.00)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (White) Mini ITX Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic X Series 400W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Crossover 27QW HDMI IPS LED 60Hz 27.0" Monitor ($674.00)
Keyboard: Logitech MK320 Wireless Standard Keyboard w/Optical Mouse
Total: $1630.90
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-08 22:57 EDT-0400)
 
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Doesn't IHS Petra need an openCL video card?

I could be wrong
 
SpeedyVV said:
Doesn't IHS Petra need an openCL video card?

I could be wrong
Click to expand...

Needs OpenGL, which I think the Haswell onboard does? Does say it needs 512 VRAM which I don't know works. I changed out the Asrock mobo to the Gigabyte one since the Gigabyte has two 1.4a HDMI ports. I will try running a couple Crossover 27qw's and see if it works. If I want/need three monitors again, I will get a Gigabyte GTX 750 which has two dual link DVIs and a HDMI.
 
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I run an office with about 20 PC's. A few years back I started to do some DIY-machines. I found that the most important thing when it comes to office PC's is by far reliability. I did a PC with an Intel mobo (I thougt that would be the most reliable option) and all quality components. But it's still the only PC that sometimes BSODs. I must admit that the Dell's are damn reliable but they are expensive. I've recently bought 6 USFF Dells and I'm very impressed. Super-small, can run 3 monitors easily, no-noise. I just recommend not buying MS-Office with them; much cheaper separate.
But I would really like to be able to do an DIY-job that matches them...
 
Benpalmason said:
I run an office with about 20 PC's. A few years back I started to do some DIY-machines. I found that the most important thing when it comes to office PC's is by far reliability. I did a PC with an Intel mobo (I thougt that would be the most reliable option) and all quality components. But it's still the only PC that sometimes BSODs. I must admit that the Dell's are damn reliable but they are expensive. I've recently bought 6 USFF Dells and I'm very impressed. Super-small, can run 3 monitors easily, no-noise. I just recommend not buying MS-Office with them; much cheaper separate.
But I would really like to be able to do an DIY-job that matches them...
Click to expand...

If it's unreliable for some reason in a business setting, I will just bring it home for my wife to use and buy a dell for the office.

Decided to go with smaller Dell ultrasharps as they are what I am used to and I don't want to deal with Korean monitor returns to be quite honest in a work setting.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($227.99 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($30.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87E-ITX Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($89.99 @ B&H)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($146.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 1GB Video Card ($125.38 @ Newegg)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (Black) Mini ITX Tower Case ($59.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: SeaSonic X Series 400W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($139.00)
Monitor: Dell U2412M 60Hz 24.0" Monitor ($268.99 @ Adorama)
Monitor: Dell U2412M 60Hz 24.0" Monitor ($268.99 @ Adorama)
Monitor: Dell U2412M 60Hz 24.0" Monitor ($268.99 @ Adorama)
Keyboard: Logitech MK320 Wireless Standard Keyboard w/Optical Mouse ($24.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $2022.25
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-09 12:13 EDT-0400)
 
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For $20 more, I really recommend going with the 750ti I recommended which does have 2 DVI + 1 HDMI a bit more bite which I think for IHS would be nice to have.

I have to admit, that the ti version will also allow you to sneak in a game or two on those nice monitors of yours ;)
 
SpeedyVV said:
For $20 more, I really recommend going with the 750ti I recommended which does have 2 DVI + 1 HDMI a bit more bite which I think for IHS would be nice to have.

I have to admit, that the ti version will also allow you to sneak in a game or two on those nice monitors of yours ;)
Click to expand...

I will give it a shot. Funny thing about the Petra users forums is they are pretty quiet about where you can get improvements in performance. I'm currently running on two 4550's and the only thing slowing it down is network speed/rate I can pull stuff off the server from what I can tell.
 
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