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New Build - Workstation for Web Development

T

techbob

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 26, 2009
Messages
364
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Workstation for web development and some light graphics. mysql server, apache, Zend studio (java based), multiple VMWare virtual machines. Lots of PHP.
I would like the workstation to be quiet, but not silent.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Whatever it takes but not more :)

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

Northern NJ - One hour drive to MicroCenter

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.


Case
Brand: Corsair
Model: Obsidian Series® 550D Mid-Tower Quiet Case
MSRP: $149.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139012


CPU
CPU Intel® Core™ i7-3770 Processor (8M Cache, up to 3.90 GHz)
Amazon price: $279.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116502


MB
Intel® Desktop Board DQ77MK
Amazon price $139.99
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Desktop...1&sr=8-1&keywords=Intel®+Desktop+Board+DQ77MK

PSU
Seasonic x-560
Amazon price: $155.35 (for x-560)
http://www.amazon.com/Seasonic-560W...&ie=UTF8&qid=1369154858&sr=1-1&keywords=x-560

CPU cooler
Hyper 212 Plus
Amazon price: $28.25

HD
2 x Western Digital WD1002FAEX Caviar Black 1 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Internal Desktop 3.5" Hard Drive
Amazon price: $90.24 (each)

GPU
1GB video card with support for two monitors - preferably Video adapter - no fan.

Memory - 32GB - (8GB x 4)


5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
None.


6) Will you be overclocking?
No - hence not looking at a 'K" processor. Will run multiple virtual machines.

7) 7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
24"

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

ASAP - this weekend may drive to MicroCenter!

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.

Stability and support for Debian.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

Primary OS is Debian 64bit



As mentioned there's a MicroCenter that I can drive to. The links are for product information only.
 
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Are your needs best served by just one machine? Might it be better to have a separate ESX server for your virtual machines?
 
3770k is cheaper than 3770 by $30 at Microcenter, and you will also get $40 off a motherboard. So definitely go with the "k" processor.
 
Why do you have two mechanical drives? How are you intending on using them?

How will the 32 GB of RAM be provisioned? Be specific regarding OS and each VM. (Boards supporting 32 GB of RAM are considerably more expensive. 16GB is reachable for much less.)

For me, I would get a 256 GB SSD for the OS and dev tools. And if your (unstated) budget allows, skip the mechanical drives and get a few larger SSDs for the VMs -- perhaps even one SSD per VM :)
(I'd suggest the Samsung 840 Pro series, specifically due to the faster write performance which will be a huge benefit for the VMs and dev tools working with big projects/compiles.)
 
Gronnie said:
3770k is cheaper than 3770 by $30 at Microcenter, and you will also get $40 off a motherboard. So definitely go with the "k" processor.
Click to expand...

The K models lack some virtualisation features. If you're serious about VMs then you don't want the K models.
 
Quartz-1, one machine is actually preferable and this workstation is for home to use in my spare time.
Like Quartz-1 mentioned, I can't use the K since virtualization needed. PTNL, two mechanical drives for RAID 1. PTNL - the 32GB of RAM is the max memory that the processor and motherboard support.

I really need some suggestions on:
* GPU choice vis-a-vis Debian driver compatibility.
* Memory type/speed
* Motherboard choice

I assume case and PSU are ok.
 
techbob said:
Quartz-1, one machine is actually preferable and this workstation is for home to use in my spare time.
Click to expand...
Any chance that you can wait until June-July to build? Intel will be releasing their new Haswell CPUs and socket LGA 1150 motherboards in the June to July timeframe. So if you can wait, I'd wait until the release of those Intel Haswell CPUs and related motherboards to buy a new system.
techbob said:
Like Quartz-1 mentioned, I can't use the K since virtualization needed.
I really need some suggestions on:
* GPU choice vis-a-vis Debian driver compatibility.
* Memory type/speed
* Motherboard choice
Click to expand...
Can't help you with the GPU.

As for RAM, get the cheapest 8GB or 2 x 8GB set of DDR3 1600 or DDR3 1333 RAM rated at 1.5V you can find. Timings and speed don't matter that much when it comes to Intel CPUs. You should be fine with four of this RAM:
$48 - Corsair CMV8GX3M1A1333C9 8GB DDR3 1333 RAM

As for the motherboard, that mobo seems to be an ok choice since it's one of the few Intel mobos that has guranteed support for DirectPath I/O. That'll be useful later on if you ever decide to switch to an ESXi setup.

techbob said:
I assume case and PSU are ok.
Click to expand...
You can save $20 by getting the case from Amazon.com:
$130 - Corsair Obsidian Series 550D ATX Case

As for the Seasonic X-560 PSU: It's really overpriced as its larger brother costs $15 less:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009VV56U8/?tag=extension-kb-20

Also, I concur with PTNL: Keep the OS and dev tools on a different set of drives than the VMS for optimal performance and safety reasons.
 
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Thanks, DannyBui! I wasn't aware of Haswell CPU. Might just have to wait now. At the least there should be a price reduction on the older processor and motherboard.

For the Seasonic, I believe the x-560 is more than adequate, and will waste less electricity, but probably better off getting going the next step up. I'm researching the video card on Debian sites, but that will be nothing fancy.

Good point about keeping the VMS on a different drive. Will start with the RAID 1 1.5TB x2 then get the extra drive for VMS if needed.
 
You might want to look into triple or quad monitors if you are doing web development and virtual machines. I can run out of real estate really fast on my setup and I have *SEVEN* monitors.

I agree with Quartz-1 that you might want to put your VMs on a separate ESXi host. I do that now and it makes my life a lot less complicated, especially as my Ubuntu server is one of the VMs. That means I can take a snapshot of it before I do anything crazy to it and if it starts to blow chunks I can simply roll it back to a working state and figure out what I did wrong this time. I can also clone the VM so I can run both a stable working server alongside a development environment to make apples-to-apples comparisons eg. performance benefits of nginx and MariaDB over Apache and MySQL. Since ESXi is a type-1 hypervisor you don't get the performance loss of running your web environment on your workstation VM (which would be a type-2 hypervisor). An AMD FX8350 IOMMU CPU with an ESXi 5.1-compatible motherboard like the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 is around $320 so it is about $100 less than the 3770/Z77 combination. ESXi's only drawback is when you need to use passthrough devices, especially USB. If you aren't using a lot of exotic hardware ESXi works great, especially paired with a SAN. Of course what you save may be more than eaten up by the need to build/upgrade a second computer to act as a workstation.

If you want quiet, take a look at the Fractal series of cases. I bought a Fractal R2 XL less than a month ago and it is very quiet due to it's nearly silent fans (comes with 4) and sound-absorbing panels. Mine was $120 and it is the E-ATX tower case, the smaller ones are in the $90-$100 range.

That PSU looks a bit pricey to me for 560W, but I admit cutting corners on the PSU can lead to a lot of heartbreak down the road. Still, for 560W I figure you'd be in the $90-120 range for a decent gold model. My Antec EarthWatts 750W Green was only $80, although admittedly it's a bronze and not modular.

Can't help you with the Debian GPU decision - I use a Windows 8 workstation and SSH or ESXi console into my Ubuntu VM so it's all command-line for me.
 
Last edited:
techbob said:
Thanks, DannyBui! I wasn't aware of Haswell CPU. Might just have to wait now. At the least there should be a price reduction on the older processor and motherboard.
Click to expand...
There probably won't be that much of a price reduction until quite awhile after the release of Haswell: Intel generally keeps the price of their older CPUs at their current pricing in order to make the newer CPUs look like an even better buy.
techbob said:
For the Seasonic, I believe the x-560 is more than adequate, and will waste less electricity, but probably better off getting going the next step up. I'm researching the video card on Debian sites, but that will be nothing fancy.
Click to expand...
The X560 is more than enough power but it honestly won't save enough power to justify an additional $15. More than likely they'll have the same efficiency at levels.
techbob said:
Good point about keeping the VMS on a different drive. Will start with the RAID 1 1.5TB x2 then get the extra drive for VMS if needed.
Click to expand...
I do not recommend 1.5TB drives as they're generally not that cost-effective and are usually older/slower drives. You have a better chance of getting a faster and better bang for the buck drive if you aim for 1TB or 2TB hard drives.
 
rtangwai said:
You might want to look into triple or quad monitors if you are doing web development and virtual machines. I can run out of real estate really fast on my setup and I have *SEVEN* monitors.

I agree with Quartz-1 that you might want to put your VMs on a separate ESXi host. I do that now and it makes my life a lot less complicated, especially as my Ubuntu server is one of the VMs. That means I can take a snapshot of it before I do anything crazy to it and if it starts to blow chunks I can simply roll it back to a working state and figure out what I did wrong this time. I can also clone the VM so I can run both a stable working server alongside a development environment to make apples-to-apples comparisons eg. performance benefits of nginx and MariaDB over Apache and MySQL. Since ESXi is a type-1 hypervisor you don't get the performance loss of running your web environment on your workstation VM (which would be a type-2 hypervisor). An AMD FX8350 IOMMU CPU with an ESXi 5.1-compatible motherboard like the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 is around $320 so it is about $100 less than the 3770/Z77 combination. ESXi's only drawback is when you need to use passthrough devices, especially USB. If you aren't using a lot of exotic hardware ESXi works great, especially paired with a SAN. Of course what you save may be more than eaten up by the need to build/upgrade a second computer to act as a workstation.

If you want quiet, take a look at the Fractal series of cases. I bought a Fractal R2 XL less than a month ago and it is very quiet due to it's nearly silent fans (comes with 4) and sound-absorbing panels. Mine was $120 and it is the E-ATX tower case, the smaller ones are in the $90-$100 range.

That PSU looks a bit pricey to me for 560W, but I admit cutting corners on the PSU can lead to a lot of heartbreak down the road. Still, for 560W I figure you'd be in the $90-120 range for a decent gold model. My Antec EarthWatts 750W Green was only $80, although admittedly it's a bronze and not modular.

Can't help you with the Debian GPU decision - I use a Windows 8 workstation and SSH or ESXi console into my Ubuntu VM so it's all command-line for me.
Click to expand...

We have an ESXi for the office. This workstation is just for home use, "fun" stuff not day job related. Two monitors is enough, and also space is a consideration.Will definitely check out Fractal cases.

Danny Bui, after my initial price I looked up prices for drives and see what you mentioned - the 1.5TB's are obsolete. So likely 2TB.

Still deciding to wait for Haswell...
 
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