New workstation build (xeon westmere)

[r3awak3n]

Hi guys,

A friend of fine has asked me to build him a work station and I am shopping for parts. In our line of business we use mac pros, dual xeons and he wants something like it but cheaper. I told him that we can build something like that but better for a little over 2k.
He needs it mainly for maya and after effects so the more cores and ram the better.

I started searching on new egg and came out with this:

2x Intel Xeon E5620 Westmere 2.4GHz 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 80W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80614E5620 (290 dollars a proc)

1x TYAN S7002G2NR-LE Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5500 Tylersburg SSI CEB Dual Intel Xeon 5500 Series Server Motherboard (250 bucks)


2x Crucial 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) ECC Unbuffered Triple Channel Kit Server Memory Model CT3KIT25672BA1339 (240 bucks for all 12 gigs of ram)

2x Intel BXSTS100A Active heat sink with fixed fan (30 bucks a fan)

1x SAMSUNG 24x DVD Burner - Bulk SATA Model SH-S243N/BEBS LightScribe Support - OEM (25 dollars)

1x EVGA 01G-P3-1467-AR GeForce GTX 465 (Fermi) Superclocked 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video ... (230 dollars after rebate)....

he is not a gamer but i think a mid range game card will do, at work we have 8800gts on the mac pros and we are fine.. plus the card has cuda which might help him in the future... the quadros are overpriced and to get a old 150 bucks quadro i think he will be better served with a new mid range fast gamming card.

1x CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply (110 dollars)

im a little confused here, can I get a normal psu for the xeons and server mobo or do i have to get a special psu?



and then 2 500gb 7200 hard drives (prob samsungs cuz thats what i like) in raid 0 and prob a hitatchi 7200 deskstar 2 TB for back ups (arround 200 dollars).


so all for arround 2k... what would you guys change? does that psu work with the dual xeon/server mobo setup?, can i get better fans for similar prices (he is not going to OC), what about hard drives, i think the raid 0 setup for browser/work is good but can i get something faster (i know SSD is the way to go but too expensive/small)?


thanks guys, your help is really much appreciated,

Paulo

 

[Dangman]

How are you getting the E5620 for $290 a piece? Newegg lists them as $390 a piece.

Motherboard wise, Tyan isn't recommended that often here in this forum. For mulit-CPU builds, these two motherboards are the more common recommendations:
$260 - Asus Z8NA-D6C Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5500 ATX Server/Workstation Motherboard
$300 - Supermicro MBD-X8DAL-i-O Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5500 ATX Server/Workstation Motherboard

For most server class motherboards, you need a PSU with two 8Pin EPS12V connectors. The Corsair 750TX only has one. The Seasonic X650 has two 8Pin EPS12V connectors.

GPU wise, ditch the GTX 465. Not that good of a card for the money. Go for the GTX 460 1GB instead:
$230 - Gigabyte GV-N460OC-1GI GeForce GTX 460 1GB PCI-E Video Card

 

[r3awak3n]

Thanks so much Danny Bui!!!! Awesome input..
Definitely going to ditch the TYAN for the Asus (I was under the impression that tyan made good server boards but have no problem sub-ing it for the Asus which is a mobo brand that i have used and liked)..

edit: might go with this instead ASUS Z8PE-D12(ASMB4-IKVM) Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5520 Tylersburg SSI EEB 3.61 Dual Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 Series w/ Remote Management Server Motherboard
because it has 12 slots for memory and he will def want to upgrade to 24 gigs of ram in the next few months...

As for the procs, that was a typo, they are indeed 390 each and they still make the budget.

Will def sub the PSU, i never built a dual cpu pc so I was not sure but I do like seasonic PSUs so I will use the one you recommended... Same goes for the GFX, sounds great...


what about the Hard Drives? Any recommendation? I would like to go SSD but they are so small/expensive and i feel there is no point to have to work out of the bigger hard drive (after effects needs to access huge files that are not going to fit on an SSD... Should i ditch the raid 0 7200rpms ( I was thinking 2 640gb caviar blacks) for something else? I would say at least 500gb...

 

[bastage]

This EVGA GTX460 has a Lifetime warranty for only about 10 bucks more which I think is worth it. Other then that The raid 0 with the Samsung f3 drives would be a good way of going, But for the 2nd drive There is no reason to yuck up the sustem with a hitachi & you shouldnt need the extra speed from the 7300 so I would grab the Samsung 2tb Eco Drive.

Edit: Better Yet Maybe add a 3rd or 4th Disk & Setup a Raid 0 using the new Samsung F4 drives I have no 1st hand experience, but benchmarks show them being the fastest of all mechanical drives, even to the point of out performing some lower end SSD's. So if you friend isnt going to need a bunch of extra SATA ports you could use 4 of those 320 GB drives in a raid 0 (or raid 5 to add a little redundancy). & that would still leave a port for a 2tb backup drive & an Optical Drive

 

[Dangman]

Thanks so much Danny Bui!!!! Awesome input..
Definitely going to ditch the TYAN for the Asus (I was under the impression that tyan made good server boards but have no problem sub-ing it for the Asus which is a mobo brand that i have used and liked)..

edit: might go with this instead ASUS Z8PE-D12(ASMB4-IKVM) Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5520 Tylersburg SSI EEB 3.61 Dual Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 Series w/ Remote Management Server Motherboard
because it has 12 slots for memory and he will def want to upgrade to 24 gigs of ram in the next few months...

I think the main issue with Tyan is their lackluster customer support IIRC.

Well that Asus Z8PE is definitely larger in size than the two motherboards I recommended. Just make sure that the case you're going with supports EATX.

 

[r3awak3n]

yes, i just upgraded my case which means my friend is going to get my old cooler master stacker and it supports EATX but thanks for letting me know, cuz i was not even going to look for that... I assumed it did since its a pretty large case but its always good to check.

@bastage: I will check those samsung drives for sure... I am a big fan of samsung drives, its all i have really but recently got a hitatchi because it was cheap and its been fine... The reason i got it it was cuz i couldnt find the samsung i wanted, could only find green drives and I wanted the 7200.... I will def look into the F4s and 3 or 4 of those because they are a pretty nice price and would be pretty fast on a raid 0 setup.