Need help in buying 16 Multimedia Workstations

[amardamani]

Hi All,

This is my first post here, i am responsible for all IT purchase of a medium size IT education & development firm. I will say that i have decent knowledge of the stuff i buy, but this time i am stuck as need to buy 16 no. workstation & just cant decide what to buy. We have i7 machines with GTX 280 card, we have been using Q6600 since they were launched, but i dont know if i should buy something like this or wait (which i cant do as it seems) for i7 to gt cheaper along with DDR3 RAM.

I need 12 good machines at around 25-30K & four great machines to be using in live teaching (means dual display & need to render live to see results) i can stretch my budget to 35k max. I will need 19" display in all, dont need huge hdd or any optical drive, would go for not very expnsive key+mouse as students break them very fast. Since we use Max & Maya a lot i guess a quad core will be better, suggestions welcomed. We are located in Kolkata which doesnt have access to all the brands, so availibilty & service are also a mjor criteria.

I guess i have written too much so coming back to my delimia which is about the right motherboard, processor, gfx solution. i am really confused. Digit seems all praises about MSI P7NGM-Digital & forum user are praisng MSI P43 Neo, any other suggetion is welcome, should i go for Integrated graphics or add a card, what about RAM? DDR2 or DDR3 if possible.

Pls help me in working out a good soultion & get the best bang for the buck.

Regards
Amar

 

[thinknano]

core i7 at this budget is not possible and you know that, so if you can wait then it would be the best way to leave your guys and let them rock Max & Maya.

otherwise go for the quad core...like q8200 (@your budget) and the best combination with it.


regards

 

[amardamani]

Thanks thinknano,

any suggestion for mobo?

 

[thinknano]

you are welcome!!!


may be Abit IP35E (@ ur budget)
*www.theitwares.com/motherboards/motherboards.htm

browse and get the best out of it!!!
thanks

 

[desiibond]

seriously, if you are buying that many in bulk, it's better to go with branded PC's. yes, they might cost little bit more but you need not worry about service and stability.

 

[amardamani]

seriously, if you are buying that many in bulk, it's better to go with branded PC's. yes, they might cost little bit more but you need not worry about service and stability.

hmm.. branded will be way to expensive for the kind of config we use & moreover we are always shuffling HDD & RAMs for those long weekend renders.. the guys in 3D will understand why.. this will make the warranty void

what i am planning is to gt four more i7 basd PCs to be put in theory room minimising the time wastage in rendering test scenes.. & the other b Q9550 or Q8200 or Q6600..

so guys if you cab suggest the best combination of procy & mobo it will be great..

you are welcome!!!


may be Abit IP35E (@ ur budget)
*www.theitwares.com/motherboards/motherboards.htm

browse and get the best out of it!!!
thanks

its a great link, i am not sure if its of much use in kolkata but can be used for reference for pricing & availability.

 

[desiibond]

Abit is closing down their products business. don't go for their mobo's.

afaik, Athlon phenom X4 9950 BE performs better than Q6600 and Q8xxx for video rendering. And with 780G it can be a good spec. And this mobo costs the same as MSI P45 Neo and comes with decent IGP.

 

[amardamani]

Abit is closing down their products business. don't go for their mobo's.

afaik, Athlon phenom X4 9950 BE performs better than Q6600 and Q8xxx for video rendering. And with 780G it can be a good spec. And this mobo costs the same as MSI P45 Neo and comes with decent IGP.

Thanks for the info, Abit is not available in Kolkata anyway, we here only get Intel, MSI & Asus easily, gigabyte is there but after sales is very poor. I was kinda AMD fan after they made there processors cooler, infact i guess we were the first users of X2 in kolkata, directly imorted, but these days i dont see much AMD action, will it be safr to go for Phenom, i personlly want to but dont wanna risk situation which i have with my optron based server since then i am using just Xeon..

nice to see replies to my post.

 

[gxsaurav]

Are Intel Motherboards available? Have a look at the configuration of my Workstation which I use exclusively for Photoshop, Microsoft Blend, Illustrator & 3ds Max. You should pay attention in buying a balanced Workstation instead of just throwing down powerful parts.

Since it is for students you should go for Core 2 Duo E8400. Anything more then this is not required for students at all. In case of making a render farm, multiple Core 2 Duo E8400 would be sufficient too. The performance difference that Intel Q9xxx series gives doesn't justify the cost.

Use 4 GB RAM with Windows Vista 64bit edition. This will make sure the PCs need no upgrade from the next 4 years easily.

Do not buy a gaming grade graphics card for 3d work, instead buy Quadro FX.

Dell 1909W is my personal choice when it comes to a 19" monitor. Solid color reproduction despite of being a TN Panel.

Invest in a good Power Supply from Cooler Master. For cabinets go for Zebronics Bijli, I am also using it & it keeps the PC pretty cool.

I recommend going for Intel motherboard in such scenario.

 

[desiibond]

^^ Quadro?? he has 30k budget for entire PC and if you assign 9k to 19" display, it's 21k for the system. Isn't quadro very expensive?

 

[amardamani]

^^ Quadro?? he has 30k budget for entire PC and if you assign 9k to 19" display, it's 21k for the system. Isn't quadro very expensive?

very true Quadro are way to expensive, i did some research on my own has found that instead of buying a low end quadro at a high price i can get a better graphics card at the same price, i guess its so as the geforce are priced more competitvly than quadro, how many quadro nvidia sales anyway? its a premium product with premium pricing more so in india.

Quad cores perform better than dual cores as the rendering engines use them well, but the lowr end quad cores are suffering from lower cache memory, what i have learnt that cache is the most imp aspect be it procy or even hdd.

any comments guys?

 

[gxsaurav]

very true Quadro are way to expensive, i did some research on my own has found that instead of buying a low end quadro at a high price i can get a better graphics card at the same price, i guess its so as the geforce are priced more competitvly than quadro, how many quadro nvidia sales anyway? its a premium product with premium pricing more so in india.

Quadro cards are made for 3d & 2d workstation use. You can get a Quadro FX with 256 MB VRAM for as low as Rs 12k. Its not premium, however for students computer normal geforce is enough, for teaching PC...buy Quadro.

 

[amardamani]

Quadro cards are made for 3d & 2d workstation use. You can get a Quadro FX with 256 MB VRAM for as low as Rs 12k. Its not premium, however for students computer normal geforce is enough, for teaching PC...buy Quadro.

good point, can you specify a Quadro FX card, my teaching machine will be hooked up to projector too, so the card must run two cloned displays at 1280X720 or higher res pref 1920X1080..

 

[amardamani]

Update!

Hi guys,

thanks for all the feedback, i have decided that i will buy all i7 core procy at the end of march, this is based on the feedback i received here & my own research, i hope the prices will come down great deal by then, i will update when i am ready to buy & if i am confused about any component.

Amar