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Wintel workstation users, talk to me.

Flint Ironstag

Flint Ironstag

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 1, 2013
1,330
743
Houston, TX USA
In the wake of no MP updates, I need to evaluate some Wintel hardware. I'd like to purchase a used HP or Dell workstation on the cheap to test some workflows. Yes I can go to the respective configurators, but I'm after a used model to save some money. Following are my MUST HAVE requirements:

- dual socket Xeon (OK if it comes with one Xeon as long as it's upgradeable)
- 64GB minimum ECC RAM capacity
- capable of housing 4 full length, full height, double wide GPUs (GTX 1080s or 1070s most likely, maybe Titans) - don't have to all run at 16x but would be nice
- sufficient power supply of course

NICE TO HAVE:

- Thunderbolt
- 1 extra PCIE slot to connect an external PCIE chassis
- RAID controller

If you have specific model #s I should be looking for, or even a preferred recycler / reseller I would be grateful. No I'm not looking to Hackintosh - this will run Windows 10 or FreeBSD.

Thanks in advance.

[edit] circa MP 5,1 CPU performance is sufficient, so I'm not scared of older machines...
 
Last edited:
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan

SoyCapitanSoyCapitan

Suspended
Jul 4, 2015
4,487
2,551
Paris
All I need to say is this.

Image editing : Mac vs PC are equal

CGI : nothing beats the PC

Gaming : nothing beat the PC

Video editing : if you an FCP man then no need to leave Mac. If you a Premiere man, the Windows version is much more responsive and you have the benefit of better graphics cards.

A year ago I tested Adobe Media Encoder on my Mac Pro - Windows and Mac version. Using the CPUs only the Windows version rendered 4 times faster than the Mac version.
 
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S

singhs.apps

macrumors 6502a
Oct 27, 2016
654
395
Flint Ironstag said:
In the wake of no MP updates, I need to evaluate some Wintel hardware. I'd like to purchase a used HP or Dell workstation on the cheap to test some workflows. Yes I can go to the respective configurators, but I'm after a used model to save some money. Following are my MUST HAVE requirements:

- dual socket Xeon (OK if it comes with one Xeon as long as it's upgradeable)
- 64GB minimum ECC RAM capacity
- capable of housing 4 full length, full height, double wide GPUs (GTX 1080s or 1070s most likely, maybe Titans) - don't have to all run at 16x but would be nice
- sufficient power supply of course

NICE TO HAVE:

- Thunderbolt
- 1 extra PCIE slot to connect an external PCIE chassis
- RAID controller

If you have specific model #s I should be looking for, or even a preferred recycler / reseller I would be grateful. No I'm not looking to Hackintosh - this will run Windows 10 or FreeBSD.

Thanks in advance.

[edit] circa MP 5,1 CPU performance is sufficient, so I'm not scared of older machines...
Click to expand...

It seems you are going the GPU rendering route. I would urge u to look beyond Dell, HP and consider the likes of Boxx, Boston pc, Lenovo, maingear etc
[doublepost=1478073238][/doublepost]The Xeon e5 2630 v4s look pretty sweet for CPU rendering. Get dual of these puppies and you have enough bandwidth to get 4x 1080s ( or 1x 1080 + 3x 1070s since the latter have the same vram capacity but almost half as expensive as the 1080s )

The dual CPUs + 4x GPU should have you covered for almost any rendering task
 
J

jeff7117

macrumors regular
Jul 22, 2009
174
456
Flint Ironstag said:
In the wake of no MP updates, I need to evaluate some Wintel hardware. I'd like to purchase a used HP or Dell workstation on the cheap to test some workflows. Yes I can go to the respective configurators, but I'm after a used model to save some money. Following are my MUST HAVE requirements:

- dual socket Xeon (OK if it comes with one Xeon as long as it's upgradeable)
- 64GB minimum ECC RAM capacity
- capable of housing 4 full length, full height, double wide GPUs (GTX 1080s or 1070s most likely, maybe Titans) - don't have to all run at 16x but would be nice
- sufficient power supply of course

NICE TO HAVE:

- Thunderbolt
- 1 extra PCIE slot to connect an external PCIE chassis
- RAID controller

If you have specific model #s I should be looking for, or even a preferred recycler / reseller I would be grateful. No I'm not looking to Hackintosh - this will run Windows 10 or FreeBSD.

Thanks in advance.

[edit] circa MP 5,1 CPU performance is sufficient, so I'm not scared of older machines...
Click to expand...


Most of your list should be covered from what you can get from a used Maingear, Boxx, or Dell / HP system. The only real hitch will be Thunderbolt, as most vendors did not really adopt it so it's usually sold as an add-in card. Finding a board that has TB built in will be tough, and unless you want to give up a PCI slot, you likely won't have access to TB.

Also, most workstations will come with quadro cards, and that adds to the overall price vs the GeForce series cards.

What's your overall budget?

Do you really need dual CPU?

Take a look at some of the x99 systems too. You should be able to get some nice performance out of them for much less than a dual xeon system. Clock speeds will be much higher than Xeon systems and core count is decent in the Haswell or Broadwell -E series too.
 
jclmavg

jclmavg

macrumors regular
Aug 2, 2014
173
105
singhs.apps said:
It seems you are going the GPU rendering route. I would urge u to look beyond Dell, HP and consider the likes of Boxx, Boston pc, Lenovo, maingear etc
Click to expand...
A Lenovo Thinkstation like the P710 certainly is not going to give you more space than a HP. Also, two Titan X cards will give 22 TFLOPS, lessening the need for four cards imo.
 
S

singhs.apps

macrumors 6502a
Oct 27, 2016
654
395
jclmavg said:
Sure, more is always more and usually faster. Those are 'old' Titans, Maxwell (old) and not Pascal based (new). 7 vs 11 TFLOPS per card.
Click to expand...

And they were compared with maxwell cards. The performance results should be similar with the pascal variants. The only real advantge the titans have are the vram capacity. The upcoming 1080tis are supposed to have the same vram as the Titan.

 
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jclmavg

jclmavg

macrumors regular
Aug 2, 2014
173
105
singhs.apps said:
And they were compared with maxwell cards. The performance results should be similar with the pascal variants. The only real advantge the titans have are the vram capacity. The upcoming 1080tis are supposed to have the same vram as the Titan.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what you're saying here. That there is no performance difference between Maxwell and Pascal Titan variants? Or Titans compared to other models? I would agree that the Titan is fairly expensive and that other cards may offer better performance for what they cost.
 
S

singhs.apps

macrumors 6502a
Oct 27, 2016
654
395
jclmavg said:
I'm not sure what you're saying here. That there is no performance difference between Maxwell and Pascal Titan variants? Or Titans compared to other models? I would agree that the Titan is fairly expensive and that other cards may offer better performance for what they cost.
Click to expand...
What I am saying is : the Puget tests were done with cards based on the same architecture - maxwell.

The GPUs based on Pascal should have the same price/performance ratio.
 
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