Time for a new workstation...

[d000hg]

ok, time for a new workstation.. what should i buy??
Dell are the old favourite, any others i should consider??
CPU - i5, i7, xeon?? so many choices!!

What do you want to DO on your PC? If it's just writing your invoices and emails, splash out £400 for any old POS

Surely most people would go for a dedicated GPU on a workstation anyway.

There's absolutely no point doing so if you don't play modern games or work in 3D graphics (or CUDA). These integrated graphics are 10X better than the Intel chipsets we all used to have i our Dell workstations a few years back - they are 'underpowered' only relative to the hard-to-understand-how powerful-they-really-are modern GPUs.

[TheFaQQer]

I used pcspecialist.co.uk for my last one, and specced it exactly how I wanted it.

Rather than going Intel i7, I went with a 6-core AMD chip instead, which I (and the CUK massive) thought might give better performance for using multiple virtual machines concurrently.

I cannibalised a few bits from the old machine - it already had two fairly new graphics cards, and I moved over three of the hard drives - to reduce costs a bit, but got a decent processor, new hard drive, lots of RAM etc.

[VectraMan]

There's absolutely no point doing so if you don't play modern games or work in 3D graphics (or CUDA). These integrated graphics are 10X better than the Intel chipsets we all used to have i our Dell workstations a few years back - they are 'underpowered' only relative to the hard-to-understand-how powerful-they-really-are modern GPUs.

I guess I'm not the only one who assumes "onboard" means "crap".

Looks like Overclockers have some good bundles. If only I could think of a reason. My 4 year old Core 2 Duo Dell Dimension is barely ticking over for what I use it for.

[d000hg]

I guess I'm not the only one who assumes "onboard" means "crap".

Indeed - and they certainly used to be, but the new generation on the i5/7 chips are a just that, a new generation.

I write 3D apps and find the newest integrated GPUs from Intel are as fast as discrete GPUs (nVisia/ATI) from a couple of generations back. It IS all relative though, a top-end GPU might be 100X faster than an integrated chip, but GPUs have been beating Moore's Law.

[doodab]

I built a HTPC with an i3-530, the cheapest of the first generation core i CPUs, and that will drive 2 displays quite happily. I don't think you need a separate graphics card anymore unless you want more displays or you're doing something which needs hardcore 3D acceleration.

[PAH]

Looks like Overclockers have some good bundles. If only I could think of a reason. My 4 year old Core 2 Duo Dell Dimension is barely ticking over for what I use it for.

The Core2Duo will be good enough for most tasks as not much causes the cpu to be the bottleneck.

I was a little sad to see my Core2Duo demoted to spare kit after years of being rock solid. The following is what made me upgrade:

1. The mobo could only support 2gb ram which isn't much these days.

2. I wanted to do more with virtualisation so more cores made more sense, and a mobo that could support lots more ram.

3. Video encoding is the only other area where I see a dramatic improvement following the upgrade.

For most tasks the upgrade to SSD was much more noticeable.

[Joeman]

The Core2Duo will be good enough for most tasks as not much causes the cpu to be the bottleneck.
....
For most tasks the upgrade to SSD was much more noticeable.

My trusty old ASUS M50 Laptop is a Core2Duo 2.5GHz, 4GB ram, and i upgraded to SSD.
its a few years old now, but still going strong. As you say, the SSD upgrade was very noticeable!!

It has a "windows Experience Index" of 4.8, because its let down by its graphics card, but the full score are below...

Processor: 6.1
Memory: 6.1
Graphics: 4.8
Gaming Graphics: 5.9
Primary hard disk: 7.8

How do newer machines compare??

[Churchill]

I used pcspecialist.co.uk for my last one, and specced it exactly how I wanted it.

Rather than going Intel i7, I went with a 6-core AMD chip instead, which I (and the CUK massive) thought might give better performance for using multiple virtual machines concurrently.

I cannibalised a few bits from the old machine - it already had two fairly new graphics cards, and I moved over three of the hard drives - to reduce costs a bit, but got a decent processor, new hard drive, lots of RAM etc.

WHS.

6-core Bulldozer + new M/B, case, ram, 2 new HDs

Bought cheap 1GB graphics card, swapped out my expensive(ish) graphics card from the old PC and built my new PC, with the old bits and new graphics card I built a perfectly reasonable PC for my Father-in-law.

[Scrag Meister]

ok, time for a new workstation.. what should i buy??
Dell are the old favourite, any others i should consider??
CPU - i5, i7, xeon?? so many choices!!

What's your budget?

Pre-built or Build Your Own?

[Joeman]

What's your budget?

Pre-built or Build Your Own?

Happy either way, budget = whatever it costs to get a good machine, but tigth wad side of my brain would limit to about 600quid (without monitors)