Project Requirements: The aim of this project was to assemble the fastest graphic’s processing PC for a photographer client of ours. The requirements were:
- The computer had to be as quiet as possible
- It has to be able to run 24/7 365 days a year
- And it also had to maximise every euro of our client’s budget
For our client this was a very big investment and therefore we needed to be completely sure that our client was completed happy with the computer we supplied.
Originally our client was looking at the likes of the DELL Workstation T7500 and the HP Z600 and these computers were ranging in price anywhere from €3,600 - €6,000 excluding VAT as of January 2012.
We looked closely at the specs for the Dell T7500 and came to the conclusion that this computer was running on previous generation CPU that offered a lower performance to the current high end CPUs. The memory was very expensive and had relatively slow performance for graphical jobs. Furthermore the hard disk, although a good size at 2 terabytes, was too slow based on what is currently available in the IT market.
Solution:
We came to the conclusion after examining current offerings on the market, that it made the most sense to offer our client a custom built computer. This meant we could match our client’s custom requirements exactly thereby meeting all of their requirements and also future proofing his investment. We offered various options in relation to all of the components of the computer with the pros and cons of each option. Then we helped our client to decide which cost effective combination would deliver the highest performance and this was based on what would let our client render the most pictures and videos per day.
Tech Talk
For the technical minded people out there here is the solution that we put together for our client and some of the thoughts behind each decision:
CPU = Intel 3930K
As of the end of January 2012, the fastest performing desktop CPU on the planet is the Intel 3960X. It runs at 3.3GHz, is armed with 15 megabytes of cache memory for the 6 cores, and it is able to handle 12 simultaneous threads. This CPU costs around €1,100 and this is the reason that we chose the just released little brother of the 3960 the Intel 3930K.
The feature set of the two CPU’s is very similar 3.3GHz vs 3.2GHz, 15MB cache vs 12MB, with the same 6 cores and 12 threads. The fact that this PC would be used for graphical design and rendering and the price difference between them was between €500 and €550 euros made this decision easy. From studying the benchmarks of the two CPUs, we were happy with choosing the Intel 3930K knowing that there would not be any major performance implications based on the customer’s requirements and guidelines to us.
Motherboard = Asus P9X79 pro
The Asus P9X79 pro makes use of the Intel X79 chipset and this is the latest and most feature rich chipset that Intel currently have, that meets our customer’s requirements. Some of the reasons for choosing to go with the P9X79 were its best in class power efficiency and the ability to have 8 memory modules.
Memory = 32 GB Corsair Vengeance 2000MHz
The motherboard we chose is able to handle 8 memory modules instead of 4 like the earlier models. In this case, this choice was very useful because we could choose 8 pieces of very fast Corsair Vengeance 2000MHz 4Gbyte modules instead of the slower and much more expensive (about double the price!) 8Gbyte 1600MHz modules to reach the 32Gigs.
Graphics Card = PNY Quadro 4000
The customer requested that we use a Nvidia Quadro graphics card in this system. This was the card we agreed would be good for the type of graphic intensive work that our client needed to be able to do. We chose the affordable PNY Quadro 4000 with 2 Gigabytes of memory as it fitted their needs and requirements. Most computers these days use less than 2 gigs of memory all together, so having 2 gigabytes of memory on the video card dedicated to video and graphic editing will make an astounding difference.
The 2 gigabytes of memory on the graphics card and also the 32 gigabytes of memory in the system require a 64bits operating system. For this reason we chose Windows 7 professional 64bit as the operating system.
Working files & Operating System Storage = 256 Gigabyte Corsair SSD
At the moment Solid State Disks (SSDs) are all the rage in the computer work and IT suppliers really like them. You may ask why? The reason is they are fully electronic i.e. they have no moving parts. Old disks have heads that move to read the data and this makes them slower than the SSD. The SSD currently can be up to 100 times faster than the traditional hard disk. This is the main reason that we selected an SSD disk for the operating system, the second reason was the type of files that our client will be working on. In the future the client can also add another SSD to this configuration in a RAID 0 configuration and this will give him another performance boost if required.
Archive Storage = Western Digital 7200RPM 2 Terabyte HDD
The one problem with the SSD compared to traditional disks is the storage size is smaller than the default 1 TB / 2 TB disks that come as standard in computers these days. To get around this we advised the client to put one of these disks into the computer to enable big jobs to be archived onto it once work had been finished on them. Then, if he needs to work on the job again he can move it back onto the fast SSD for production.
File Backup = Online Backup & USB disk
We set the computer up with an online backup system to back up all of the critical files on the computer. This lets the customer leverage the power of cloud storage. We also suggested that he back up every month to a 2TB external USB disk so as to have a local backup. Having the local backup will speed up the recovery time should we need to recover everything from the online backup as we will only have to recover at most one month’s files from the online backup.
Test Test Test
After finishing the build and install all of the required software we stress tested every part of the system and then tested the whole computer. We ran a burn test that put the CPU, GPU and the memory to 100% of its capacity. We let this test run for 115 hours (almost 5 days!) while constantly monitoring all speeds, voltages and temperatures. This test ran without fault and was exactly what we required to give our customer peace of mind in their purchase.
The noise level of this PC is another highlight that we are proud of and it is barely audible even under heavy load. This is thanks to the huge and slow fans on the industrial cooler and the high-end power supply.
Final thoughts
Considering that this computer cost around €2,700 to custom build, we saved our customer thousands of euros compared to the original Dell and HP computers that he was looking at and we got a computer that was at least 20% faster.
At the moment there is no upgrade for the CPU and Intel has not released any updates on this yet. This PC has the potential to have its CPU overclock without any modifications thanks to the carefully chosen parts. It is currently running at its stock speed of 3.2 GHz but we have the knowledge and the ability to gain about 20-25% of speed increase if required in the future.