$1250 Workstation: High-End Performance for Mainstream Price

Update Log
Version 1.01, last updated on November 11th 2010.

- Video Card: Upgraded from a Radeon 5550 1GB to a Radeon 5570 1GB. The previous Radeon HD 5550 cannot be found anywhere and no other Radeon 5550 support Eyefinity, hence the upgrade to a Radeon 5570 that supports Eyefinity.
- Hard Drive: Upgraded from four Samsung F4 320GB in RAID 10 to four Samsung F3 500GB in RAID 10. Total capacity goes up from 640GB to 1TB.
- Case: Changed from the LIAN LI PC-9F (Out of stock until December) to the NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK. The NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK features more hard drive bays, more ventilation options, as well as a fan controller, allowing you to adjust the fan speed/noise.
- Updated prices, build now costs $1245 instead of $1269, thanks mostly to RAM prices that went down significantly.
- Performance is pretty much the same as before.

The inside of the NZXT Phantom, the case featured in this build.

This is the Mainstream $1250 Workstation Build, which offers similar performance and looks of an usual retail high-end Workstation, at a much lower price.

The $500 Workstation is the entry-level build, while the $2500 Workstation is the high-end build.

Why choose a Workstation Build?

Workstations are for you if you’re looking for a reliable machine, capable of:

• Running 24/7
• Handling various demanding applications
• Be your workhorse for your work and livelihood.

All the Workstations offered on Hardware Revolution are designed with professional work in mind. Parts are hand-picked based on their reliability and performance.

Based on your comments and requests from the Workstation Builds: Throw in your Requests and Suggestions! post, I’ve come up with a list of recommendations, based on programs and their requirements.

Features and performance: $500 Workstation VS $1250 Workstation:

Features:

With both at stock (default recommended configuration):
The $1250 Workstation offers:

• Much higher performance (Explained below)
• Three times the RAM (12 GB vs 4GB)
• More RAM bandwidth (Triple-Channel vs Dual-Channel)
• More Storage, with higher performance and redundancy (4 x Samsung F4 500GB in RAID 10 (Total: 1TB) vs a single Samsung F4 320GB)
• With a simple adapter (~$25), it is capable of handling up to three monitors (As opposed to two, by default, on the $500 Workstation)
• Better Cooling (After-market CPU Cooler vs Stock CPU Cooler)
• Better looks
• And much more…

Performance:
The $1250 Workstation stock vs the $500 Workstation stock, shows a performance improvement of:

• 40% in Photoshop
• 80% with X264 encoding
• 44% in single threaded Cinebench R10, 77% with multi-threaded
• 31% reduction in time required for a Blu-Ray Disc Image Creation (25Mbps MPEG-2) under Sony Vegas

For a complete analysis of performance difference, take a look at these benchmarks.
Now, keep in mind that this is when both Workstation are running a single application. If you run multiple apps, the $1250 Workstation, will continue running top-notch, while the $500 Workstation will eventually hit its limit (Run out of RAM, maxed out CPU, hard drive bottleneck, etc.)

Now, let’s see what happens if we upgrade the $500 Workstation with a Phenom II X6 1075T CPU:
The $1250 Workstation stock vs the $500 Workstation with a Phenom II X6 1075T CPU (Total cost: $640), shows a performance improvement of:

• 21% in Photoshop
• Is actually slower by 11% in X264 encoding
• 15% in single threaded Cinebench R10, 8% with multi-threaded.

As you can see, with its fastest recommended CPU, the “$640 Workstation” gets much closer to the $1250 Workstation stock. For a complete analysis of performance difference, take a look at these benchmarks.
Once again, keep in mind that this is when both Workstation are running a single application. If you run multiple apps, the $1250 Workstation, will continue running top-notch, while the $500 Workstation will eventually hit its limit (Run out of RAM, hard drive bottleneck, etc.)

However, the CPU can also be upgraded with this $1250 Workstation, so let’s see what happens if we max it out.
The $1250 Workstation with a Core i7 980X (~$1950), in comparison to the $500 Workstation with a Phenom II X6 1075T CPU ($640), shows a performance improvement of:

• 36% in Photoshop
• 82% with X264 encoding
• 24% in single threaded Cinebench R10, 59% with multi-threaded

With both Workstation ($500 and $1250) with their respective maxed-out CPU upgrade, you can see that the $1250 Workstation stock leaves the $500 Workstation in the dust, especially with X264 encoding or multi-threaded Cinebench R10. For a complete analysis of performance difference, take a look at these benchmarks.
Yes, once again, keep in mind that this is when both Workstation are running a single application. If you run multiple apps, the $1250 Workstation, will continue running top-notch, while the $500 Workstation will eventually hit its limit (Run out of RAM, hard drive bottleneck, etc.)

Which Workstation and/or upgrades do you need for your apps?

The following applications will have no trouble running on the $1250 Workstation:

• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Project and Office Pro
• Camtasia
• Sound Forge: Consider a dedicated sound card.
• Visual Studio
• Sage Timberline Office: Go with Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate; apparently the Home Premium edition will give you problems with networking.
• Rhino3D
• CorelDRAW Premium Suite X5
  Pinnacle Studio 12 and Sony Vegas 9/Pro
  Cinema 4D: While it will run just fine with the $1250 Workstation as it is, this is an application which scales very well when you add performance to your PC, meaning that the better that are your parts, the faster that your renderings will be completed. A Firepro/Quadro will greatly improve performance, so will a Core i7 980X. Keep in mind that performance will benefit even more by going with the $2500 Workstation.
• GPGPU, F@H, SETI, GPUGRID, BOINC, etc.: These programs will run best on a powerful GPU. Considering the price point of this build, I recommend getting either a Geforce GTX 460 768MB, a card that offers performance unheard of before at its $170 price point or a Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD 5870 1GB, a powerful video card that keeps power consumption, temperatures and noise at a reasonable level. Gaming PCs are also an excellent alternative, if top-notch reliability isn’t as crucial.

Adobe Applications: Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Lightroom, Illustator, Indesign, Bridge, Bibble, Flash, Dreamweaver, etc.

There are a lot of people out there who use those applications, in various ways. If anything, you’re the one who’s using your workstation and who knows the best how demanding (or not) your work is.

My point being that you should know that, for example, working with very large images (High-MP RAW, 16-bit, Hundred of MBs or several GBs each) will obviously be much more demanding than working with smaller pictures (10-15MBs each from an entry-level DSLR for example). I say pictures here, but this also applies in the same way to video, 3D, designing, modeling, etc.

That said, while I will do my best to make “generic” recommendations based on various scenarios, I recommend that you use your own work experience/judgment (how demanding it is on your PC) to make your decision. I’ll also be available to answer your questions in the comment section below this article.

Adobe Applications: Let’s get started:

This $1250 Workstation, as it is without upgrades, is capable of handling a few active Adobe application, with tons (100+) of small files, many (30-40) medium or several (10-15) large file(s).

For example, with Photoshop, expect to be capable of handling up to sixty 10-15MB open pictures at once or so before your PC will start slowing down, as it runs out of RAM.

Of course, these are guidelines, the actual number of files that your Workstation will be capable to handle will depend on how heavy/demanding those files are.

RAM upgrade available

If you need to handle more files than that, want to be on the safe side or simply want to be future-proof, you can choose to upgrade and go with 24GB of RAM too.

Processor upgrade available

Now, while more RAM will help you keep your PC running smooth with many files open, it won’t speed up its processing speed while you’re actually working on files. This is where your CPU comes in: The faster that it is, the faster that your task will be rendered/completed/etc.

If you can afford it, I highly recommend upgrading the CPU to the Core i7 980x, as it will provide a ~20% performance improvement over the Core i7 950 and will allow you to run more applications simultaneously.

Also keep in mind that if do work on several applications at the same time (i.e. you let a few apps do their work in the background while you work on another app), this could cause slowdowns, even with the i7 980X. I recommend going with the $2500 Workstation to handle many (5+) applications working at once for the ultimate performance when it comes to a Workstation.

Several apps (i.e Premiere Pro CS5, After Effects and Photoshop) support Nvidia CUDA hardware acceleration; a Nvidia Geforce or Quadro Video Card, instead of the recommended Radeon card, is highly recommended to improve performance.

Adobe Applications: In short: The $1250 Workstation, as it is, for three or four Adobe applications at once, will be capable on handling a good amount of work with tons of small files, a lot of medium files and many large files, how many depending on the amount of RAM, at a very good level of performance.

For example, if you’re a pro photographer who works with a high-MP camera, with RAW, HDR, 16-bit pictures and the like, this $1250 Workstation, with a Geforce/Quadro Video Card, will have no problem handling your workload, along with another 2-3 apps in the background.

However, if you like to another 5+ apps working intensively in the background, I’d at least upgrade the CPU to a Core i7 980X or even better, consider the upcoming dual-CPU $2500 Workstation. Once again, I’m using pictures/photographers as an example, but this applies to other professionals as well.

Hopefully, this clears it up for most of you who use Adobe applications. If you need clarifications and/or if you have questions, leave a comment with your questions (be as specific as possible) below this post and I’ll get back to you.

The following applications require upgrades:

Nvidia CUDA: This requires a Nvidia video card.

Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 5.0 and Autocad programs: For Autocad programs, you’ll want a professional level video card, such as AMD Firepro or Nvidia Quadro. The faster, the better, this kind of apps will greatly benefit from additional CPU/GPU processing power, so I recommend upgrading the CPU to a Core i7 980X if you can afford it. For even better performance, consider the upcoming $2500 Workstation with two CPUs.

Other Programs

Got another program that you’d like to know if it would run well on the $500 Workstation or would require upgrades or a more powerful Workstation? Leave a comment at the end of this article and I’ll get back to you with my recommendations.

Which upgrades should you consider if you want…

• An energy efficient and low noise Workstation: For lower power consumption, you’ll want to upgrade the power supply to the 80PLUS Gold certified recommended upgrade, as this will greatly reduce power consumption. Exactly how much is hard to tell, but a good 30W to 60W is achievable with that change alone. Noise should be pretty low already.
• Very quick program startups: The default RAID 10 array of four drives should be pretty fast already, but a SSD will speed things even more.
• Casual Gaming: See the detailed Video Card section further down in this article.

$1250 Workstation hardware parts recommendations, short summary:

Explanation:

• In Bold, you’ll find my recommendations for the parts that you should buy in order to have the best overall performance while fitting the overall budget.
• In Italic, you’ll find the best possible upgrades: these are the parts that offer better features or more performance, while still being relatively affordable in regard to the overall budget. In simple terms, if you want more RAM for example, pick a kit from the list of recommended upgrades that are in Italic.
• Note that all upgrades are compatible with the rest of the system, as well as other upgrades, meaning that you can choose one or many upgrades without a problem. Of course, please carefully read any note(s) that I may leave to clarify and avoid some possible issues.

Required components:

Components	Make, Model and Specifications	Price
CPU/Processor	Intel Core i7-950 3.06GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Intel Core i7-970 3.2GHz LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Intel Core i7-980X EE 3.33GHz LGA 1366 130W Six-Core	$295 $880 $1000
Motherboard	ASUS Sabertooth X58 LGA 1366 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0	$200
RAM	G.SKILL 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz CAS 9 1.5v G.SKILL 24GB (6 x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz CAS 9 1.5v	$195 $490
Video Card	Radeon HD 5570 1GB Nvidia Quadro 2000 1GB Nvidia Quadro 4000 2GB Nvidia Quadro 5000 2.5GB Sapphire Radeon 5770 FleX – Supports 3 DVI monitors VisionTek Radeon HD 4670 X2 2GB Four Dual-Link DVI Radeon HD 6870 1GB	$85 $450 $780 $1780 $175 $300 $240
Storage	Required: At least one 18″ SATA Cable W/ Metal Latch Four Samsung F3 500GB RAID 10: Capacity: 1TB Four Samsung F3 1TB RAID 10: Capacity: 2TB Intel X25-M 2.5″ 80GB SSD Intel X25-M 2.5″ 160GB SSD LG N2R1DD1 1TB x 1 2 Bays, RAID 1 support NAS w/ DVD-RW Synology DS210j Diskless 2-bay NAS RAID 1 support	$4 $184 $248 $195 $400 $300 $200
Optical Drive	ASUS Black 24X SATA CD/DVD Burner LITE-ON 4X Blu-ray Reader SATA LG 10X Blu-ray Burner SATA	$20 $50 $100
Power	SeaSonic S12II 620W 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified SeaSonic M12II 620W 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular SeaSonic 650W 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular PC Power and Cooling Mk II 750W 80 PLUS SILVER Certified UPS/Surge Protector: CyberPower 1350 VA 810 Watts 8 Outlets	$75 $100 $140 $140 … $150
Case	NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK	$140
Cooling	Zalman CNPS10X Performa CPU Cooler ARCTIC COOLING MX-4 Thermal Compound	$37 $10
Sound	8 channels sound card: Integrated on the motherboard DIAMOND 7.1, SPDIF In/Out via Coaxial, 24-bit 96KHz PCI M-AUDIO Audiophile 2496 PCI 4-In-4-Out w/ MIDI Creative X-Fi Titanium HD 24-bit 96KHz PCI-Express ASUS Xonar D2X SPDIF In/Out Coaxial, MIDI, PCIe x1 ASUS Xonar D2 SPDIF In/Out Coaxial, MIDI, PCI Creative X-Fi SPDIF In/Out TOSLINK 5.25″ Front Panel PCIe 1x ASUS Xonar Essence STX w/ 1/4″ Jack In/Out, etc. PCIe x1 ASUS Xonar Essence ST w/ 1/4″ Jack In/Out, etc. PCI	Free $30 $95 $170 $180 $180 $200 $200 $210
Network	Integrated Ethernet RJ-45 10/100/1000 Mbps Rosewill Wireless USB 2.0 802.11b/g/n w/ 5 dBi Antenna	Free $30
Total price	Not Including OS, Shipping nor handling. Within -/+ 5% of Budget	$1245

Build your Workstation today!

Why should you?
For the same price, you’ll get more performance out of your custom PC, or you’ll save money while getting the same performance compared to a retail PC. Not to mention that retail PCs come with tons of bloatware and limited warranties. Why settle for less?

Stop relying on HP, Dell and other companies:
Build your own custom PC today. It’s easier than you think!

This Build includes all the parts/cables that you need and it was double-checked to ensure compatibility. Simply order your parts, set aside some time, grab a screwdriver and build your own personal PC. No worries, we’ll (the HR community) be there to assist you if you have questions or need help.

Then you’ll be able to say, “See that computer over there? Yeah, I built that.” Talk about being proud of a job well done.

Building this System, Got a Question, Need Help?

Computer Builds FAQs:

I often get questions such as:

• Who are you to tell me which parts to choose?
• Can you suggest me a step by step guide to build a computer?
• Why should I build a PC instead of buying one in a store?
• And many more…

You will find the answers to all of these questions and more in this article: FAQ: How to Build Your Own Computer

Also, if this is your first build, here are 10 Quick Tips for 1st Time Builders to get you started.

Finally, if your newly built computer won’t start, I invite you to read Help me: Why won’t my newly assembled PC start or boot?

Free Assistance

If you have any question(s) about the build, simply head over to the forums and our community will be there to assist you.

No worries, there are no stupid questions here on Hardware Revolution. We all started from scratch and learned through our mistakes. We”ll just help you make sure to avoid those mistakes

If you want to have your final build double-checked and get my opinion on it before ordering, or for anything else, don’t be shy, just post a thread on the forums.

$1250 Workstation Hardware parts recommendations, detailed version:

Motherboard:

ASUS Sabertooth X58 LGA 1366 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0

I went for the ASUS Sabertooth X58 as my main recommendation for the $1250 Workstation for its high reliability, almost a rare thing with an Intel X58 chipset motherboard. I also picked it because it features a large variety of ports capable of handling the majority of your devices, including USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0Gb/s.

Features:
The ASUS Sabertooth X58 features a ceramic-coating on its heatsinks, to provide better heat dissipation, “TUF” Capacitors, Chokes and MOSFETS, which are certified by military standard to ensure greater durability and best of all, a 5 years warranty, a testament to how reliable ASUS feels that this motherboard is.

Back Ports:
On the back, you have with eight USB ports, two of them being USB 3.0 ports, two E-SATA, FireWire, one PS/2, Gigabit LAN and 8 Channels audio.

Expansion ports + Storage Ports on the board:

Three PCI-Express 2.0 16X (16x/16x/4x), two PCI-Express 1X and one PCI slots, six SATA 3.0Gb/s ports, with RAID 0/1/5/10/JBOD support and two SATA 6.0 Gb/s. Note that the board does not support floppy drives nor IDE-based drives.

Additional information:
Note that the motherboard includes only four SATA cable, so you NEED to buy at least one of the following: 18″ SATA Cable, Straight to Left Angle W/ Metal Latch, since the build features four hard drives and one optical drive, for a total of five SATA drives. Of course, adjust as require if you add drives.

CPU:

Intel Core i7-950 3.06GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core

VS the other contender in the same price range:
For $300, there’s the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T, AMD’s highest-end CPU, a Six-Core 3.2GHz CPU.

The Phenom II X6 1090T is a powerful CPU, don’t get me wrong. However, as you can see in these benchmarks, it gets outperformed in the vast majority of cases by the Intel Core i7 950.

In short, despite having 6 cores to help it, the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T can’t compete with the quad-core Intel Core i7 950, because the i7 950 performs better clock for clock and has Hyper-Threading to help it handle up to 8 threads at a time, compared to 6 for the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T.

More importantly, the Intel Core i7 950 isn’t Intel’s fastest CPU, leaving you the option to upgrade to one of Intel’s two Six-Core powerhouse CPUs.

Recommended upgrades:

1. Intel Core i7-970 3.2GHz LGA 1366 130W Six-Core – This is Intel’s second fastest processor, with six cores running at 3.2GHz. Compared to the i7 950, those two extra cores helps the i7 970 proves itself as it clearly outperforms the i7 950.
2. Intel Core i7-980X EE 3.33GHz LGA 1366 130W Six-Core – With six cores clocked at 3.33GHz, the Core i7 980X is the fastest consumer CPU currently available on the market. With Hyper-Threading, it can handle nothing short of twelve threads. Even though it’s not by a huge margin, it has no problem outperforming the Core i7 970.

Video Card:

Radeon HD 5570 1GB

The X58 chipset/LGA 1366 socket platform that this Workstation is based on does not offer any integrated video card option, so you require a video card.

I recommend the Radeon HD 5570 for the following reasons:

1. Its powerful enough and has plenty enough memory (1GB) to help accelerate programs UI, video decoding and the like. It’s a nice “basic” video card, good enough for many applications that can use such a card to speed up things.

2. It has three video outputs:

1. Dual-Link DVI: Max. resolution up to 2560×1600 @60Hz
2. Displayport
3. VGA: Max. resolution up to 2048×1536 @85Hz

3. It is capable of outputting to two monitors at once by default. Here’s the great part though: The Displayport can be hooked to a simple ~$25 adapter (VGA or DVI) to run a 3rd monitor at the same time. I’ve linked to such adapters right below:

• Sapphire Displayport to Single-Link DVI Active Adapter
• PowerColor DisplayPort to Single-Link DVI-D Active Adapter
• Sapphire DisplayPort to VGA Active Adapter

Run up to four DVI displays:

If you rather have three DVI outputs (One Dual-Link and Two Single-Link), go with the Sapphire Radeon 5770 FleX – Supports 3 DVI monitors which supports 3 DVI outputs “out of the box”, sorta. You simply need to use the included HDMI-to-DVI adapter and you’ll have three DVI outputs, capable of handling three monitors with a resolution up to 1920 x 1200.

Guess what? If you add one of the adapters that I’ve linked to above, you can run up to four monitors with that video card. Add a second one and you can handle up to 8 monitors using two adapters.

To run up to four dual-link DVI displays (e.g. 2560 x 1600 30″ monitors):

The following video card supports four Dual-Link DVI outputs and will handle four 2560 x 1600 or smaller resolution monitors: VisionTek Radeon HD 4670 X2 2GB Four Dual-Link DVI

Professional 3D Workstation Video Cards:

What applications benefit from or truly need AMD Firepro or Nvidia Quadro Cards and what’s the difference between consumer cards (Radeon/Geforce) and professional cards (FirePro/Quadro)?

Accuracy & reliability:

“Exact pinpoint renders for things such as vehicle/building/contraption etc design, think many moving parts working together such as an engine prototype….things where a millimeter or so off could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars or much much more lost or even death…. They are tools for professionals, and if you really need one you’ll know it.

Gaming cards and workstation cards are very similar, but the differences are major. Consumer cards are built for speed at the cost of accuracy, gaming renders need to be fast…not perfect.

Workstation cards are the opposite, they need to be perfectly accurate at all times, speeds good but not priority, major differences in the cards are ECC ram (expensive, but a lost bit could be catastrophic) and very robust and detailed driver support…the drivers are really where the bulk of the expense comes from and , they have to work and have to work well, we gripe and moan about bugs in our games…when the card is holding you back from your livelihood….

It cost money to make money and or move things forward to a large degree, great designs aren’t doodled out on a napkin in a country diner anymore.

Similar to other class of products on the market, i.e consumer vs pro cameras:

There are many products out that scale the same way, look at cameras, a $200 point and shoot for the trip to disney world or the $5000+++ used to shoot what we see in magazines and such, a nice solid sub $500 Asian import guitar vs a $3K+ made in the USA model, the latter has better quality components and much more time and care in construction.

Back to the cards a lot of pro level applications will work to a degree on consumer cards (with some hacking and preening), but thats more like an artists sketch pad….good for practice and education, or proof of concept work but nothing mission critical…for most pro applications key features are disabled and their is no formal support unless a proper card is being used.”

“Workstation card core chips are mostly identical to the consumer grade stuff (except for the memory controller), but everything around it is usually made of much higher quality components. The heatsinks and fans are made of better materials etc. etc.”

Thanks to our reader EBOBO and the folks on the forums of DesktopReview.com for that great explanation.

Other than that, Quadros and Firepros have optimizations in their drivers for various specific applications as well for the usual workload that a Workstation will be used for. These optimizations are only activated when a Quadro or Firepro is detected.

FirePro vs Quadro:
Performance wise, the latest Quadro line-up (Quadro 600, 2000, 4000, 5000 and 6000, avoid the older FX series) has the edge over the FirePro series. Drivers wise, this is also the case, with Nvidia drivers being more stable, Quadro cards supported by more applications and finally, their drivers are more optimized for greater performance in some applications.

While the AMD FirePro line-up of cards can be an interesting alternative thanks to their relatively low cost, they are just not supported by as many applications as the Nvidia Quadro line-up cards are.

Needless to say, I’m sure that you’ll want to get top-notch performance all over the place in all apps, including Adobe apps and top-notch drivers, hence why I only recommend Nvidia Quadro cards in this build, when it comes down to professional cards.

If you work mainly on 3D rendering, Autocad programs and the like:
I do recommend upgrading the video card to one of the following Quadro cards. The following list is in order of price and performance, from the least expensive/least powerful to the most expensive/most powerful:

1. Nvidia Quadro 2000 1GB – The Quadro 2000 1GB is the minimum that you should get, as it packs twice the processing power of the Quadro 600, which is not powerful enough, in my opinion, the handle typical workloads, especially in the long-run.
2. Nvidia Quadro 4000 2GB – Moving up from the 2000 to the 4000 will bring in about 30% more processing power and twice the RAM.
3. Nvidia Quadro 5000 2.5GB – Moving up from the 4000 to the 5000 brings in about 40% more processing power and a tad more RAM.

There’s also a Quadro 6000. However, considering it costs over three times the budget for this build, it makes no sense to recommend it here. Besides, I’d recommend upgrading to the $2500 Workstation first, in order to be capable of fully taking advantage of the processing power offered by the Quadro 6000.

To play Video Games:
If you want a video card to play some video games, I recommend the Radeon HD 6870 1GB, which is an excellent mid-range video card capable of handling the vast majority of games at 1920 x 1080 (1080p).

RAM:

G.SKILL 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz CAS 9 1.5v

12GB of RAM will allow you to run multiple programs, with multiple files open at the same time, without resolving to reading/writing back and forth to your hard drive and bringing your PC to its knees.

Not to mention Windows and background background such as your anti-virus, web browser, music/video player and all those programs running in the background, that all consumes precious resources.

I went with G.Skill for their high reliability and compatibility with the majority of motherboards. I chose these particular sticks due to their high level of reliability, a must for a Workstation, as well as their standard voltage, 1.5v, which results in sticks that will work right out of the box, without having to adjust any BIOS settings.

Recommended upgrades

1. If you work with a lot of very large (100MB+) files and tend to have 5 or more demanding applications running at once, or simply to be future-proof, get 24GB of RAM with this 6 x 4GB memory kit: G.SKILL 24GB (6 x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz CAS 9 1.5v

Hard Drive:

Four SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 500GB SATA in RAID 10.
Total Capacity: 1TB

For this $1250 Workstation, I’m recommending four Samsung F3 500GB, in a RAID 10 array, for a total capacity of 1TB.

Note that the motherboard includes only four SATA cable, so you NEED to buy at least one of the following: 18″ SATA Cable, Straight to Left Angle W/ Metal Latch

Why not go with SSDs, they are faster?!

Yes, SSDs are indeed faster in most cases. However, what they are not is reliable, which is crucial for a workstation, since you’re earning your livelihood from it. If your workstation goes down, you’re losing time and money.

Four hard drives in RAID 10 brings improved performance over a single drive, while also bringing redundancy, so that you do not lose data if a drive (or two, one in each cluster) fails.

Four Drives in RAID 10 or 0+1
Best for: When performance and data protection are both crucial.
RAID 0+1 or 10 basically is a combination of RAID 0 and 1.

Using four hard drives, you get:
- The capacity of two drives.
- Redundancy, so if a drive in any cluster, or two drives (one from each cluster) fails, you do not lose data, you are still able to use the PC but just like RAID 1, you will need to replace the drive and rebuild the RAID array before regaining redundancy and data loss protection.
- Top-notch performance, since the data is spread across two clusters of two drives (Each cluster being basically a RAID 1 array), basically combining the read and write performance of two logical drives (each RAID 1 cluster) into one ultra-fast array.

1TB isn’t enough for you? No problem, you can stick with the same RAID 10 solution with the following upgrade:

• Four Samsung F3 1TB RAID 10 or 0+1: Capacity: 2TB

Recommended upgrades:

SSD (Solid State Drive):
Best for: When you need the OS, applications to load much faster and when performance is your absolute priority.
Note that SSDs are still a relatively new technology, so they are not are reliable as hard drives yet, in my opinion.

Like any other storage solution, backups over various locations (external hard drive, NAS, online server, optical disks, USB key, etc.) are recommended.

Recommendations for SSDs:

• Intel X25-M 2.5″ 80GB SSD
• Intel X25-M 2.5″ 160GB SSD

Why Intel SSDs? One very simple reason: Reliability. From my research and customers feedback, Intel appear to manufacture the most reliable SSDs right now, hence why I recommend them for a Workstation.

Do note that I do NOT recommend running only a SSD as the only drive in a system, for the obvious storage capacity issue, but more importantly, because if it fails, you’ll lose all your data.

My recommendation would be to have one SSD, along with four drives in RAID 10, so that you still have performance and redundancy from the hard drives. Four SSDs in RAID 10 would also be an option, except that it would be really expensive, too much to recommend it for this build in my opinion.

The Intel SSDs include a 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket, so no need to worry about that.

NAS (Network Attached Storage)
If the data on your Workstation is crucial and/or needs to be shared on a network with other computers, a NAS is an investment to look into.

The two recommendations that I make below allow for RAID 1, which I highly recommend since if you only use a single drive and that it fails, you’ll lose all of its data.

The LG N2R1DD1 1TB x 1 2 Bays, RAID 1 support NAS w/ DVD-RW comes with a single 1TB hard drive, as well as a DVD Burner. A good solution to start with, since it allows for easy backups on DVDs. I still recommend adding a second 1TB drive (there are two drive bays in total) and enabling RAID 1 for maximum data security.

The Synology DS210j Diskless 2-bay NAS RAID 1 support comes empty with no drive, allowing you to pick your own drives and to start with RAID 1 right off the bat.

Optical Drive:

ASUS Black 24X SATA CD/DVD Burner

This drive is able to read and burn CDs and DVDs. Silent (Except when it spins up to full speed obviously), compatible with all major formats including DVD-RAM.

Also, seeing as DVD Burners are often go out of stock lately, here are a two alternatives that you can use to replace it. All are SATA based.

1. LITE-ON Black 24X SATA Black CD/DVD Writer
2. HP Black 24X SATA 24X CD/DVD Writer – Retail

Upgrades:

If you’d like to watch BluRay movies or TV shows, this LITE-ON 4X Blu-ray Reader SATA will do the job. However, note that it can only READ CDs, DVDs and Bluray disks, not burn any of them.

If you want the ability to burn disks as well, the LG 10X Blu-ray Burner SATA is what you want.

Regarding Blu-Ray playback:

As far as I know, you still require a specific software to playback Blu-Ray disks on a PC. Based on various reviews and feedback on various forums, PowerDVD 9 Ultra is the software that I recommend to you. It is fully compatible with Windows 7 and shouldn’t give you any problems.

Case:

NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK

When you get a powerful workstation like this one, you want a case to match it, that’s capable of keeping your components cool under load, without being too noisy.

With a minimalism style design and a brushed aluminum finish, the LIAN LI PC-9F offers a nice classy look, for a change from all the flashy Gaming cases with LEDs and the like.

• Cooling wise, this case includes three low-speed 120mm case fans, as well as one 200mm case fan to ensure proper cooling, without being too noisy. Best of all? You can control the fan speed/noise individually with the controls on top of the case.

Features wise, you get:

1. A solid case. No flimsy panel, nor sharp edges here.
2. Support for up to seven hard drives
3. Excellent wire management, keeping the inside of your case clean and with nothing in the way of airflow.
4. 2x USB 2.0, E-SATA, Audio out, MIC in at the top

Power Supply:

SeaSonic S12II 620W 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified

This power supply has a maximum power output of 620W, not that should rely only on this information only as I often point in posts such as Warning: 6 Surefire Ways of Blowing Up Your Computer Due to an Inadequate Power Supply.

More importantly, it can output a maximum of 48A on the 12V line, one of the most important factors when it comes to choosing a power supply.

Best of all, it is 80 PLUS Bronze certified, meaning that it’s always at least 82% efficient, resulting in less heat, more silence and a lower electricity bill for you, compared to a less efficient power supply.

This Build Power Requirements:

Note that unlike Gaming PCs, the figures here are based on power requirements, not on power consumption, because I wanted to allow for more overhead with Workstation Builds, as they have to be more reliable and are often on 24/7. This also allows for greater efficiency, since most power supplies are more efficient at a 50% load compared to say, a 80% load.

According to the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator and information from Tom’s Hardware, AnandTech and Hardware.fr, it is estimated that this system will require (not consume) at load (peak usage) a power supply capable of delivering:

• 384W with the recommended Core i7 950, Radeon 5550, three sticks of DDR3 RAM, four hard drives and this build without upgrades.
• ~465W with an Intel Core i7 980X, Radeon 5770/FirePro V7800/Quadro 4000, six sticks of DDR3 RAM, four hard drives, one SSD and this build without other upgrades.
• 534W with an Intel Core i7 980X, Geforce GTX 460 768MB, six sticks of DDR3 RAM, four hard drives, one SSD and this build without other upgrades.
• 565W with an Intel Core i7 980X, Radeon HD 5870 1GB, six sticks of DDR3 RAM, four hard drives, one SSD and this build without other upgrades.

For Workstations, I recommend an overhead of 150 to 200W for the power supply, to ensure reliable operation over the years, as the power supply components age and lose output capacity.

The recommended power supply will have no problem handling basic upgrades, such as CPU, RAM, some Video Cards and additional drives upgrades.

The only cases where I would recommend upgrading the power supply to a more powerful one (feel free to get a modular or more efficient below in any case), is if you decide to get either a Gaming Video (i.e Geforce GTX 460/Radeon HD 5870) or two video cards of any kind.

Recommended upgrades:

1. SeaSonic M12II 620W 80PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular – This power supply offers the same characteristics as my recommendation above, except that it comes with modular power cables, allowing you to only plug and use the cables that you actually need, which results in a cleaner build and less of a cable mess inside of your case.
2. SeaSonic 650W 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular – With this power supply, you get the best of both worlds: Modular cables and high efficiency with 80 PLUS Gold certification. With 650W, this power supply will handle all upgrades except for a dual powerful video cards setup.
3. PC Power and Cooling Mk II 750W 80 PLUS SILVER Certified – If you plan on with a dual video cards setup now or later, this is what you need. On top of delivering up to 750W, this unit is certified 80 PLUS Silver, resulting in less heat, more silence and a lower electricity bill for you, compared to a less efficient power supply. Best of all? This is a PC Power and Cooling power supply,backed up by a 7 years warranty.

UPS/Surge Protector:

I highly recommend getting a UPS, especially if you’re in an area with a lot of thunderstorms or in a house with older electric wiring. If you lose power, the UPS will keep your PC running for a few minutes, enough for you to save your work and to properly shutdown your PC.

The recommended UPS below also protects against electrical surges, protecting your PC and other equipment plugged into the UPS, from dangerous power surges, which are one of the main causes of defective computers.

PC components are extremely fragile and the last thing that you want is to plug all that expensive equipped straight in a power outlet. You want it plugged in a surge protector (featured in the UPS units below), which will protect your expensive equipment.

My recommendation:

• The CyberPower 1350 VA 810 Watts 8 Outlets is my recommendation. Keep in mind that the UPS also has to power your monitor, hence the overhead here.

Cooling:

ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU Cooler

This Workstation is equipped with an highly powerful 130W TDP CPU, so you need proper cooling to keep your CPU at a reasonable temperature, in order to ensure reliability, even when you run your workstation under a 24/7 load.

The Zalman CNPS10X Performa offers top-notch cooling performance similar to some of the best CPU Coolers (see a review here and here), while costing about half their price, hence why I recommend for this build.

Thermal Compound:
The thermal compound is what you’ll put between the CPU and the CPU Cooler, and its job is to transfer heat between the two. Using an high-quality thermal compound ensure that your CPU temperatures will be as low as possible.

I recommend the ARCTIC COOLING MX-4 Thermal Compound, because it offers top-notch cooling performance, while being non-conductive (Unlike Arctic Silver 5 for example) so that you don’t have to worry if you drop some on an electric contact.

Sound Card: 8 channels sound card: Integrated on the motherboard

Integrated with the motherboard, this sound card will handle many different sound setups, including headphones, a microphone and more. While integrated audio on a PC used to be absolutely horrible, it has gotten much better in the last few years, thus why I have no trouble recommending it.

However, if you have an high-end setup, are an audiophile or do professional work with audio and that an integrated sound card won’t jut cut it, here are some recommendations, in order of price:

1. DIAMOND 7.1, SPDIF In/Out via Coaxial, 24-bit 96KHz PCI
2. M-AUDIO Audiophile 2496 PCI 4-In-4-Out w/ MIDI
3. Creative X-Fi Titanium HD 24-bit 96KHz PCI-Express
4. ASUS Xonar D2X SPDIF In/Out Coaxial, MIDI, PCIe x1
5. ASUS Xonar D2 SPDIF In/Out Coaxial, MIDI, PCI
6. Creative X-Fi SPDIF In/Out TOSLINK 5.25″ Front Panel PCIe 1x
7. ASUS Xonar Essence STX w/ 1/4″ Jack In/Out, etc. PCIe x1
8. ASUS Xonar Essence ST w/ 1/4″ Jack In/Out, etc. PCI

Seeing as there are a variety of audio setups, with a variety of jacks and the like, I invite you to simply pick the best card, according to your needs. Make sure to double-check the specifications and pictures, to see the Inputs/Outputs as well as included accessories.

PCI-Express 1x vs PCI Sound Card: Depends on your video card, to double check!

Finally, keep in mind possible clearance issues if you intend to have two video cards in your system. Some of the sound cards above are PCI based, while some are PCI-Express 1x (PCIe 1x) based.

With the ASUS Sabertooth X58, you have a PCI-Express 1x slot above the video card first PCI-Express 16x slot, which I recommend using.

If you need a PCI-based sound for any reason, I recommend moving your video card to the second PCI-Express slot, so that the sound card doesn’t starve your video card for air.

Network: Ethernet RJ-45 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN: Integrated on the motherboard

Integrated on the motherboard, this network adapter will allow you to access your local network and Internet.

However, if a LAN network is not an option or if a wireless network is preferable for you, I recommend the Rosewill RNX-N180UBE Wireless USB 2.0 Dongle 802.11b/g/n w/ 5 dBi Antenna, which connects in a USB 2.0 port. It comes with a base, so that you can move it away from the PC for better reception and a 5dBi external antenna to improve reception further. Support 802.11b/g/n.

Recommended operating systems:

The operating system cost, if there’s one, is not included in the total cost. The two reason for this are:

1. The budget only considers hardware.
2. You may be able re-use a previous license, go with an open-source OS such as Linux or , if you’re so inclined and are aware of what you’re doing, use torrents.

If you decide that you need a need OS, here are some recommendations:

Windows 7

Despite Linux gaining more and more support, Windows still is the platform of choice for compatibility at the moment. Considering that you’ll have 4GB of RAM and if you want to be able to add RAM or a dedicated video card, you’ll need a 64-bit version, as 32-bit is limited to 4GB of memory for the entire system, which is not enough now, nor in the future if you decide to upgrade.

Windows 7 is by far better than Windows Vista, looks better, more functional, less annoying, consumes less resources and brings DirectX 11 to the table.

Three Available Versions:

1. Windows 7 Home Premium: The basic edition, with all the looks, most of the functionality and DirectX 11.
2. Windows 7 Professional: If you want the virtual XP mode, you’ll need at least the Professional edition. Also required if you want to backup to a network, using the built-in backup mode in Windows.
3. Windows 7 Ultimate: To help protect data on your PC and portable storage devices against loss or theft with BitLocker and to work and switch between 35 languages.

OEM vs Retail:

The OEM version allows you to only install it once on a computer. You cannot transfer the license to another computer in the future and you do not receive support from Microsoft. It’s the same type of license you get when you get Windows on a desktop or laptop that you buy from Dell, HP and such. It’s less expensive, but gives less flexibility. Ideal if you intend on keeping your computer for many years.

The Retail version is the full version, which allows you to transfer the license to another computer in the future and you can call Microsoft if you need any form of support. Ideal if you intend on upgrading/changing your computer down the road.

Other than that, you get the same features on both, only the license differs. The price between the two differs obviously.

Warning: Using more than 16GB of RAM?
If you do, make sure to pick either the professional or Ultimate version, because the home premium edition only supports up to 16GB.

OEM Versions:

1. Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM – $100
2. Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit OEM – $140
3. Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit OEM – $180

Retail Versions:

1. Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Retail – $177
2. Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Retail – $250
3. Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Retail – $263

Linux

A lot of people these days boots more than one OS. Linux is a wonderful choice: powerful, cool, and cheap. Take your pick of distributions and have fun! For Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, and Mandrake, try Distrowatch.com, Cheapbytes.com, LinuxQuestions.org or one of the many others.

What about Word processing, Excel and other Windows-based programs that you need? Linux being an open platform, there are many free alternatives that will answer your needs. For Word/Excel and such, try OpenOffice.

Get Free Expert Assistance

If you want to have your final build double-checked and get my opinion on it before ordering, or for anything else, don’t be shy, just leave a comment.

If you have any question(s) about the build, simply leave a comment below the article and I’ll reply to you within 24-48 hours usually.

I’m a computer enthusiast with 10 years of experience in building, fixing/modifying computers and it will be my pleasure to assist you in building your 1st, 2nd, 3rd or xxth PC.

No worries, there are no stupid questions here on Hardware Revolution. We all started from scratch and learned through our mistakes. I’ll just help you make sure to avoid those mistakes

Just make sure to go through the following articles below, to see if your question hasn’t been answered already, before asking me a question.

Computer Builds FAQs:

I often get questions such as:

• Who are you to tell me which parts to choose?
• Can you suggest me a step by step guide to build a computer?
• Why should I build a PC instead of buying one in a store?
• And many more…

You will find the answers to all of these questions and more in this article: FAQ: How to Build Your Own Computer

Also, if this is your first build, here are 10 Quick Tips for 1st Time Builders to get you started.

Finally, if your newly built computer won’t power up or boot, I invite you to read Help me: Why won’t my newly assembled PC start or boot?

Conclusion

I’m really happy with how the $1250 Workstation turned out, both from a performance and look point of view.

It ended up being quite faster, better looking, more future-proof/upgradeable and more reliable than the previous $1000 Workstation, while offering similar performance and better reliability, at a lower cost than the previous $1500 Workstation.

I think that this is the best Workstation Build that $1250 can buy you.

Don’t agree with my choices? Have a suggestion to improve this build?

However, I do realize that even if I took a year to write this guide, it wouldn’t be perfect and it wouldn’t cover every possible software/scenario.

This is why if you don’t agree with one or several of my choices, think that you can come up with a way to improve this build, have requests, comments, etc. by all means, please let me know by leaving a comment below.

You might just be right and upon further research, if I agree with you, I’ll update the build as necessary.

Would you like to see an additional feature? Let me know.

One or several parts are out of stock?

Simply drop a comment below to let me know. I’ll personally recommend to you an equivalent alternative and I will update the build shortly after.

What do you think?

What’s your opinion on this build?
Did you find a typo or error in this article?
Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Building this PC?

If you build this system, I invite you to share your experience on how well it runs: What applications do you use, what type of work do you do, how well does this Workstation performs, is there anything that slows it down? Your feedback will help other people make an informed decision on what to buy for their own needs.

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