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Grudgingly Researching a New Computer
Feb. 28th, 2015 05:58 pmI'm going to talk to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
posicat more about parts tonight since he knows hardware better than anyone else I know. Because he is awesome like that, he offered to help me tweak for better bang-for-bucks. (Other comments would be welcome too.) But for now, I put this list together for my GIS workstation.
I need as fast a processor as I can manage. Number of cores is not important for me beyond 4 since ArcGIS won't utilize them. For data safety and increased I/O, I want hardware RAID 1, which is why I have two hard drives. I'm not worried enough about access and boot speed to spend the money on an SSD boot drive.
Any graphics cards would be a serious improvement over my existing Quadro FX 1700s with 512MB. It seems like you basically can't find a video card with less than 1GB these days (this is crazy to me, who remembers cards with 32MB being a big deal), so I think I can save money on that part of the build. I'm not a gamer. I don't do 3D rendering. But having at least three monitors is non-negotiable. Entirely unintentionally, I picked ones that will work together via Crossfire, for what that's worth.
It's a lot of money, but I see myself doing significant amounts of this kind of work for the foreseeable future. I also probably need a relatively modern computer for numerous other reasons. Windows XP still runs everything I need it to, but I don't know for how long. Though honestly, if I could just upgrade the processor and memory on the system I have now and keep using it, I would. I hate to spend this much money on something like this.
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/stormdog42/saved/#view=sPVH99
Ok, I really need to get to work now.
posicat more about parts tonight since he knows hardware better than anyone else I know. Because he is awesome like that, he offered to help me tweak for better bang-for-bucks. (Other comments would be welcome too.) But for now, I put this list together for my GIS workstation.I need as fast a processor as I can manage. Number of cores is not important for me beyond 4 since ArcGIS won't utilize them. For data safety and increased I/O, I want hardware RAID 1, which is why I have two hard drives. I'm not worried enough about access and boot speed to spend the money on an SSD boot drive.
Any graphics cards would be a serious improvement over my existing Quadro FX 1700s with 512MB. It seems like you basically can't find a video card with less than 1GB these days (this is crazy to me, who remembers cards with 32MB being a big deal), so I think I can save money on that part of the build. I'm not a gamer. I don't do 3D rendering. But having at least three monitors is non-negotiable. Entirely unintentionally, I picked ones that will work together via Crossfire, for what that's worth.
It's a lot of money, but I see myself doing significant amounts of this kind of work for the foreseeable future. I also probably need a relatively modern computer for numerous other reasons. Windows XP still runs everything I need it to, but I don't know for how long. Though honestly, if I could just upgrade the processor and memory on the system I have now and keep using it, I would. I hate to spend this much money on something like this.
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/stormdog42/saved/#view=sPVH99
Ok, I really need to get to work now.
