Work build for mother

dannytech357 · April 26, 2017

My mother has been looking to get a new PC and is tired of getting prebuilts that are expensive and become too slow in a few years and fail. I thought I'd take a crack at custom building a rig for her, which she agreed would be a good way to ensure she gets what she needs. Her current PC is the Dell Studio XPS 9100, still running Windows 7. She has come to fear inevitable hard drive and SSD failures because almost all of her previous computers and even some recent laptops have had drive failures (I kid you not, she kills drives just by looking at them). Because she is a freelancer working from home, when failures occur they are major setbacks, and as such, reliability is a priority. Speed and the ability to multitask is also very important, because at any time she most likely has 7-8 windows of ~10 tabs each open in both Chrome and Firefox (with plenty of flash components and other resource-intensive elements), multiple Word docs, several images open in Gimp, and occasionally other workloads such as video editing (no gaming, though). Any performance problems can become major problems as she is often on a very tight timetable a lot of the time (in addition to her business, she does a lot of volunteer work for several non-profits and is on the board of directors for multiple organizations). To put it simply, her current PC struggles when she's away from the computer, and practically dies when she's using it. In general, she prefers to keep her computer for as long as possible, because transitioning can be rather difficult and she doesn't usually have the time to consider other options. As such, the build needs to be able to last for several years and be able to handle newer software and more intensive tasks. Swapping hardware as it gets incrementally better is also a goal for the future, in order to make sure it stays updated without having to get a whole new build. When it comes to budget, there is only a sanity limit. This build should be overkill, but not insanely overkill, and overkill for the workload. Here is what I quickly picked out on PCPartPicker:

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NJ8CVY
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NJ8CVY/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Xeon E5-1620 V3 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($295.69 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($24.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI X99A Raider ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($172.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial 16GB (4 x 4GB) Registered DDR4-2133 Memory ($183.98 @ Directron) ---> (Seems like a lot, but again, needs to be overkill for future workloads)
Memory: Crucial 16GB (4 x 4GB) Registered DDR4-2133 Memory ($183.98 @ Directron)
Storage: Samsung 960 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($246.98 @ NCIX US) ---> (System/Apps disk, needs to be as fast as possible)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($269.62 @ NCIX US) ---> (These three in RAID 5 as a 2TB data disk)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($269.62 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($269.62 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB GAMING X Video Card ($249.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Define XL R2 (Black Pearl) ATX Full Tower Case ($119.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: SeaSonic PRIME 750W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($164.69 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $2452.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-25 23:49 EDT-0400

I am also looking to put the WD SSDs into RAID 5 in order to allow for failures (I could also get another one and do RAID 6, but that might be too much), but I'm not sure which RAID controller to get, so if anyone has any suggestions, please include them. I chose several server-oriented components like a Xeon and ECC RAM, again because of reliability, high uptime, and generally good performance, but if you don't think this is the way to go, please suggest alternatives. At the moment, this is very open to modification, and some of the components I chose likely aren't the best for what she wants (I'm unsure about the GPU and PSU, for instance, and I feel like the motherboard might be overkill). Looks really don't matter, as this will always be fairly out of sight. When it comes to monitors, she very much likes large touchscreens, so looking for suggestions for that, too.

The Sloth · April 26, 2017

why not a Ryzen system? 8c/16t will be better.

Shura · April 26, 2017

23 minutes ago, dannytech357 said:

My mother has been looking to get a new PC

That build is beyond overkill, it's just flushing money down the drain.

Quote

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/MxWwXH
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/MxWwXH/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1400 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($165.98 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($88.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Viper Elite 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($97.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($107.99 @ B&H)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($48.88 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon RX 570 4GB Gaming 4G Video Card ($168.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case ($64.99 @ B&H)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($51.89 @ Newegg)
Total: $795.69
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-26 00:33 EDT-0400

Even this build is overkill but it's 1/3 of the price and should more than meet your mothers needs. As for storage, I would recommend either buying or building a NAS on the site.

If you want to build a NAS, than;

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CssxQV

Another cheaper option is to use an Odroid C2 to create a NAS, for your needs, I think it's more than enough. You can read about how to do it here, https://blog.getreu.net/projects/encrypted-raid1-nas/.

ArduinoBen · April 26, 2017

As for loosing data, she should just have a backup. Also, that is way overkill. If what type of stuff will she be doing?

ArduinoBen · April 26, 2017

1 hour ago, dannytech357 said:

(Seems like a lot, but again, needs to be overkill for future workloads)

Yep. It will mean that you wont need to buy more RAM for a while. However, don't forget that prices of RAM will go down and speed expectations will go up.

Say, 2133 Mhz RAM, 16 Gigs today is $200, in 2030, we should expect $150 at the very most. That is, if 2030 still sells 2133 Mhz RAM.

dannytech357 · June 26, 2017

After much deliberation and computer problems warranting pursuing this path farther, we adjusted the components slightly, and added in some accessories (including a touchscreen monitor. If you know of and can recommend any other similar touchscreens, suggestions are welcome). Some prices have changed, others I've swapped out, so below is the updated version. Thoughts? Mostly just worried about compatibility issues at this point.

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/DRzMHN
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/DRzMHN/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1400 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($157.49 @ SuperBiiz)
Thermal Compound: Noctua - NT-H1 3.5g Thermal Paste ($5.80 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($87.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($117.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($99.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($66.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($66.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus - Radeon RX 580 4GB Dual Video Card ($209.98 @ Directron)
Case: Thermaltake - Versa H21 ATX Mid Tower Case ($33.95 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: HP - DVD1265I DVD/CD Writer ($28.98 @ Newegg)
Monitor: ViewSonic - TD2740 27.0" 1920x1080 Monitor ($560.77 @ Amazon)
Other: Atech Flash Technology PRO-77U Flash Reader USB 3.0 5.25" Hub & Card ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1546.60
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-26 02:31 EDT-0400

Also, I was wondering what RAID was like on AMD hardware. It appears that the hardware supports fake raid, but I can't seem to find much documentation about it, and would it be better to use that or the Windows software RAID?