Planning a Workstation

[deletemexxx]

Hello guys,

 

I am planning to build a new workstation. I am planning to use it for programming, running a few virtual machines and maybe occasional gaming (I am not playing any games right now, but with such a powerful rig, I might). ;)

 

Ideally, this would be a Hackintosh, but it is pretty difficult to get every component right which makes me think that I should drop this idea.

 

Anyway, here is the parts list: 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$529.89 @ B&H
CPU Cooler	Noctua - NH-D14 64.95 CFM CPU Cooler	$74.95 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Gigabyte - Z390 GAMING X ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	$139.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Kingston - HyperX Predator 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$225.75 @ Amazon
Storage	Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$149.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate - BarraCuda 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$44.89 @ OutletPC
Storage	Seagate - BarraCuda 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$44.89 @ OutletPC
Video Card	Sapphire - Radeon RX 580 8 GB PULSE Video Card	$199.99 @ Walmart
Power Supply	SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$89.99 @ Newegg Business
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1500.33
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-03-20 14:54 EDT-0400

 

What is your opinion about it?

[Eastman51]

40 minutes ago, hell0 said:

I am planning to build a new workstation. I am planning to use it for programming, running a few virtual machines and maybe occasional gaming (I am not playing any games right now, but with such a powerful rig, I might).

 

CPU	Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	$529.89 @ B&H

For programming, unless you're developing games, you probably don't need to spend this much on a CPU. For virtual machines, multi-thread performance is better; so I would recommend a Ryzen 5 2600(x) or 7 2700(x) instead for their superior multi-thread performance, plus you save a bit of money for good enough performance in gaming and probably similar performance in programming.

40 minutes ago, hell0 said:

Storage	Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$149.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate - BarraCuda 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$44.89 @ OutletPC
Storage	Seagate - BarraCuda 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$44.89 @ OutletPC

NVMe SSDs aren't worth the premium cost. For most tasks, a SATA SSD is just as fast; and a lot cheaper. Myth: NVMe SSDs boot into the OS faster. WD Blue 1TB SATA SSDs (2.5" and M.2) are cheaper than the 500GB 970 EVO....

Why get 2 seperate 1TB HDDs? You could just get a single 2TB for $60 instead of 2 drives for $90; or spend $10-20 more and get a 4TB for ~$100.....

 

40 minutes ago, hell0 said:

Video Card	Sapphire - Radeon RX 580 8 GB PULSE Video Card	$199.99 @ Walmart
Power Supply	SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply	$89.99 @ Newegg Business

Exccellent choices here. The 580 has excellent value, and will suit some light gaming quite nicely. A 650W PSU is plenty for this build, and the Seasonic units are great.

 

40 minutes ago, hell0 said:

Ideally, this would be a Hackintosh, but it is pretty difficult to get every component right which makes me think that I should drop this idea.

You could try. But, tbh, I would just run Windows 10, its a lot easier to setup and get going. If you need Mac only tools, like Xcode, I'd try to run a Mac VM or get a cheap second-hand Macbook of some kind to have just for those things. 

[deletemexxx]

Thank you for your excellent suggestions. To be honest, I really do not mind paying a little more even if the improvement is only 25%, especially considering that I probably will not upgrade for a few years.

 

2 hours ago, Eastman51 said:

superior multi-thread performance

I have been trying to find evidence for this, but I could not find anything. According to CPU UserBenchmark, i9-9900k is about 25% faster than Ryzen.

 

2 hours ago, Eastman51 said:

NVMe SSDs aren't worth the premium cost.

According to SSD UserBenchmark it seems that the Samsung one is twice as fast. Also, I want the two separate HDDs to run in RAID 1 (for backup).

[Eastman51]

1 minute ago, hell0 said:

According to SSD UserBenchmark it seems that the Samsung one is twice as fast.

Yes, the Samsung SSD is twice as fast. But that speed is only practical if you perform large data transfers on the daily, and not to HDDs because they will bottleneck the transfer regardless of SSD speed. NVMe SSDs are really only useful in certain situations, real world performance between NVMe and SATA is effectively the same. 

 

A Samsung 970 EVO can read/write at "x" speed; but when booting to the OS, for example, its effective speed is that of a SATA SSD. Trust me, you wouldn't notice a difference between an NVMe and SATA SSD boot drive.

 

I have an older desktop (i5-4670k), a relatively modern laptop (i5-7300HQ), and a modern desktop (Ryzen 5 2600x). Both desktops have SATA SSD boot drives, and the laptop has an NVMe boot drive (I regret this purchase); the Ryzen desktop has a second SSD, which is NVMe for games (I also regret this purchase). 

 

In a cold boot scenario (not including POST times), all three PCs are fully loaded to the desktop in under 7 seconds; differences between them are in milliseconds and mainly caused by CPU performance, the Ryzen PC is the fastest to boot because it has higher clocks and more cores vs the slower quad cores of the Haswell desktop and the laptop.

 

For loading games, small and large, the NVMe SSD in my Ryzen desktop vs the NVMe in my laptop vs the SATA SSD in my Haswell desktop yield highly comparable results. The Ryzen desktop loads games faster, not because of the SSD (which is heavily bandwidth restricted due to my mobo's PCIe slot configuration), but because it has faster RAM (30000Mhz); but even then, the Haswell desktop and my laptop are barely any slower, again in the milliseconds.

 

The only way to make real use of an NVMe SSD's speed is to transfer files or run programs that can make use of its high I/Ops. For example, datacenter file transfers could make use of the I/Ops by caching data for faster access by hundreds of thousands users. Another example could be someone loading and editing a video, the raw speed and I/Ops of the NVMe SSD would make a more effective scratch disk for this task. 

 

Because of this, NVMe SSDs have poor value for most people. Generic consumers (web browsing, video/audio streaming) can't make use of NVMe speeds, so they are better off paying less for equal or greater capacity and equivalent performance to NVMe in the same tasks. For gamers, high capacity SATA SSDs that can load a game just as fast is a significantly greater value.

Here's the price comparison of my drives:

Ryzen desktop:

Samsung 970 EVO 500GB - $150

Samsung 860 EVO 500GB** - $77

 

7th gen laptop:

Samsung 960 EVO 500GB - $200 (this is inflated pricing, I paid closer to $160)

 

Haswell desktop:

Western Digital Blue 2.5" 1TB - $127

 

**(note that I do not store games on the SATA SSD in my Ryzen desktop. Crystaldiskmark results indicate that the WD Blue and 860 EVO have near identical read speeds, while the WD Blue has faster write speeds)

 

In short, I can't stop you from buying an NVMe SSD. I'm merely recommending that you go with SATA instead to save money while not losing any effective performance.

 

25 minutes ago, hell0 said:

Also, I want the two separate HDDs to run in RAID 1 (for backup).

That makes a lot more sense, go for it.

 

25 minutes ago, hell0 said:

I have been trying to find evidence for this, but I could not find anything. According to CPU UserBenchmark, i9-9900k is about 25% faster than Ryzen.

I would think that the 2700x would have pretty similar real world multi-thread. Intel will always crush AMD in single-thread, which makes them the king of fps in gaming. But you can't beat AMD's value, they cost a decent bit less with a decent tradeoff in performance. 

 

If you are more interested in raw performance, the i9-9900k is probably the better buy though; it is objectively faster. If you can afford it, I don't see why you wouldn't go for it; the only real reason to go AMD at this price point is to save a few bucks.

[deletemexxx]

Great explanation. I think I will go with 1TB SSD.

[Eastman51]

4 hours ago, hell0 said:

Memory	Kingston - HyperX Predator 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$225.75 @ Amazon

Also, I just realized you have 2x16 here. Is there any specific reason? If you don't need more than 32GB, which I doubt you would, you could just get two 2x8 kits of 3000Mhz RAM for cheaper.

 

$225 for 2x16 (Kingston HyperX Predator 3000Mhz)

$180 for 4x8 (G.Skill Aegis 3000Mhz, 2 kits of 2x8)

 

Or if you do need 2x16, that Kingston is a poor value. I found a kit of G.Skill Ripjaws 2x16 3000Mhz on Newegg for $170.

[deletemexxx]

Considering that I will run several virtual machines, I would like to keep my options open regarding how much RAM in can stuff in there.

 

The shop where I plan to do all my shopping has pretty much the same price for 4x8GB vs 2x16GB (20$ difference).

[brob]

In my experience software development benefits a great deal from faster storage. Typically many files are read and written, particularly during compiles/builds.

 

Most software development is lightly multithreaded. As a result the higher clocks of the i7-9900K should offer the best performance, albeit at a significant price premium.

 

Stay with the 2x16GB memory configuration. There is no real performance difference and the price differential generally doesn't justify the downside of restricting potential memory upgrades.

 

Noctua lists Kingston HyperX Predator memory modules as incompatible with the NH-D14, see https://noctua.at/en/nh-d14.html?rcomp=1#socket_2768_manuf_54.

 

If you are going to have the hdd in a RAID array I'd suggest using models designed for that use. Seagate Ironwolf, WD Red, and HGST Deskstar NAS are three reliable brands for small RAID arrays.

 

I noticed that there is no case in the OP build list.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($529.89 @ B&H) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  ($84.89 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - Z390 GAMING X ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($139.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Kingston - HyperX Predator 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($225.75 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($149.99 @ Samsung) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 1 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($59.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Seagate - IronWolf 1 TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($59.89 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon RX 580 8 GB PULSE Video Card  ($199.99 @ Walmart) 
Case: Fractal Design - Define S ATX Mid Tower Case  ($96.11 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $1636.38
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-03-21 10:03 EDT-0400

[deletemexxx]

4 hours ago, brob said:

Noctua lists Kingston HyperX Predator memory modules as incompatible with the NH-D14, see https://noctua.at/en/nh-d14.html?rcomp=1#socket_2768_manuf_54.

 

Woah, that's a great point, thanks!

 

4 hours ago, brob said:

 I noticed that there is no case in the OP build list.

 

I just thought that I would pick a random one at the end. That one looks good, thank you for the recommendations!