Building a Test Bench for Work

kev507 · August 20, 2014

So, I recently got a promotion to lead technician at the job place, and I want to reward myself a little by building a test bench for work. Often times customers will ask us if their gpu or memory or whatever is okay, by just bringing us that single part. From there it's a mad dash to find some unused pc lying around, or we may not be able to do so at all (ie: no suitable pc lying around to test that 290X) Also, if a customer wishes to return an item like a gpu or cpu we are supposed to indicate whether the item is defective or not, by testing it. This obviously results in the same predicament as before. Same goes for testing TV's or monitors.

So, I've gotten approval from the boss man to build a test bench with my own cash and bring it to work. I'm looking for parts that offer maximum compatibility and reliability, but it doesn't need to be performance oriented. I'm assuming I kinda just have to pick one socket to go with and then just have other boards/cpu's on hand for testing, so I was thinking I'll start with Z97 lga 1150 for maximum compatibility with today's most popular cpu's, and because that's what I deal with most on a day to day basis. I'll probably also use it for some basic work like data transfers, disk cloning, dvd burning, etc so it needs to be somewhat capable.

With no experience choosing parts for a test bench, here are my parts and rationale:

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 $69, can OC for decent performance in day to day use

CPU Cooler: CM Hyper 212 Evo $34 ($24 after MIR), good cooling allowing for a mild oc to the pentium

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI $120, supports haswell, haswell refresh, broadwell, sata express, m.2, PCI legacy expansion, DVI VGA and HDMI for testing displays, and the ability to test sli/crossfire setups at a really good price

Memory: G.Skill Sniper (2 x 4Gb) 2133 CL10 $76, affordable high speed ram
HDD: 1Tb Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM $52, decent cheap storage
Case: Lian-Li PC-T60B $69, sexy and seems easy to work with based on reviews

PSU: XFX 850W Bronze PSU $109, enough wattage to test dual gpu configs, and non modular to prevent losing cables, has all the cables I'll ever need

DVD: LG DVD-RW $13, it does stuff
OS: Win 8.1 Pro $0, already have a key I'm not using

Total: $549 ($539 after MIR)

Let me know what you think! Do I need a GPU? Should I upgrade/add any parts or go in a different direction?