Small, quiet, portable workstation

[Janezzz]

Hello everyone!

Is this a good workstation/rendering PC?

 

CPU: Intel Core i7 4790 @ 3.6 Ghz

MOBO: ASrock m-ITX H81i

RAM: x1 Corsair 4 GB 1600 Mhz, x1 8 Gb Corsair 1600 Mhz (RAM has the exact same heatsink, same look, same speed for a total of 12 GB)

GPU: Intel HD Graphics 4600

Optical Drive: Samsung x24 RW

Storage: Kingston 120 GB SSD (for OS, AutoCad and similar programs) btw I have a external WD 1TB Drive

Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 m-ITX Case

PSU: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze

OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit

[hearthofsin]

what is the purpose of the machine? wrokstations might need a gpu for cuda cores for example even when rendering. you budget seems small and a workstation aint cheap. 
go for an i5 4690 instead save the money buy 16 gigs of high speed ram and a gpu. 
an i5 is alright for rendering. 

but tell me what you are going to use it for. what programs etc.  

[KamiKatze]

The CPU is a solid choice, allthough if you are not going to overclock, you could aswell go with a Xeon 1231, which is essentially the same CPU but for less money (usually).

 

Your choice of RAM is odd. Editing programs usually need a lot of RAM, so 16 GB would be great. Actually the more the better (depending on what programs you use), so mITX is not the perfect platofrm for a editing machine, considering it has only two RAM slots.

 

A graphics card would be usefull for GPU rendering, which speeds things up a lot.

 

Your storage solution should definiteley include a fast and large internal hard drive where you can easily save and access your projects and quickly work on them.

 

Edit: on the note of silence: I don't know how picky you are, but replacing the stock fans with something from bequiet or noctua would improve acoustics. Also please include a CPU cooler that repalces the Intel boxed one. bequiet has a topflow CPU cooler which would do a great job at keeping your CPU cool while being quiet.

[WoodenMarker]

It depends on what is being worked on and rendered.

[brob]

The memory would run in single channel mode. A dual channel kit would offer better performance. DDR1600 CL 9 2x8GB would be good.

 

You will want to make sure that the motherboard BIOS is P1.60 or later as the cpu will not work with earlier BIOS levels.