Building Own Workstation
 

I think it is time to get a new workstation. Mine is about 3-4 years old. I love it’s stability - it never crashes - but feels kind of slow.

Typical task that makes it feel slow is recalculating an Excel sheet with 50,000 formulas. I have plenty of memory at 64 GB. I think the issue is that my CPU is not fast.

It is a Xeon E-2224, which has a decent clock speed at boost 4.5 GHz but only 4 cores and 4 threads. I think my next workstation will have a Core i9 13900 (24 cores, 32 threads, 5.8 GHz boost), which seems like the fastest desktop processor Intel has right now. Yes, Excel supports multithreading now. I am not sure if I’ll miss the ECC memory but am reading that if I’m not sure, then I don’t need ECC.

So my question is, will I save big money by building my own workstation?

I can get a Lenovo P360 Tower with Core i9 13900, 64 GB DRAM, dual nVidia Quadro T1000 graphics cards, and plenty of storage, for $2600.

Will a self-built workstation be much cheaper?

Alternatively, would you suggest replacing the processor in my current workstation? I’m not sure a Xeon socket can take a Core, and Xeon CPUs are very expensive - retail price for a nice Xeon is $600 and up, and it looks that that still gets way fewer cores and threads than the i9 13900.

Back in the day, I believe you could definitely build a PC tailored to your specific needs/wants/desires cheaper than you could buy one.

I don't believe that's still the case unless you are Glenn and need something SUPER specialized that is just not or practically not available any other way. If you can get what you want for $2600, then my guess is that it would be tough to build at that price.

But you can always price it out.

I think these days you build your own workstation for the fun of it. These mega corps buy parts in bulk.

The only thing you gain is that you get to pick each and every part.

Yep, you're going to pay more for parts than a company that buys motherboards, processors, RAM, etc... by the truckload.

Curious. What is the need for the quattro cards? Cad or high end video editing?

Each card can drive four monitors, I have six monitors so two cards. I don’t need a high end GPU otherwise, the T1000 is not particularly high spec anymore.

Ok, so Lenovo it is then.

I have built my own for many years. I get to pick and chose components which is important to me. I edit photos - so graphics card, monitor and software are of priority to me.

I also have many CDs - - I like music and have several disks containing family photos and albums. It is almost impossible to find a desktop case with (2) 5 1/2 bays. Discontinues cases usually have bay slots I found on Ebay. None of them compared to my 15 yr old Antec. So I re-used it. Cable management isn't the best and newer graphics cards didn't fit until I did some surgery on the case.

It all fits well and works for me. Component prices, especially graphics cards, were stupid expansive during the pandemic. I built my computer during that time and was not happy about the inflated costs. Things appear to be back to normal.

I enjoy the build experience - I probably could have bought something off-the-shelf that is comparable but I enjoyed the journey of the build or any build. It is better to travel than arrive.

Building your own computer likely does not save as much as it once did. The biggest thing is you will know what parts go in it, and you control the specs.

A SSD is a fast, but a M.2 drive is faster, and not that big of a price change. 2 TB instead of just 1 TB, and the biggest thing for me is the case. Are all the USB ports USB 3.0 or 3.1? So many cases want to save a few bucks, and use USB 2.0, and they are just super slow.

How big is the power supply? Just big enough, or with room to grow. Another thing is with a purchased turn key may have a limited warranty, but does it use 100% industry standard parts?

Dell uses parts with a "flavor" and all components need a driver from Dell, not an industry standard driver.

So there are pluses and minuses. For me, I enjoy the challenge of picking the parts, and building my system. No way would I do that for someone else, because I do NOT want to be the tech support.

Good luck!

I build my own.

No it's not always a great cost savings but that's not the whole point.

Yes manufacturers have an advantage on cost of goods but margins on PC's are so low to begin with that even though they may include some higher end components they still skimp in other areas.

When doing a self build you can ensure quality components throughout.

I hate manufacturer cases, they are never well thought out and can be a pain in the ass to deal with. Generally also heavy and cumbersome.

I use NZXT cases exclusively and all my builds are water cooled.

Water cooling for me is a must. Nothing worse than sitting next to a PC where the fans are screaming at you all day. Water cooled PCs also don't raise the ambient temps in your office like traditional fan cooling can.

My go to water cooler is NZXTs Kraken but I've used Corsair as well and they are just fine.

Samsung EVO or PRO NAND SSDs.

EVGA or Corsair power supplies.

Your XEON won't fit in the i-seires socket.

Yes excell supports multi threading but not for every function.

You want high core count AND high clock speed.

EEC RAM is not all around better. Yes it can prevent crashes and data loss but it's more expensive and it's slower than non EEC RAM. Decide what matters more.