[geeks] Windows 7 Workstation recommendations

[Mark Benson]

On 7 Sep 2011, at 13:39, Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Have you considered BYOB?

I don't do BYOB at work because I have little time for building PCs at tearing
them apart to pull a component to send back under warranty to a supplier who
will likely argue the toss with me until I go blue and blame all the other
components I installed with it (yes, sadly, most UK parts suppliers are that
bad). With a bought in PC you just shrug and say 'doesn't work' and send it
back :)

> I realize you aren't in US, but the specs you outline are actually quite
> modest by new US machine standards.

I'm not in the third world, ya know ;)

But seriously... I know, my Games PC is a 6-week old i7 2600 with 8GB of RAM,
Radeon 5770, SSD etc and it'd be overkill, frankly.

My current machine is a Dell Precision 390 Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz Conroe - I'd
stick with it and upgrade to Win 7 and more RAM but my boss needs a new
machine and I would rather keep him on XP for now and use 7 myself so I can
see how viable it'll be for wider company use. At least if it picks a fight
with me over compatiblity or similar I can resolve it quietly in my own time
;)

> FWIW, a low-end SandyBridge I3 system is very capable, if your processing
> needs are minimal, the real compromise with an i3 system is the integrated
> graphics and lack of 'TurboBoost'

I am not keen on the Intel Graphics especially with Windows 7 and Aero. A
2.7GHz or faster 4-core would be enough I reckon.

> but with your plans for a higher-end
> graphics card and your mentioned uses, I personally don't see those as
> limitations.

I can get a HP/AMD FirePro 3700 for a reasonable price if needs must.

My bigger concern is capacity to add a second hard drive. My current rig has
separate drives for data/work and Windows/Apps and it was a godsend when the
Windows drive died a month or so ago - no stress about restoring from backups
or rescuing files. Ideally I'd lob the system and Apps on a SSD and enjoy the
benefits that brings to daily life.

I don't want consumer PC build quality either though. It's got to last at
least 4 years.

--
Mark Benson

http://markbenson.org/blog
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