Uberstation

I generally tend to build one pc per year or so. However, when it comes to my workstation the cycle is about 3 to 4 years. So it was to my own surprise that I built not one but two workstations in less than six months.

The first build was done around the Z87 Intel chipset and an i5 CPU. The second was around the Z97 and an i7. So why two builds and why so close to one another? The initial build was planned as a replacement of my old 1^st generation i7 950 based workstation which I acquired in 2010. So I was due for an update. I changed the case, power supply, motherboard, CPU, ram and optical drive. I only kept my trusted Intel SSD.

However, a few months down the road my PDC (Primary Domain Controller) started showing signs of its age (Intel P45 lga775 system) so I decided to dismantle it and sell off the parts which were still good. It turns out that there is some demand for older ram (DDR 2) and system components, so I collected enough money to practically buy a new system all together.

At that point it was time to do some serious thinking as to my choice of components and timeframe. Since Intel and NVIDIA were about to release brand new products (X99 chipset and 9 series GPU), I wanted to benefit from the eminent discounts on previous generation hardware. So I was aiming for an i7 Haswell CPU and a Z97 based motherboard. My main concern was with which Gigabyte motherboard to chose. I knew I wanted a full featured board that cost under 200$, so I went with the GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK. This is a fantastic board that has top of the line features such a dual gigabit LAN interfaces, premium onboard audio, and a plethora of interface connections. For the CPU, I was hesitating between the 4790 and the unlocked “K” variant. I ultimately decided to go with the higher end CPU and also chose a water cooler to have good temperatures. For RAM, I chose 32 GB of 1600 MHZ DDR 3 by Kingston.

For the graphics card, I bought a second hand Asus GForce GTX 670 to replace my existing GForce 550. Since all of this hardware needs to be powered by a decent power supply and hosted in a good casing so I went with the Seasonic M12 II 850 watt PSU and the Fractal Design Refine R4 case. I kept my 2 SSD/s and my hard drive as well as my BD-RW drive from another PC.

Overall, I am very happy with the choice of components and the way the build turned out. The main idea of this workstation is to run multiple virtual machines and it does so without skipping a beat. As far as gaming is concerned, the experience is fantastic and although I rarely game, when I do this setup makes it great.

Parts list:

·                  Case: Fractal Design Refine R4
·                  Power Supply: SeaSonic M12D II 850 Watts
·                  Motherboard: Gigabyte  GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK
·                  CPU: Inteli7 4790K
·                  Memory: Kingston  KHX1600C10D3/8GB x 2
·                  Video Card: Asus  GForce GTX 670
·                  Water Cooler: Corsair H90