Paging Mr. Nibby, Eggplant Wizard PhD

"7:07" (fanbrain001)
05/09/2016 at 13:39 • Filed to: None

You have a telephone call at the front desk

OK. It’s time for a question completely unrelated to cars, boats, trains, or planes.

A while back I remember you (Nibby, Eggplant Wizard PhD) buying an HP Z620 or some such workstation. Is that the right model? Anyway, I’m looking in to buying something similar and want to know how it’s working for you? I’m not into gaming, I just want something quiet and powerful, enough horsepower for 3+ screens, and room for several hard drives. I’m looking to spend around $600. What’s your advice?

DISCUSSION (25)

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 13:43

What is it going to be used for? Media consumption?

Nibby > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 13:57

I like mine a lot and I use it for video editing/game design/graphic stuff, etc. all sorts of thigns. Some games too. Might be hard to get a Z620 for under $600

But really if you’re just browsing and emailing, etc. a general purpose machine, anything with an i3 or i5 in the past 3-4 years or newer would be fine. The gfx card is what you’d be most interested in for driving 3 monitors... make sure you get something with around 2GB VRAM and supports 3 or more monitors (just look up the gfx card). And make sure there are at least 3 video connectors

7:07 > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
05/09/2016 at 14:05

It would be my work-from-home machine. Video editing and photo editing, video encoding, uh, spreadsheets and other boring mundane stuff. I need a machine that excels at multitasking. If it works well enough and is quiet, I might buy a second one with dual processors and 64GB+ RAM for my virtual organ instrument.

7:07 > Nibby
05/09/2016 at 14:06

Thanks for your feedback. Any thoughts on FirePro vs. Quadra graphics cards?

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
05/09/2016 at 14:06

Sounds like he’s becoming a bond villian

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 14:13

The video editing portion is pretty demanding, depending on the resolution you’re working at. Basically you’ll want some sort of Xeon with more cores rather than a higher clock speed, a video card with 2+ GB of VRAM and enough video outputs for three monitors.

What’s this virtual organ that needs that much ram?

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 14:13

Clearly, I ain’t Nibby. Couldn’t be. I’d buy a used Dell Precision tower. I’d run the OS on a SanDisk Pro 240-gig SSD and use Windows to create a mirrored-volume pair of large-capacity drives for storage. Some kind of robust video card that would throw several monitors. Since you’re not gaming, many should fill the bill at an affordable price. Dell is my go-to brand for used computers. You could probably find a nice quad-core tower on Ebay sans drives and stack them to your liking. Sounds like fun, actually.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 14:14

Unless you’re buying them used at a huge discount, it’s best to get a “regular” graphics card.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 14:22

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Preci…

Here would be a nice place to begin. And there’s already a dual-DVI Quadro video card.

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 14:35

My 2c - If you are going to use Windows 10, go Quadro. I have a FirePro W7100 in my Windows 10 Dell workstation and the current drivers suuuuuuuck. But we also have a Z820 with 4x FirePro W8000's in a Cubix expansion chassis with Windows 7 and it works great.

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
05/09/2016 at 14:38

I second this. If you are buying used, a Precision is a great place to start. The components Dell uses in the Precision line (both towers and mobile.) last forever.

Galileo Humpkins (aka MC Clap Yo Handz) > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
05/09/2016 at 14:42

Kidneys. They’re very demanding.

7:07 > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
05/09/2016 at 14:44

The virtual organ is powered by this software . Each note of every stop is recorded multiple times, then packaged up into software soundsets you can purchase. Once installed and loaded, this data is stored in RAM, hence the high RAM requirements. One organ sound set I purchased required 48GB of RAM to load the organ at full quality. It’s a great way to experience authentic sounds and reverberation of organs from some of the best German and French organs.

7:07 > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
05/09/2016 at 14:45

I’ve been looking around on ebay and some workstations come with FirePro, some come with Quadro. Sounds like Quadro would be better in my case.

7:07 > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
05/09/2016 at 14:46

Thanks for the recommendation. I have purchased a few Precision line laptops for work and I was pleased with their build quality and performance. I’ll look into the tower versions now.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 14:50

There’s more to it than that. Firepro and Quadro are just the brands. It’s the specific model that matters.

7:07 > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
05/09/2016 at 14:57

Here is an old photo of my setup. The touchscreen is mounted in portrait format on a monitor arm. There are (2) 8" active monitors up high, and a single Danley sound labs DTS-10 horn-loaded subwoofer (5' x 4' x 18" dimensions) powered by a 4000 watt amplifier. It rocks the house. The organ originally had two manuals and one swell shoe; I added a third manual and two swell shoes. I plan to add another pair or two of monitor speakers for even more realism and sound separation.

Kinja'd!!!

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 14:58

So it’s basically a synthesizer powered by a PC that replicates organs? That’s really cool.

7:07 > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
05/09/2016 at 15:22

At this point, the organ console only acts as a MIDI controller, triggering the sound clips stored in RAM. No synthesizing done here. Indeed it is very cool. Very realistic sounding, especially with headphones. Beats anything off-the-shelf from digital organ manufacturers for a fraction of the price.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 15:24

Wait, so it stores all the potential soundclips in RAM? So basically it creates it’s own RAMdisk? That’s an interesting solution.

7:07 > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
05/09/2016 at 15:30

Exactly

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 15:46

I have tons of experience with Dell over ten years and my best machines are consistently 5-year-old Dells.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 15:47

Rad flight sim, Yo!

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > 7:07
05/09/2016 at 15:49

Difficult to imagine that for your purposes, a Quadro wouldn’t do the job. Now, if you’re playing Castle Wolfenstein or something...

Nibby > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
05/09/2016 at 16:21

holy crap NP