Help: Custom Build PC Workstation or Custom Mac Pro?

[Bleu]

Hello,

I'm debating whether or not to buy a custom built PC from PC Specialist or to buy a custom Mac Pro from Apple.

What I'm looking for is a high-end workstation for almost continuous use (HD Photo/Video/Audio editing). As well as a place to store my data I'm on my computer for at least 10 hours a day working away and it would be great to have my data in one place.

I currently have around 12 TB of data spread across my main Intel i7 PC and my current Apple computer, the latter is really showing it's age (2006/7 model I think) and external HDDs.

I also enjoy the odd video game but that isn't a big deal. I've put together a few computers online using the website but could use some help. I'm not into the nuts and bolts stuff and end up just putting in the most expensive components.

I can't put together a Mac Pro for comparison at the moment as the European Mac Store has withdrawn the Mac Pro and it's not currently available. My guess would be a newer model will be released soon. Having said that I put together a Mac Pro a week or so ago and it came to £3/4 thousand so that would be my budget for a PC from PC Specialist.

Again I'm not sure what I need or want so could do with some assistance.

Update:

Case: COOLERMASTER COSMOS 2 ULTRA TOWER

CPU: Intel® Xeon® 8-Core E5-2687W (3.1 GHz, 8.00 GT/s, 20M L3 Cache)

Motherboard: ASUS® P9X79 WS - SOCKET 2011, QUAD DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6 GB/s

RAM: 32GB SAMSUNG QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz (8 X 4GB) [Should I go for 64GB?]

GPU: PNY QUADRO K5000 - 4GB GDDR5, 1536 CUDA CORES, 2 x DP, 2 x DVI

HDD: I'll use my current SSDs and HDDs

SSD CACHE DRIVE: 20GB INTEL® SSD 313 SERIES - SLC CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM / 1st HDD

1st Optical Drive: 12x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW

PSU: CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE

Processor Cooling: INTEL BXSTS200C THERMAL SOLUTION FOR XEON E5 CPU

Extra Case Fans: 2 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card: ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities: DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD

USB Options: 2 PORT USB 3.0 INTERNAL PCI-EX CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS

Firewire: 1 x IEEE 1394a FIREWIRE PORT ONBOARD


I'm unsure about the GPU(s).

 

[SlickShoes]

Without even reading your post, do not buy a Mac Pro just now, they are well overdue a significant upgrade. Many Mac Pro users are still working on 2008 machines it's been that long.

The rumors are that there will be an upgrade this year around April.

If you really need to use OSX then wait and see what the new Mac Pros will offer, if you do not need OSX for your work and are happy to move to use Windows I would suggest building a PC, get the 3 year warranty if you get a the PC unless you are confident building/replacing parts on your own.

 

[Bleu]

Thank you SlickShoes for the warning but I was already aware of this, in fact you can't buy a Mac Pro from the Apple website in the UK just now most likely due to new models being released in the near future.

I was hoping to build a Mac Pro "like" PC and then compare the two. I can't see Apple giving me room for 13 HDDs unlike the case I mentioned above. Also OS X ins't crucial to my work but it helps.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

 

[Seppie]

Hi there, I'm by no means a PC expert [I've been working with portable machines for the last 10 years] however your data requirements suggest that you should be thinking of putting a server together for all of your harddrives.
At 13 HDDs I would say you've more than exceeded critical mass - with a rack-mount server you can at least have a scalable solution - add more storage as you need it and even duplicate important data on a larger scale.
Have you looked into something along those lines?

 

[Bleu]

Thanks Seppie for commenting, I have a small server that I use to back up my files for both Windows and OS X. However it was at the lower end of the price scale and it shows, it's painfully slow. I have thought about upgrading it I looked at Drobo among others but my first priority is to replace my main machine. My current i7 PC is starting to buckle under the pressure and it's not that old. Once I replace my main machine I will look into RAID, I'm no PC wizard either so will have to do some reading before I contemplate buying anything.

 

[Bleu]

I don't know what happened to my original post so I'll post my updated spec here:


I'm debating whether or not to buy a custom built PC from PC Specialist or to buy a custom Mac Pro from Apple.

What I'm looking for is a high-end workstation for almost continuous use (HD Photo/Video/Audio editing). As well as a place to store my data I'm on my computer for at least 10 hours a day working away and it would be great to have my data in one place.

I currently have around 12 TB of data spread across my main Intel i7 PC and my current Apple computer, the latter is really showing it's age (2006/7 model I think) and external HDDs.

I also enjoy the odd video game but that isn't a big deal. I've put together a few computers online using the website but could use some help. I'm not into the nuts and bolts stuff and end up just putting in the most expensive components.

I can't put together a Mac Pro for comparison at the moment as the European Mac Store has withdrawn the Mac Pro and it's not currently available. My guess would be a newer model will be released soon. Having said that I put together a Mac Pro a week or so ago and it came to £3/4 thousand so that would be my budget for a PC from PC Specialist.

Again I'm not sure what I need or want so could do with some assistance.

Update:

Case: COOLERMASTER COSMOS 2 ULTRA TOWER

CPU: Intel® Xeon® 8-Core E5-2687W (3.1 GHz, 8.00 GT/s, 20M L3 Cache)

Motherboard: ASUS® P9X79 WS - SOCKET 2011, QUAD DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6 GB/s

RAM: 32GB SAMSUNG QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz (8 X 4GB) [Should I go for 64GB?]

GPU: PNY QUADRO K5000 - 4GB GDDR5, 1536 CUDA CORES, 2 x DP, 2 x DVI

HDD: I'll use my current SSDs and HDDs

SSD CACHE DRIVE: 20GB INTEL® SSD 313 SERIES - SLC CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM / 1st HDD

1st Optical Drive: 12x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW

PSU: CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE

Processor Cooling: INTEL BXSTS200C THERMAL SOLUTION FOR XEON E5 CPU

Extra Case Fans: 2 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card: ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities: DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD

USB Options: 2 PORT USB 3.0 INTERNAL PCI-EX CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS

Firewire: 1 x IEEE 1394a FIREWIRE PORT ONBOARD


I'm unsure about the RAM & GPU.

 

[Seppie]

Hi Bleu, I'll throw my view in on RAM and GPU, hoping it will inspire others more qualified than me to send you a reply as well.

As far as 32Gb Vs 64Gb of RAM goes - that is a rather large jump and depends entirely on the size of the video files you would be working with [I can't see that much RAM being used for any photo or audio editing] - If the size of the video files you will be working with is larger than 30Gb then you will benefit from having more RAM. Just as a comparison - my own machine uses 16Gb of RAM and I have only maxed it out a handful of times when running large research simulations. I haven't met anyone however that has needed 64Gb of RAM for a personal machine.

The GPU you may have a reason for pushing as these days much of the crunching that is done by the CPU can be given to the GPU to do for you. Again this depends the programs you are using and if they are capable of taking advantage of the GPU in such a manner.

Sorry I can't be more help that that. Maybe you could list the main programs that you intend on using along with the size of the largest projects you would be working on. That way some of the other users might be able to give you a better idea.

Happy hunting!

 

[Bleu]

Thanks again Seppie I didn't occur to me to list the software I have been using. I've used quite a few things over the years but currently I use Final Cut and Avid Media Composer, I also have older copies of Sony Vegas Pro and the suite from Adobe I forget what it's called.

 

[Seppie]

A quick search tells me that Sony Vegas can use the GPU to speed up video rendering (you will need to have Vegas Pro 11 build 52XX or better - according to this youtuber who gives you an idea of what the GPU Vs CPU process means for a small file)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n70Z33gBvLA

and on the Sony Vegas website

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/gpuacceleration

it shows the speed increase using the GPU that you have selected (I'm thinking that the actual numbers quoted there will mean more to you than me!).

Avid Media Composer also benefits from GPU acceleration;
http://www.nvidia.com/object/avid.html

according to nVidia's website. Which by looks of it the K5000 supports
http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-k5000.html

From what I'm reading it looks like the Quadro K5000 is truely in a league of its own when it comes to rendering and using CUDA. Looks like a great choice (I'm not even going to look at the cost!).

A Video about the GPU you've chosen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrAQb5zloZQ

If you are set on using Final Cut however I don't think you have much choice apart from working on a Mac. I may be mistaken but is Final Cut Pro Mac only software?

 

[Bleu]

Thanks Seppie I'll have a look at those links later when I'm not as busy. You are correct Final Cut is Mac only software but I'm told you can run OS X on a PC as long as the components are supported. It would be simpler to get a Mac Pro but they are pretty limited in terms of the upgrades you can make. Thanks again you've been most helpful.

 

[Bleu]

I had a look at the reviews for the PNY QUADRO K5000 on Amazon and they some of them rated it quite low. I think I may choose a different card it seems the QUADRO K5000 preforms very well in some areas but poorly in others compared to lower priced cards. Perhaps two or three lower end cards could do the same job?

I'd appreciate advice from anyone who knows about graphics cards.

Update:

I'm thinking of adding three 6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX TITAN instead of the K5000.