Recommendations for Windows Platform

[amorosoe]

I''ve been using Macs since the 80's, but the evidence of issues with Rube Goldberg Thunderbolt/Firewire/Powered Repeater Hubs; has me thinking it's time to leave Macs behind. I'm tired of Apple's killing off it's own technology. Especially Firewire. As if Photographers, Videographers, and Audio Engineers, should just replace everything they've got. If they want to drop Firewire, their refusal to offer professional workstations that can take an expansion card, is unforgivable.

So can anyone recommend a good Windows workstation, with either Firewire built in, or a good Firewire add-in card? We're really looking for a tethered desktop set up. And if your recommendation would be a good set up for video work, so much the better!

Ernest 

[PeterDorr]

I have had one build purposely with the following specs.

– Lian Li PC-B12SB, Seasonic X-850, 4x Scythe Glide Stream 600
– Gigabyte Z87-D3HP, Intel Core i7-4770K @ 4,2Ghz, Scythe Mugen 4
– 16GB (2x Crucial BX Sport ULV DDR3-1600, 240GB Crucial M500
– 4x 2TB Western Digital Black 'FAEX' RAID0, LG BH16NS40
– MSI GeForce GTX 780 Twin Frozr 4 3G5/OC, Dawicontrol FW800 PCIe
– Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64bit EN

Key reason for me to abandon Mac (I have an unsuitable new Mini of only 2 months old  ) was that I need a big HDMI card to drive my 4K screen in the studio and this one does it like a charm.
The whole system is fast and reliable, with the occasional Phocus crash but that is on all platforms.

[amorosoe]

Wow that's quite a system! Thanks for all of the very specific info Peter. A custom build will be out of the question with our IT department, however specs from your set up, may prove quite helpful. Anyone else out there with a good working PC workstation?

Ernest

[SteveK]

Depending on what you want to spend, you will need a fast CPU but maybe not the fastest.

For using Photoshop a SSD is a must. Further 16GB RAM is perfect. I upgraded to 24GB but it did not make things faster.

When it comes to FW I can recommend DeLock PCI cards. I have it in the workstation and one FW card for my notebook.

[amorosoe]

Thanks Steve. We'll look into the DeLock cards. I haven't heard of them, but coming over from the mac side, there's a lot I don't know. Thanks again!

[SteveK]

delock is a known brand. they make very fast CF cards as well

[Alex]

I've noticed that over recent years the Nvidia Gaming cards have been more beneficial to Phocus's performance than the Quadro cards (which does saves money). Get yourself a large card 3GB+ and don't stint on the power supply and case as it'll help keep components healthy especially when both a FW800 and gaming card are being used by: I use a 1200W PSU within a large Cooler Master case. These I use as a base foundation upon which the Motherboard/CPU/Memory (as a preconfigured bundle) is updated every 1.5 years.  Hard-drives are to a degree still the bottleneck in the system and essentially to run a base workstation it's ideal to have 4 drives: 1) OSdrive 2) OSscratch/temp drive 3) DATA drive / Software Temp/scratch (obviously you may want to add backup drives as well additional data drives especially if video encoding). As mentioned before 16GB is adequate for working with 1-2GB work files.