Build Your Own Workstation - Part 1: Justification

I've decided to do a 3 part rundown of my recent DIY workstation. I have very light experience with computer technology, but I learned about 5 years ago that you really don't need that much knowlege at all to build your own computer. The primary benefit, of course, is the money that you will save, but the secondary benefit is that you will know everything about the "under-the-hood" workings of your own computer once you're done.


Initial Assessment and Planning
About 7 or 8 months ago, I determined the need to upgrade my current video editing workstation. With a Core2Quad processor and 8 GB of RAM, most people would consider it a pretty decent machine. However, as I am taking on an increasing amount of HD production jobs, it's just not good enough.

Aside from the core system components of CPU and RAM, there were other improvements I was going to need. As of April, Adobe announced the upcoming release of Creative Suite 5, which would add a number of enhancements and new features, but none so important as the "Mercury Playback Engine," or MPE for short.

With MPE, Premiere Pro CS5 can take advantage of the graphics card (GPU) in a way that was only previously possible with so-called accelerator cards or "real time" cards, usually costing upward of $1,000. There have been many compatibility issues with those cards over the years, too many to list here, so to see Adobe making use of a more common piece of computer hardware was refreshing. Of course, the initial support list for GPU was rather short, and limited only to about 5 or 6 Nvidia-based cards.

So of course I wanted to upgrade my machine, but the question was how to go about it. Buy a new workstation from the likes of HP or any number of other outfits that make digital media workstations? Build a new machine from scratch? Upgrade the components of my current workstation?

Based upon the limitations of my current motherboard, it didn't take long to realize we were talking about a new machine. So I made a laundry list of what I wanted, based upon the components that HP and other system builders list on their workstations.

Here's a basic rundown of what I was considering:

• CPU - an Intel i7 or Xeon quad core processor (possibly dual processor)
• Motherboard - something with support for the newer SATA 3.0 (6 Gbps) hard drives coming out, and also possibly support for USB 3.0. Also needed available eSATA ports on back
• RAM - Triple channel capable, 6 DIMM or more, and 24 GB or greater RAM capacity
• GPU - An Nvidia Fermi-based card (preferably the GTX 470 or GTX 480)

By the time June rolled around, I had my new copy of CS5 installed and running on my existing workstation, and there wasn't necessarily anything in the software that came up short, even with the slightly older hardware. However, I was ready to bang out a new machine.

Price Shopping and Comparisons
After pricing out workstations from HP and a couple of other workstation system builders, I found the average cost to be between $3,500 and $5,000, with the main differentiating factor being i7 versus Xeon processors, and single or dual processors (along with the requisite motherboard and RAM differences between the two types of processors).

At this point, I proceeded to price out my own workstation from scratch. I quickly found that by building my own, I could save a significant sum, more than enough to justify the trouble of doing this myself. In fact, with a pretty good combination of parts and pieces, my workstation would probably end up being under $2,000. Early on, it even seemed possible to get closer to $1,500, but that didn't end up being the case at the end of this project.

I will go through the specifics of researching and acquiring the components in the next part (coming soon) and in the final part I will go through the actual system building process.

Other Thoughts
Many people wonder why, as a creative professional, I do not consider Apple (Mac) computers a viable option. My primary objection is price. Apple products are considered to be premium items, so it only makes sense that they would carry a higher price tag. Of course, each person has to decide for themselves whether the features justify the price. For me, having worked on Macs early in my career, and having compared them in the last 6 years to what's available on the PC side of things, I cannot justify it for my purposes.

Also, many video professionals use Apple's Final Cut Pro for non-linear editing (NLE). If that were my case, I'd be limited to only using a Mac computer. However, as I use the Adobe Creative Suite, I am not limited to just a Mac or PC. A Mac computer can only be configured in very specific ways, and with very specific parts (which actually excludes most of the Nvidia cards I would use for Adobe's MPE, not a good idea). So really, for me, it makes complete sense to edit on a PC, running Windows 7 x64.