Solved Recommendations for new workstation

achix said:
plus two 24" samsung monitors!
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If you use a WM with virtual desktops you can reduce that to one samsung monitor.

If you use a tiling WM, you can probably reduce that further to an 18" monitor ;)

In general though, it looks good. There isn't anything I can identify there that shouldn't run FreeBSD.
The weak point is probably going to be the motherboard (purely because there is a lot of things on these boards that may or may not play well).

I also personally don't recommend NVidia as it is today. Compatibility is fine with the proprietary driver but if we do keep using it, there is no incentive for NVidia to ever change things and go properly open-source. In my opinion we should always be pushing for this when we can and especially now that AMD is pretty competitive (on FreeBSD where CUDA support is weak anyway) it might be something to consider?
 
achix said:
1 x Zotac VGA GeForce GT 730 Zone Edition
4 GB
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I have some of this exact card in the 8x PCIe slot version. Also only 2GB. They work fine.

But I use them for virtual machine instances.

I don't see where they would bring you anything on top of Ryzen graphics, Right?
Does the CPU have graphics? If so that is a waste of money.
 
Your SSD does not appear to have any power loss data protection (on board capacitors).
So it won't be suitable for housing databases, nor as a ZFS intent log (ZIL).
 
The title says workstation but we have recommended server parts!

Take VGA Card off and Add UPS... Is Ryzen graphics supported on FreeBSD?

Why not add B550 mobo for your PCIe4 bus CPU. Are they that much more? B450 is limited to PCIe3.
Kind of a mish mash.
achix said:
1 x PSU GPB-500S
46.90€
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I am really a fan of branded power supplys. Antec is real good.
As a former system builder my most common fail was power supplies. Seconded by crappy mobos like asrock.
 
Phishfry said:
Why not add B550 mobo for your PCIe4 bus CPU. Are they that much more? B450 is limited to PCIe3.
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I strongly support that sentiment.

It's not just that your chosen SSD needs PCIe4 for best performance, but B550 has an excellent list of features (including PCIe4), which will carry you comfortably into the future.
 
Phishfry said:
What about ECC? Did your rule it too expensive? Does the B450 chipset support it?
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AMD CPUs and chipsets generally support ECC, but AMD don't test the ECC function on "non-enterprise" CPUs. They leave that to the motherboard manufacturers, where some do, and some don't. Gigabyte says of the B450M DS3H "Support for ECC Un-buffered DIMM 1Rx8/2Rx8 memory modules (operate in non-ECC mode)".
 
achix said:
…
looks good?
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Not looking too deep in it: that PSU looks cheap; video card looks too expensive (are those special Greek prices?); with the box CPU cooler and those HDD's that config is also going to be very loud by modern desktop standards (might not be important to you).
 
shkhln said:
It doesn't. Those would be the CPU's with the G suffix (and smaller L3 cache, so it's a tradeoff).
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Does it have a FreeBSD video driver for Xorg? I see the 5700G uses Radeon
For 8 physical cores the 5800X CPU is a beast for ~$309USD
105W is not bad either.

So back to power supplies.
Going overboard on wattage cannot compensate for poor quality components.
24 months is not very good and is telling.
Pictures are underwhelming now that I know more about electronics..
 
kpedersen said:
Hmm, big and fast. The ThinkPad T60 was pretty big and probably had a high terminal velocity if launched off a cliff.

If you are looking for a pre-built machine, the HP Z-series have been very good. https://www.hp.com/us-en/workstations/desktop-workstation-pc.html
I have only tested FreeBSD myself up to the HP Z420 but that worked well.
Click to expand...
Second the recommendation for HP Z series. I am running FreeBSD on a Z440 and it's great - quality workstation components and everything designed well - it's quiet too.
 
Phishfry said:
Yea I like those. Solid cap boards.

-- GIGABYTE --Geeks Column of the Week - All Solid Capacitor

www.gigabyte.com
Not a fan of your storage choice but you are working with a budget.
The arrangment looks right nvme for booting and 2 spining disks for your mirror.
I am just not a fan of WD.

What about ECC? Did your rule it too expensive? Does the B450 chipset support it?
Click to expand...

I dont know, I guess ECC will be out of budget. I had one memory failure (fsck etc) with normal commodity memory in 13 years, hard to justify ECC.
 
kpedersen said:
If you use a WM with virtual desktops you can reduce that to one samsung monitor.

If you use a tiling WM, you can probably reduce that further to an 18" monitor ;)

In general though, it looks good. There isn't anything I can identify there that shouldn't run FreeBSD.
The weak point is probably going to be the motherboard (purely because there is a lot of things on these boards that may or may not play well).

I also personally don't recommend NVidia as it is today. Compatibility is fine with the proprietary driver but if we do keep using it, there is no incentive for NVidia to ever change things and go properly open-source. In my opinion we should always be pushing for this when we can and especially now that AMD is pretty competitive (on FreeBSD where CUDA support is weak anyway) it might be something to consider?
Click to expand...

I got plasma5 , 6 virtual desktops, I cant see how one can live with one monitor.
 
gpw928 said:
Your SSD does not appear to have any power loss data protection (on board capacitors).
So it won't be suitable for housing databases, nor as a ZFS intent log (ZIL).
Click to expand...
I know that, no production DBs on the workstation. Can live with 0.02% of losing a test DB.
 
shkhln said:
Not looking too deep in it: that PSU looks cheap; video card looks too expensive (are those special Greek prices?); with the box CPU cooler and those HDD's that config is also going to be very loud by modern desktop standards (might not be important to you).
Click to expand...
yes greek prices. PSU was midrange. What can go wrong with it?
 
gpw928 said:
It's not just that your chosen SSD needs PCIe4 for best performance, but B550 has an excellent list of features (including PCIe4), which will carry you comfortably into the future.
Click to expand...
jmos said:
I doubt that you will notice any difference on a workstation above 4GB/s. But you will notice that the higher power consumption does a great job as a heater. I still go with PCIe3.
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The WD BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD is purported to read at 7000MB/s, write at 5300MB/s, with up to 1,000,000 IOPS with PCIe4.
As far as I can see, this is at the upper end of the PCIe4 x4 capacity, which is double PCIe3 x4. There are on-line reviews that examine those (marketing) numbers. I accept that they need a heatsink, but there's a price for all that speed.
 
I strongly would suggest going with well-known brands for PSU. I swear by EVGA, esp. after a horror story with a cheaper, less well-known brand. When I was putting together my first rig 5 years ago, I went with a PSU that had nice online reviews, a decent-looking warranty, and a reasonable-looking price. Brand was Apevia - something I never knew about beafore. Bad move. Within a week, the cheap PSU fried, and took down the motherboard (Asus B350-Prime) with it. I had to replace both the fried PSU and the motherboard. Got an identical Asus board, but for PSU, I spent a bit more to get a better quality brand.

Also - B450 is inexpensive, but not the latest thing. I'd have concerns about a 5000 series chip being compatible with something that old. It's not impossible, but OP would need to know how to upgrade the BIOS on a motherboard before the CPU is even put in. Not every motherboard even supports that, and among those that do - instructions often require attention to what comes first, second, what's compatible, what's not. I went through that adventure building my second rig.

One more thing about B450: It does NOT support PCIE4. Only PCIE3. Get a B550, or an x570. Asus boards are legendary quality, they won't let you down.
 
gpw928 said:
The WD BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD is purported to read at 7000MB/s, write at 5300MB/s, with up to 1,000,000 IOPS with PCIe4.
As far as I can see, this is at the upper end of the PCIe4 x4 capacity, which is double PCIe3 x4. There are on-line reviews that examine those (marketing) numbers. I accept that they need a heatsink, but there's a price for all that speed.
Click to expand...
Of course it is faster - in benchmarks as well as in some special scenarios. But I've pointed out that you won't notice that in your daily work. And the higher power consumption of PCIe4 is on the mainboard (the memory card itself isn't really relevant). No benefit, more temperature, more coolers, more noise, wasted power - that's why I don't use PCIe4.

(And: IMO the times to buy hardware like "what's the fastest I can get for my money" are (and should be!) over - most people could use a Raspy for their work, and many hardware from the last 10 years is still good enough. Today you should ask yourself: What do I need? And not: What can I have?)
 
jmos said:
Of course it is faster - in benchmarks as well as in some special scenarios. But I've pointed out that you won't notice that in your daily work. And the higher power consumption of PCIe4 is on the mainboard (the memory card itself isn't really relevant). No benefit, more temperature, more coolers, more noise, wasted power - that's why I don't use PCIe4.

(And: IMO the times to buy hardware like "what's the fastest I can get for my money" are (and should be!) over - most people could use a Raspy for their work, and many hardware from the last 10 years is still good enough. Today you should ask yourself: What do I need? And not: What can I have?)
Click to expand...
I don't know what the OP's workload looks like.
My point was that the chosen SSD is a premium product aimed at the top end of the market, and needs PCIe4 to achieve its rated performance.
So the rational choice for the OP would be to either get a PCIe4 capable motherboard or a cheaper SSD.
 
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