The Heart & Soul of a good Business class workstation is AMD’s new low cost 7850+ Dual Core CPU founded in an Asus M3A78-EM Professional class workstation core with 4GB of matching DDR2 memory for maximum performance without compromise.  This core is designed & warranted for the rigors of 24/7/365 work load for 3 years.  It’s tough and fast yet very low cost at around $210.00 currently!  You can expect many years of services out of these cores and it’s the same core used in both workstations and Workgroup Servers.

We’ll be using Windows 7 Ultimate RC1 64bit so 4GB of memory is ideal as 64bit Win7 really makes incredible use of this.  Yes, this core is Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 certified*

CNSPi / Howard’s Workstation specification

Storage is important for a Business class workstation to be fast & tough.  Your Operating System is Windows 7 Ultimate RC1 64bit and your application group is diverse with a possible need for virtualizing WinXP at some point. For these and all other software on your Workstation to operate with maximum stability and speed, these Seagate File Server grade 250GB NS Hard Drives are the best drive value in our industry.

Seagate has designed & warranted the NS series hard drives for 5 years of 24/7/365 use and Read / Write performance is among the fastest available yet at a very low cost of only $80/drive.  Like any mechanical device, failure is a possibility so getting the best mechanical device is a priority for long term best case TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).

The choice of chassis for the Workstations is important.  They really need to look reasonably elegant & attractive yet can not be too expensive nor can they be poorly designed.  Each case needs a good PSU (power supply) and should breath well enough to keep the internal parts cool without being too noisy.

The CoolerMaster Centurion 590 is probably the best ventilated low cost case available today when equiped with the proper 120mm fans.  Add to this Probably the best PSU for the money made by Power PC & Cooling 500watt with 82+ certification and modular cabling, this Case/PSU provides perfect, long term power for any light server or professional class workstation.

For Deborah & Suzi I would use the same core as this but with my nice, low cost Enterprise workstation class mATX cases which would help lower costs.  I have chosen this specification as Howard really need multiple drives and case flexibility for his many and diverse computing requirements.

Additional components to this spec. are:

• Heatpipe CPU cooler for maximum thermal control under the most demanding processes
• Pioneer SATA DVD Burner (best low cost optical drive)
• 4 - 120mm double ball bearing case fans (50,000 hr. expected life span and very quiet)

My Total Cost for Howard’s Workstation Parts (including shipping) is only $580.00 (not including my build time)