Build new computer or buy older powerhouse workstation?

Hi

I was planning on building a new computer for Resolve Studio for editing a feature on but then I stumbled on a listing for older workstations including one with a pretty amazing spec for it's time (probably 3-4 years back) for just over 3,000 Euros (3,650 USD).
WORKSTATION HP Z840 2x EIGHT-CORE XEON E5-2667 v4 8x 3.2GHz 256GB RAM 512GB SSD
2x 3TB HDD WITHOUT ODD NVIDIA QUADRO P6000 24GB WIN 10 PRO

It made me wonder as to whether there was any advantage in this spec over spending a similar amount on a new set up? Of course, Quadro cards are overpriced for most things normally, (but give out 10bit video). It's been a long time since I've built an edit system so I really need to improve my learning curve.

I've seen statements like CUDA 11 requires cards with a Compute Capability of at least 3.5 for Resolve and I wasn't sure whether that ruled out the Quadro here.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks

Steven Lewis Simpson

Any thoughts?

My preference would be for a new 11th Gen Intel CPU about to drop and a 3000 series RTX card from nVidia.

I don't think HP is worth it.
You are dealing with already bit old technology. For Resolve you don't really need 256GB RAM, nor even those 24GB VRAM unless you think about 8K jobs. Those CPUs are not bad, but not crazy fast either. In next 3 years it will be really old. For similar money you can buy current technology which will be as fast for Resolve and you can optimise it for main usage.
HP is good if you planing to work mainly on some compositing/3D I assume. Some apps which use a lot fo RAM and GPU VRAM.

Technology is still moving so fast that the powerhouse of yesterday is the entry-level of tomorrow…

My preference would be for a new 11th Gen Intel CPU about to drop and a 3000 series RTX card from nVidia.

You would really recommend a CPU that is as yet untested (let alone unavailable) with Resolve over ones that have been tested and approved by BM?

hi,

You can also have a look to the lenovo thinkstation p620, good pc for the price.

regards,

My preference would be for a new 11th Gen Intel CPU about to drop and a 3000 series RTX card from nVidia.

You would really recommend a CPU that is as yet untested (let alone unavailable) with Resolve over ones that have been tested and approved by BM?

Didn’t know BM approves CPUs for Resolve.

My preference would be for a new 11th Gen Intel CPU about to drop and a 3000 series RTX card from nVidia.

You would really recommend a CPU that is as yet untested (let alone unavailable) with Resolve over ones that have been tested and approved by BM?

Didn’t know BM approves CPUs for Resolve.

Replace approve with recommend then?

Don't see a problem running Resolve on any CPU- from i3 to Xeon.
More powerful= better. 10 cores i9 at 4GHz is going be at least as good as older 2x 8 cores Xeons at 3GHz.
It may be bit more complicated with GPUs, but CPU is not a big deal.

BM recommendation is never up to date and rather for big studios (which use HP, Supermicro etc.) than single users. If I'm correct their last one is from April 2018, so not very up to date. It's also very vague as there is no way they are going to properly test every possible PC system configuration.

Don't see a problem running Resolve on any CPU- from i3 to Xeon.
More powerful= better. 10 cores i9 at 4GHz is going be at least as good as older 2x 8 cores Xeons at 3GHz.
It may be bit more complicated with GPUs, but CPU is not a big deal.

BM recommendation is never up to date and rather for big studios (which use HP, Supermicro etc.) than single users. If I'm correct their last one is from April 2018, so not very up to date. It's also very vague as there is no way they are going to properly test every possible PC system configuration.

I'm not sure running Resolve on an i3 would be 'optimal' and for multi core I'd look at AMD before Intel at the moment. I know Jim 'hates' AMD as he had a bad experience many years ago with a long obsolete cpu but I tend to trust what's working best now rather than what didn't work 5 yrs ago or what may work in the future......

I understand.
Point is that 4K euro will buy you as powerful and current tech (Intel or AMD) system compared to mentioned HP.

I understand.
Point is that 4K euro will buy you as powerful and current tech (Intel or AMD) system compared to mentioned HP.

Absolutely

Thanks so much for all the replies. It is as I suspected but it did arouse my curiosity.

Sorry for the slow thanks. The notifications were going into the spam folder.

Steve