Quadro Graphics Workstation

High performance desktop chassis for workstations

A workstation PC needs to deliver high performance, low noise, low power consumption and fit within an organisation’s budget.  A workstation must also have the flexibility to meet the most demanding of customer specifications.

Our workstation has been designed with professionals in graphic design and CAD in mind.  That’s why we have chosen a chassis which is able to accept a large quantity of hard disk drives along with multiple graphic cards and SSDs.  The chassis is durable and also has the benefit of internal soundproofing to ensure your office environment is a comfortable place to work.

Key specification of Intel Core i7-8700

8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8700 Processor
Lithography 14 nm
Number of Cores 6 
Number of Threads 12
Processor Base Frequency 3.20 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency 4.60 GHz
Cache 12 MB SmartCache
Bus Speed 8 GT/s DMI3

Key Specification of Intel Core i7-9700K

9th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-9700K Processor
Lithography: 14 nm
Number of Cores: 8
Number of Threads: 8
Processor Base Frequency: 3.60 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency: 4.90 GHz
Cache: 12 MB SmartCache
Bus Speed: 8 GT/s DMI3

9th Generation processors offer higher multi-threaded performance

After a few years of mediocre performance gains from one processor generation to another, the new 8th generation intel processors now offer a significant leap in performance over the 7th generation models. This is achieved by increasing processor core count by 2 cores right across the 8th gen range.

The latest 9th generation processors offer a small improvement in per clock efficiency and slightly higher clock speeds.  Performance gains from 8th to 9th generation are not huge but are worthwhile if pricing of the processors is close.  Performance gains are higher for multi-threaded workloads as the new i9-9700k offers 8 physical cores compared with the i7-8700k having 6 cores with hyperthreading.  the hyperthreading feature adds about 20% performance boost but moving from 6 cores to 8 cores adds 33% to the performance so there is a more significant leap in performance for the i7-9700K compared with other models.

Choose the right motherboard for your workstation

This big difference between these motherboards is the addition of SLI compatibility. Scalable Link Interface (SLI) is a brand name for a multi-GPU technology developed by NVIDIA for linking two or more video cards together to produce a singe output.

Unlike our eSports systems we have not specified this system with dual graphics, so if you want us to preconfigure SLI then we suggest you start with the eSports configuration. However if you want to future proof your system with SLI capability or already have a graphics card you want to SLI yourself then use the Z370 SLI Plus. Please bare in mind that graphics cards have to be matching pares to SLI, so please consider this if you are purchasing this system to work with a GPU you already own.

Both these board represent a step up in features over the entry level MSI Z370-A Pro as they include 2 x M.2 PCIe slots to enable dual NVMe M.2 Storage, Improved USB connectivity with the inclusion of the high speed USB 3.1 Gen2 standard which operates at 10Gb/s and a LIGHTNING USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C connector.

The Z370 SLI Plus also includes an enhanced audio controller with Realtek® ALC1220 Codec. This provides improved audio along with a digital S/PDIF output. All our Z370 motherboards are ready to accept water pumps / liquid coolers and provide multiple fan headers.

Memory choices for high performance workstations

For workstations we recommend a minimum of 16GB of memory.  For high performance systems, choose a minimum of 32GB.  Memory is available in various speed ratings but for standard productivity systems we recommend using 2666MHz rated DDR4 Memory which provides the best performance and stability.

Motherboards will usually include 4 memory slots.  For best performance, install memory as a matched pair i.e. an 16GB memory capacity would be described as 2 x 8GB in the product description for the memory.  This will enable the motherboard to operate in ‘dual channel’  which will offer the best performance.

Select your own configuration of SSD and hard drive

Your choice of storage is important to overall system performance as well as defining the amount of local storage space available on your PC.  Windows will read and write many files to your storage drive both during boot up and during the normal course of operation.  Using a slow storage drive will make your PC feel sluggish and can be frustrating to use.

Solid state drives (SSD) are far faster than traditional hard disk drives but they don’t usually have as high a capacity and they tend to cost more.  Most customers would be advised to specify an SSD of at least 120GB as the primary storage drive as this will contain the OS and will be used to boot the PC.  This will give the greatest benefit to how fast the PC feels in normal use and how quickly it boots up or resumes from sleep.  If you can afford it, we would recommend specifying an SSD of 256GB or 512GB as you will tend to prefer to store some frequently used data and application files on the SSD due to its high performance.

SSD come in a variety of types and performance.  The leap in performance from a HDD to an SSD is massive but performance gains can also be had by moving from a traditional SSD to an NVMe SSD.

Most customers will also wish to specify a second storage drive and we recommend specifying a traditional HDD for the secondary drive.  This will enable the use of high capacity storage drives which will offer adequate performance for photos, videos and applications used less often or data which is not so performance critical.

Discrete VGA graphics cards can be configured to your requirements

Our Quadro Graphics workstation PC system has been designed to work with Nvidia Quadro professional graphic cards. The system can accept cards ranging from the entry level Quadro P400 to the high performance Quadro P6000. The chassis is equally able to handle high performance consumer GTX cards.

For installations requiring the use of 2 consumer cards in SLI mode, please select the MSI Z370 SLI PLUS from the configurator when customsing your PC.

Quadro graphics cards are suited to users running professional computer aided design (CAD), computer generated imagery (CGI) and digital content creation (DCC) applications.

Use the table below to find the right Quadro card for your application