On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 3:18 PM, Scott Ehrlich <srehrlich at gmail.com> wrote: > Hello to all: > > I know this list is generally Linux-only, but I figured I'd try to > gain wisdom from those with hard-core Windows needs, too. > > I was recently pricing out a high-end desktop system for a user who > will doing a lot of CAD, Matlab, SolidWorks, and other apps that will > utilize a lot of number crunching and video. > > The quote for the desktop (64-bit Vista is likely), which included 12 > GB RAM, two 1 TB SATA hard drives, a high-end NVidia 3D video card, > and two Intel quad-core 3.3 Ghz processors, was about $15k. > > An approval manager asked if the money could be better spent towards a > cluster for others to use. > > This user's needs are for Windows-based apps. The open question, > then, is can the results the user needs be derived from a high-end > Windows cluster or virtual environment that is multi-user capable and > runs Windows-based apps, or do they need bare metal for true results > and performance? I awaiting an answer on this from the user. > > In the meantime, for those who may have been faced with this, too, > what have you discovered/learned? You could try Windows 2008 R2 application server VMs (one per application) with thin clients. Supposedly the live motion video is much better in 2008 R2 and RDP6.1 then in prior versions and with the ability to serve applications instead of whole log in sessions this gives as much resources to the application as possible. Go for an ESX server with 2x 6 core CPUs and 32GB memory. It will cost double then what you priced out already though. -Ross -Ross