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My current employer has given me the opportunity to design my own GIS workstation. The problem is I have no idea what is important when it comes to hardware! I have been given a datasheet from Fujitzu which includes the latest CELSIUS M720 series workstations but the configuration includes about 30 different processors, graphics cards, and hard drives.

I will be working a lot with ESRI desktop suite (spatial analyst and 3D analyst) and doing a fair amount of raster processing (DEMs, visibility analysis, etc.), but I also use the GDAL library, SAGA-GIS, Quantum GIS and others. Does ArcGIS 10 actually use multiple cores?

I have the choice from 4 cores with 8 threads up to 8 cores with 8 threads - 16 threads?

Is SSD SATA III better than HDD SATA III?

The Celcius R920 supports up to 512 GB RAM! But what do I need?

It will probably be the last time I get a new workstation for the next 5 years, so I am curious what others have ordered or feel will be necessary for the coming years. Obviously the cloud isn't taking over as quick as they say!

Thanks for any input,

Rob

My current employer has given me the opportunity to design my own GIS workstation. The problem is I have no idea what is important when it comes to hardware! I have been given a datasheet from Fujitsu which includes the latest CELSIUS M720 series workstations but the configuration includes about 30 different processors, graphics cards, and hard drives.

I will be working a lot with the ESRI desktop suite (spatial analyst and 3D analyst) and doing a fair amount of raster processing (DEMs, visibility analysis, etc.), but I also use the GDAL library, SAGA-GIS, Quantum GIS and others. Does ArcGIS 10 actually use multiple cores?

I have the choice from 4 cores with 8 threads up to 8 cores with 8 threads - 16 threads?

Is SSD SATA III better than HDD SATA III?

The Celsius R920 supports up to 512 GB RAM. But what do I need?

It will probably be the last time I get a new workstation for the next 5 years, so I am curious what others have ordered or feel will be necessary for the coming years. Obviously the cloud isn't taking over as quick as they say!

My current employer has given me the opportunity to design my own GIS workstation. The problem is I have no idea when it comes to hardware! I have been given a datasheet from Fujitzu which includes the latest CELSIUS M720 series workstations but the configuration includes about 30 different processors, and graphics cards, and hard drives.

I will be working a lot with ESRI desktop suite (spatial analyst and 3D analyst) and doing a fair amount of raster processing (DEMs / Visibility analysis etc), but I also use the gdal library, SAGA-GIS, Quantum GIS and others. Does ArcGIS 10 actually use multiple cores? I know it sounds good to have, but does GIS software really use it?

I have the choice from 4 cores with 8 up to 8 cores with 8 threads - 16 threads?

Is SSD SATA III better than HDD SATA III?

The Celcius R920 supports up to 512 gb RAM! yes RAM! but what do I need?

It will probably be the last time a get a new workstation for the next 5 years, so I am curious what others have ordered or feel will be necessary for the coming years. Obviously the cloud isn´t taking over as quick as they say!

thanks for any input,

Rob

My current employer has given me the opportunity to design my own GIS workstation. The problem is I have no idea what is important when it comes to hardware! I have been given a datasheet from Fujitzu which includes the latest CELSIUS M720 series workstations but the configuration includes about 30 different processors, graphics cards, and hard drives.

I will be working a lot with ESRI desktop suite (spatial analyst and 3D analyst) and doing a fair amount of raster processing (DEMs, visibility analysis, etc.), but I also use the GDAL library, SAGA-GIS, Quantum GIS and others. Does ArcGIS 10 actually use multiple cores?

I have the choice from 4 cores with 8 threads up to 8 cores with 8 threads - 16 threads?

Is SSD SATA III better than HDD SATA III?

The Celcius R920 supports up to 512 GB RAM! But what do I need?

It will probably be the last time I get a new workstation for the next 5 years, so I am curious what others have ordered or feel will be necessary for the coming years. Obviously the cloud isn't taking over as quick as they say!

Thanks for any input,

Rob