Scan's technical specialists spend their entire days (and much of their nights too) setting-up, configuring and trouble-shooting your graphics workstations. As such, they have probably already come across many of the typical problems or conundrums you may be battling with. If your personal pet problem is not here, send us an email by clicking on the button below.
Q: Can a professional workstation be overclocked?
A: Absolutely! Overclocking is no longer limited to hard-core geeks locked away in their basement with a pile of components and a soldering iron. Today, Intel manufactures specific lines of chips designated for overclocking and fully supports the process. System builders like Scan will professionally overclock systems in safe and measured environments to create faster workstations carrying full, identical warranties. This is especially useful for users of professional graphics software which does not support multi-threading, and is therefore limited by the speed of an individual CPU.
Q: I have an old NVIDIA Quadro card bought two years ago, is it worth upgrading it?
A: The professional range of graphics cards tend to be refreshed every 18 months or so, so it is likely that there is one, if not two, generations of newer cards available. Each generation of newer cards may give up to 30% increased performance for a very similar price, so the advantages to your work flow may be substantial. Add to this that the average refresh time for workstations is between two and three years, and it may be time to upgrade both with some new and faster components.
Q: Will updating the driver affect compatibility with the software I am using?
A: In most cases a new driver will not cause compatibility issues with supported software. Some software vendors though, integrate very closely with driver features and may take time to release a software version compatible with a new graphics driver. Check with your software vendor for recommended versions.
Q: Will updating the graphics driver improve my system's performance?
A: In general, yes. New drivers include various fixes and improvements making your graphics card work better and more efficiently. Always keep a backup of your old driver in case you encounter specific vendor related incompatibility problems. [link]
Q: How do I make sure that my new system is as silent as possible?
A: The amount of noise a system makes is determined by the moving parts within it, and the degree of sound insulation on it. Reducing sound disturbance can be done in two ways. First, reducing the number of moving parts reduces the amount of sound created within the system. Second, good insulation reduces the amount of sound that can escape the box. Scan 3XS systems offer much of both. Solid State Drives as standard on most systems mean faster performance as well as silent storage. Fans are also selected for their variable speed and silent action, making a large impact on overall noise levels. Cases are equipped with optional or standard soundproofing, minimizing what little sound remains.
Q: Will overclocking my system affect it's stability?
A: Years ago, overclocking used to be an extreme measure carried out by hard-core enthusiasts risking their hardware and forfeiting their warranties for some extra speed. Since then though, a lot of development has been done, and today overclocking is endorsed by chip manufacturers as well as being offered as standard by many system builders. Overclocking your system today is done on 'enabled' chips specially marketed for this purpose. When done by a reputable system builder like Scan, the faster speed achieved will not affect system stability and carries an identical warranty to the unchanged chips.
Q: Graphics card outputs: VGA, DVI, Display Port, HDMI - what are the differences?
A: VGA, DVI, DP and HDMI - each of these types is a differently shaped connector and carries a different signal to the display. VGA is the oldest format and is analog only. In modern display standards, the quality achieved with a VGA cable and connector will be limited (and will further reduce as resolution and cable length increase). This is due to the VGA standard running RGB analog signals along a single dense cable. DVI is a somewhat newer format and is able to carry either analog or digital signals. The analog element is fairly similar to the VGA one, but the digital signal can product a significantly more accurate image (albeit at a lower maximum resolution). Digital DVI is available in single link or dual link. The dual link version runs two streams of data along the cable, doubling the data bandwidth and therefore allowing higher resolution. Displays will have to specifically support dual link DVI in order to allow this higher resolution. HDMI is a predominantly consumer digital-only format carrying both uncompressed video and audio, as well as some extra data channels. HDMI video signals are compatible with the DVI format. Display Port (DP) is the newest signal and is currently the default connector of pro grade GPU cards and displays (although DVI is still widespread, and VGA still somewhat available). DP offers a range of technical improvements over older formats, as well as supporting higher resolution and better image quality.
Q: What is ECC memory?
A: ECC memory is a type of RAM used mainly in workstations. ECC stands for Error Correction Code, and as the name suggests, it is meant to detect and correct data errors. The errors corrected are ones caused by background radiation flipping the state of individual bits of data. These errors are not usually critical for most applications, but become a problem in high accuracy and repetitive tasks typical to workstation tasks and high end graphics work. ECC memory tends to be more expensive than normal memory due to the extra memory modules needed on each stick to run the code. This memory is also somewhat slower due to the extra work involved in the process. If needed though, this slower performance is more than made up by the avoidance of errors in the completed data, and not having to repeat entire tasks.
Q: What is GPU memory bandwidth?
A: Graphics cards are often measured primarily by the amount of on-board memory they have. Of equal or maybe greater importance though is the memory bandwidth. This is seen as the speed of the memory - the amount of data the card can shift between GPU and on-board memory. The memory bandwidth is determined by the clock speed of the memory and the memory interface width, and is measured in Gb/sec units. A combination of the GPU speed (the speed the card can draw), the memory bandwidth (the speed data can be transferred) and the memory size (the amount of data that can be held) will ultimately define the card's performance.
