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Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

(OP)
I've been moved to a new group where I work and don't have a computer.  My boss said to find one less than $5,000 and he'll buy it.......and pretty much left it at that.  I've never spent more than $600 on a machine, so I'm kinda in the dark and he's not one to be bombarded with questions.


So, the best I can tell, I'll be working with Solid Works, ProE, Catilia (sp?), and some other solid modeling programs.  In addition, we do R&D and take alot of photos.  I know that the few guys who work on this stuff don't do it on their own machines because they are too slow and prefer to use some in another office.

Anyway, what kind of stuff should I look for and, even better, specificaly what do you reccomend I get and where?

Thanks alot - Barry

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

(OP)
Oh yeah....I'll be using some big 3D scanning tool as well.  I'm not sure what it is called but you scan a part and it turns it into a billion data points.  You then have to go in and clean it up.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Havey ou searched the group yet? This has been discussed a lot.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Mindnumb (Mechanical)
5000 ?
HeHe !  Your lucky !
How to spend the money wisely....  hmm..
Assuming you are building the system yourself:

mainboard:  Anything with a Nforce 4 chipset should be good, but I would recommend Something from DFI. (DFI Lanparty)

CPU :  obviuosly a socket 939 type (AMD) most anything will do, But the x2 class with two cores on it would help a lot if you are multitasking. Enables SW to run at 100% on one core while other tasks are performed by the other. SW will not take adwantage of this itself, but you will be able to do other things more efficiently.

Memory:  2 gigs of quality DDR ram. At least pc3200 and CL2

Disks:  I would most definitly go for a setup with 3 or 4 disks in raid 5.  Prowides exellent speed and security. Go for the most quiet disks , as the raid setup will provide speed and volume without having to by the largest or fastest drives.

Graphics card(s) : Check the solidworks recommended ones. I dont know if SLI ( Scalable Link Interface, enables two cards to share graphics load) is supportet on the nvidia quadro line, but if it is, go for it!

Monitor(s): Dual screen . I love dual screen. I have organized my SW window so that all the tools and the feature tree is on my left screen and my right screen is dedicated to graphic. I will never look back. of course you should go for some kind of lcd monitors with at least 1600x1200 resolution.

Powersupply: At least 400 watt.   go for the more expensive ones. DO NOT SAWE MONEY ON THIS ONE.

Cooling : Depends on where your priorities lie, if you want to push your system to the extreme limits, (overclocking) you should go for wathercooling, or; (dribble) phase change cooling. These systems are not at all straight worward to install, so it might not be for you at all. also , with cooling comes noise, so if you are sensitive to that, go for watercooling. it can be a hassle to install, but there is a lot of good complete systems for sale.  Alternatively go for the standard Heatsink / Fan for hassle free installation.


Rest of the components : fill up as needed. The top models of the DFI motherboards (and most other Nforce4 cipset based ones) feature raid controllers, sound, and gigabit network, some have dual Gb network.

Best of luck !

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

I agree with the above except I would say instead of dual core processors, get one FAST processor because solidworks will only use one processor at a time and the other processor will be wasted unless you are doing tons of multitasking.  I would also recommend NOT to spend the extra money on SLI because again solidworks will not take advantage of it, and in some articles I read, SLI actually SLOWED down the video performance in solidworks.  These graphics cards are REALLY expensive, some $1K+, so if you have to run 2 graphic cards for SLI you are looking at spending an extra $1K+ for no difference in graphics performance in Solidworks.  As for the other programs like Catia, ProE, etc. I can't comment on their hardware requirements.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

I picked a Dell Dimension 8300 off their website. I set a budget of $2500 and just kept picking options until I reached it. Runs SW2006 fine and is probably overkill. I bought it for all my flight simulation stuff. It runs fast, has great video and the flat screen, and great sound from 3 speakers.

This was the easy way out. I love it. No researching, no shopping around, no agonizing. Had the computer in less than a week. Most people won't do it that way, though. I'll admit to being slightly nuts.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Solidmecman:  yes, I guess you are right on the SLI thing, If SW is not supporting it, there is no gain. I have not seen any actual tests on how this works out for SW, but he might get some vendor lend him a card just to try it out. If it works, it might be smart to go for a Card that at least has the possibillity to go SLI on a later point in time to extend the lifetime of the system. It would be a big extra sale for the vendor so he might let him try it out...   All said, the price of these cards are ridiculus, especially considering they really only differ in the drivers, so going for two might be a little over the top. Seems he has no financial worries tho smile

On the dualcore CPU: Sw is not supporting multithreading at present, but might wery well in the future. It might also be benificial for stability, when for instance you start up som process that gobbles up CPU time, like compressing files or whatever, and the process stalls....  then you still can continue on SW as if nothing was going on. Might be far fetched, but I have a feling it would help stability.

This I have not veryfied, but here goes another scenario: I have spent some time converting foregin 3Dmodel files to solidworks parts, and it is extremely timeconsuming, as well as CPU intensive. I have used to start two SW sessions at the same time, letting one do the conversion, and work on the other. I have a single core system, but it allows me to keep on working.... if it automatically wil run on the second core is not tested. Alot of mights an maybees here.. smile

Other than that, You are right on the money, faster single core will give the best performance in pure SW work.

Very interesting to get your view on the matter ! Thanks !

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Mindnumb and Solidmechman,

I have a dual core (AMD X2 4800+).  I do a bit of photorendering using PhotoWorks and the dual core definitely decreases render time greatly.  I have been able to learn much more lately in photorendering b/c the results to my fussing are given so much quicker.  It makes learning PhotoWorks much more enjoyable.  It really depends on what you are using your computer for as to whether it makes sense to go dual core or dual CPU.  It will be interesting to see how MCAD programs continue over the next few years.  I would think there will bit great pressure to structure their code to take advantage of multi-core.  Intel and AMD are announcing plans for up to 4 and even 8 cores on a single die by 2008 (I think).  Quad core machines may even be here by early 2007.  Multi-core cpus are definitely in the future, its just a question of how fast software MCAD companies can re-structure their code to take advantage.  Once one announces capabilities in this arena and takes advantage of the extra hrosepower, I would think all MCAD vendors would be forced to compete.  As to how soon, its anyone's guess.  I'm sure its very complicated as it probably deals with changes to the kernel (parasolid in SolidWork's case, which is owned and developed by UGS).  The nature of how geometry is solved in most MCAD programs is history dependent (hence a feature tree), so making that multi-threaded maybe quite a chore, if really possible at all right now.  If you can justify the dual core cost, it may not be a bad idea to somewhat future proof your machine.  Again, it really depends on what you are doing with your computer.

Pete

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Check out recent reviews at cadalyst.com.  With that much money, you can easily build a hulk of a system.

I run an AMD 64-bit chip and love the efficiency of bang for buck processing that comes with it.  Check out Xi Computer for great workstation packages, since they always fare well in the Cadalyst reviews--usually they take first place.

Others have mentioned important things above--take them into consideration and whatever you do, don't screw up the graphics card choice.


Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

you are probably best to stick with nVidia Quadro cards from all that I have read, if you can afford it, go for the Quadro FX 4000 or 4500, doesn't seem like you can get better than those for workstation graphics..

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Barry,

  How many parts are your assemblies, how complicated do your parts tend to be, how big are your drawings, where are the files stored?  Answers to these questions also help you on where to decide to spend your money - RAM, Processor, Hard Drive, Video Card, etc...

Pete

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Some of the previous posts on  this may be a little out of date with the way PC advancements are going. Recently I Purchased 4 workstations for our drawing office from Dell. This is what I would suggest and then followed by what I bought...

Processor - min 3Ghz (go as high as possible for your money and dual processor if money allows)
Hard Drive - Depends on whether you save to network or locally, get a fast 15,000 rpm one if you save locally.
RAM - Min 1GB - Get 2GB if you can
Graphics - This is probably most important. Make sure you get a workstation card (i.e. ATI Quaddro, Nvidia FireGL). Get Min 128MB or ideal 256MB (or 512MB if you want to spoil yourself)
Monitor - Min 19" Flat Panel.

My system is as follows...

Pentium IV 3.2Ghz
Ram - 2GB
Hard Drive - 178GB (15,000rpm)
Graphics - Quaddro Fx 4400 (256MB)
Monitor - 19" Flat Panel

We do large sheet metal assemblies with 1000's of part with no issue. We bought from Dell. Contact there business unit and haggle them down on price. BTW - Don't give your boss any change, spend it all - you might not get an opportunity again!!!

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

neilc78:

Ghz is no longer the be all end all...  not since the introduction of amd socket A cpu, and that is quite some time a go. here is a rough comparision ... http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2249&p=12

Also, if you consider the price of a top of the line cpu ralative to the performance gain of a mid range, you will find that spending double the amount of money will gain you maybe 20 %  performance... If you are lucky... And a 300 dollar  AMD cpu will beat a 300 dollar intel specimen senseless... smile


I have a dell workstation ( quadro fx1000,  3200mhz cpu, 2 GB ram) my self, but it generates a lot of noize, due to the cooling needs of the extremely powerhungry pentium cpu.

A dell workstation would of course be the easy way out, and it gives exellent return for your money, considering the support system, but if you are slightly in to hardware and actually enjoy building your own computer, you will be better off doing it yor self.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

how do you like the quadro fx 1000?  mine should be here in a couple of days..  how many components can you work with in an assembly?  and can you keep your image quality settings turned all the way up?

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

(OP)
How are the GeForce video cards?

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

I would also suggest a very good, 21" wide screen monitor. You will never go back to anything else after you use it with SW.

Chris
Systems Analyst
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 05
AutoCAD 05
ctopher's home site (updated 06-21-05)
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Geforce aren't supported as they are for gaming. You'll find they will work in many cases but will give trouble and you'll get no help of they do. Possibly get one for home use but don't buy one for your office. Quaddro or FireGL are the way to go.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Get a Quadro. I'm on a dell precision 360 that I customized and picked up for 3.6K two years ago. With a 5K budget you should be feeling lucky. Listen to what these guys said above, cause I have found when the company gives you a chance to spec out your computer, and you come back in six months telling them you need more, they aren't as eager to fork it out. Get 21" dual monitors, you'll love going into work.

Working with scan data can be extremely CPU and memory intensive, so I'd go with a new 64 bit system that can bring you beyond the 3GB virtual mem switch in windows.

I got a tour of the new microsoft OS 'vista' which microsoft says they want out by november next year. It uses ribbons, has transparent shells, 3d folders that you can zoom in to see metadata, apps no longer will be able to be based on dpi to get ready for running on huge flatscreens, and it has a little bit of a mac feel. my favorite is when you move or copy files you no longer get that stupid flying paper between folders and a time estimate that is never right. Its pretty sweet and I see a huge possibility for solidworks to really capitilize on thier new os.

Mindnumb, I use dual monitors and tried putting everything on the left and the graphics on the right, but I am so used to the way I had set up my toolbars I found it was slowing me down. Maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance, but I also use Delcam Powermill or Scanning Soft on the right while running SW on the left so it wasn't so conducive to operating both apps with the toolbars in front of the other. I would be interested if you posted a print screen of your setup, or if any of you have a superior setup that you think is the best way to go. Maybe I should start a new thread on this cause I'm kind of off topic, but I think it would be interesting to see the way everyone sets up the GUI for themselves.

RFUS

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

solidmechman:   the quadro fx1000 is very good at least for my need. The amount of geometry it can accelerate is huge, I have no exact number of parts tho..  I have tested with piping generated assemblies, gonsisting of some 5 to 10 unique parts, and put them into larger assemblies, with no mates, to get over 5000 parts. Large assembly mode turned off. It turns around quite ok, but I have not made drawings of these assemblies.

A side note...  my radeon 9800 card on my 500 MB , 2 Ghz socket A system at home ( softmodded with fireGL drivers ) turns it around a little faster, but that is a single monitor system on 1280x1024 opposed to my 2 x 1600x1200 setup at work.

So... for you guys asking about the geforce cards, and maby the radeon line from ati as well...  some of these cards kan be fitted with modified workstation drivers, as the hardware are essentially the same. you have to make thourough invesdtigations to bee sure your card can be modded, but if your in a thight spot economically it would make sense to check it out.

Unmodded standard gaming cards kan be used, but you get issues with decreased performance as the number of windows with assemblies and parts are opened. you will be able to handle quite large assemblies, but only one or two at the time.   Also there will be no realview support. there might be other issues with incorrect display of lines and geometry in shaded models or drawings, but the only issue listed on the newest quadro cards aside from no realview support is as follows:

 " Limited number of accelerated windows. Amount of video memory determines the number. If 64M - 128M of memory, 3-12 accelerated full screen windows. "

Quote from solidworks website

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

If you use an unsupported card or driver, don't complain about the instabity or things you see on your screen. Because it's card that is the problem. I have seen instability and black bars on the screens of those using unsupported cards.

FYI - The only Quadro Card that is not supported is the "NVS" quadro card.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Yes, Scott is 100% right, please recognize the risk involved with going with
a non professional card. For some users it might be quite all right, but I
suppose you dont get much help with whatewer issues you have from your SW
dealer/support...  Quite understandable...

To summarize :  non proffesional card = last option.

Lets just hope for a universal high quality 3d Layer to get rid of the
professional type cards all together. Oh happy day  smile

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Gee, $5,000. I spent $4,300 1 1/2 years ago and still have one of the fastest SW machines as measured by benchmarks and real world performance. We just retired a slow Dell 3.4Ghz machine in favor of faster hardware and realized some downsides to Dell. You can't upgrade them. Based on benchmarking AMD 64 is the highest performance system you can get into.

You have to make a critical decision first. Does any of the software you have multitask? SW does not (at least not where it counts). If you don't think you will be running multitasking software go with an AMD64 FX 5x chip. Replace the x with the highest number chip you can afford.

Motherboard. I use ASUS because they are fast and solid. A high end NForce 4 board will do fine. Pay particular attention to memory. Any motherboard has a recommended memory list. Get ECC and registered if you can. Tyan is also good and you can get motherboards that will hold more than 4GB of ram.

Power Supply. I use Antec True Power. This is important. Don't skimp.

Memory. OCZ seems to be the hot item now. Corsair or Mushkin higher end products also work. Again, ECC and registered. Dual Channel. 4GB. Remember you have a 64 bit machine and can use every bit of that if you need.

Hard drive. Forget RAID. Doesn't help performance. A Western Digital Raptor or two is quite sufficient. Comes in 36 and 72 GB varieties.

Graphics. NVidia FX series. Get all you can afford.

Now if you are going multitasking than go with the Opterons. You can get dual core or single core on a multiprocessor motherboard. Let economics determine this. While the plain 4x00 series is fast they aren't as fast as the single core FX5x series. The Opterons are.

Mulitasking motherboard. Get Tyan for the Opterons with PCIe support.

Everything else the same as before.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Excellent advice kellnerp.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

I see I made an error in my reply to solidmechman..

I said:

"  the only issue listed on the newest quadro cards aside from no realview support is as follows:

 " Limited number of accelerated windows. Amount of video memory determines the number. If 64M - 128M of memory, 3-12 accelerated full screen windows. "

Quote from solidworks website"

Replace "Quadro" with "Nvidia gaming" card.  sorry .

 

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

yeah I figured that was what you meant because I knew the Quadro cards had realview support and I didn't think they had any limitation to the accelerated windows.

is Realview only used for doing fully rendered animations that are saved to a .avi file?

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

kellnerp - I believe Seagate hard drives to be the most dependable in the business.  I'm driving a Dell 370 and would agree with you on upgradability.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

kellnerp's advice is great--I use a similar such system as he mentioned with Asus and Opterons.  Excellent results, stable system.

For what it's worth, I've found this to be a clever way of avoiding down-time and loss of data.

Use two hard drives, not RAID configured--just normal.  I prefer SATA, for performance and convenience reasons.  Each drive can be swapped on the motherboard to act as the "primary" drive in a pinch.

On each drive, before doing anything else, install your operating system.  One is redundant unless you have a drive crash.  However, having double installations of your hard drive means virtually no down-time if your system drive crashes or becomes infested with trojans, worms, or other malware.  Simply turn off your machine, switch SATA motherboard plugs, and boot on your other hard drive's operating system.  From there, you can scan the other drive and properly remove all malware.  Shut down and switch back and you're all set to go.  If your system drive's operating system is otherwise corrupted, you can at least retrieve data files with no loss of time, since your "data" drive also has an operating system from which you can boot and operate.  You cannot employ this method later, since installing Windows will waste whatever is on your drive--so you have to do it from the start.

If you have an entire drive meltdown, enter the other time saving practice.  I use a piece of freeware called SyncBack (check out Snapfiles.com ) to copy important data files from one drive to the other (only relevant directories/files are "mirrored") over night.  So in case of a drive crash, the most I could lose is a day's work.  Monthly (or more often) back-ups are created and cataloged on DVD in case an asteroid hits my office.

I run Seagate and Western Digital.  I've never encountered a melted-down Seagate drive, so recommend using them unless your data is completely irrelevant (apply to anyone here? --didn't think so).  Each of my drives is fast and has 80GB capacity.  Using these practices has kept me from ever losing anything but program/system files--my design files and any other file type I value are always kept intact.


Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

another good thing you can do is just use 1 drive, and partition it, and keep all of your documents on a seperate partition. That way if you need to reinstall windows, you just wipe out the c: drive and all of your important data say on the e: drive is just fine, not touched.  So you reinstall windows on c: and then you already still have all your data on e:

now if you have an entire drive meltdown this will not help, that's when you NEED dual drives.

I have this cd called UBCD4Win that is great if your OS gets messed up with spyware, etc.  Your computer boots into a virtual windows right off of the cd, doesn't use your HD at all, just uses your cd-rom drive and you system ram.  Works very well and has helped me fix many issues on my pc before without having to totally reinstall windows.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Heckler,

I use the Raptor drives because they are fast (fastest) and that precludes the RAID complication. Drive speed doesn't really effect SW performance in any way I can measure though.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Realview:   I use it a lot to take fast screenshots or save to jpg to give glossy presentations to the sales folks. I do a lot of piping , and with some kind of metallic material on it is the absolute fastest way to get good looking shiny pictures. It lets you see the model with "real" materials without render via photoworks. not the same quality as pw, but you can spin the model around without much of a performance penalty and still see the materials. And the standard materials are quite good looking, so you don´t have to spend much time tweaking settings.

Its Not a must have, but I guess it has given the right wow! factor in a couple of cases. (prowiding a customer with a iso view of a preliminary layout of their pumps/heat-exchangers/ Pipes and a shit-load of valves that actually looks like its all made of steel in a couple of hours after a request somethimes gets the right jaw to drop....)   smile

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

so the regular materials you add to parts does not look the same as the realview materials?  is there a tutorial on how to use realview now that I finally got myself a quadro card?

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

If your card supports Realview, you just turn it on. It is in SW Help.

Chris
Systems Analyst
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 05
AutoCAD 05
ctopher's home site (updated 06-21-05)
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Yes wery straight forward, just mess around a little bit with it, an you get the consept.

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

well I just went to 'View, Display, Realview graphics' but the 'realview graphics' is grayed out so I can't select it.

I know my card supports it, I have an nVidia Quadro FX 1000

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

Have you selected the SolidWorks option in the Aplication Settings of the nVidia card?
(RMB on the nVidia icon in the System Tray)

MERRY CHRISTMAS
(Unabashedly Politically Incorrect)

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

yup, sure did, not sure why this option is grayed out, does it have anything to do with the image quality or performance options in solidworks?

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

A little note on the hard drives, two commonly overlooked features of raid 1:

1. Modern raid 1 implementations read roughly twice as fast as a single disk & write like a single disk.

Since your hard drive write speed (for instance the excellent WD raptor 74GB) is about 80% of your read speed you will get a balance of roughly 1:3.6 (write speed : read speed).
This is very close to the average read / write balance I measure at my old man's company (I do all IT stuff there). I used a couple of tools (system monitor & linux monitoring tools on the server) to measure the amount of data their programs read & write and it seems to float a bit above 1:4 (read bytes / written bytes).

2. How much does it cost to install your pc? is it less than the 50-150 bucks of an extra drive?

My current view is that no office pc currently build should do without at least raid1.

Stefan Hamminga
Mesken BV
2005 Certified SolidWorks Professional
Mechanical designer/AI student

RE: Solid Modeling....Need computer buying advice

wait I think I know what the problem is, I am currently connected into my work pc (the one with solidworks installed) via LogMeIn, and I think when you do that, LogMeIn uses it's own graphics driver or something to speed up the remote access...so that's why the option isn't there.  I also noticed the 'Software OpenGL' option was checked and grayed out, so I know it's something to do with LogMeIn... when I get back to the work pc in person, I will try it again and bet it works then..

but wow, once installing this quadro fx 1000 card, the models look soooo much better now, the lines are not choppy or jagged, they are totally smooth and the parts themselves have much better color, reflections, etc. to them.  It's like the quadro card did somethign to significantly enhance the lighting scheme in solidworks or something, it's definately a world of difference!

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