The Ideal SW Computer
The Ideal SW Computer
(OP)
So the ME's and I are looking to upgrade to something more powerful. Our price range is from $2500 to$ 4000 per computer and we want something aggresive. We are ready to spend a little bit more money so that we have something that wont bog down on big assemblies.
I havent really kept up with computers much but I've seen quad-core and eight-core processors out there. In your opinion, what do you think is the ideal combination for a great solidworks computer?
Processor:
Memory:
Hard Drive:
OS:
Video Card:
We all have 2407WFP screens so we dont need to upgrade monitors. Thanks for your help guise.
I havent really kept up with computers much but I've seen quad-core and eight-core processors out there. In your opinion, what do you think is the ideal combination for a great solidworks computer?
Processor:
Memory:
Hard Drive:
OS:
Video Card:
We all have 2407WFP screens so we dont need to upgrade monitors. Thanks for your help guise.






RE: The Ideal SW Computer
Memory: 6 GB
Hard Drive: 2 Raid
OS: windows 64 bit
Video Card: Nvidia best you can afford
Bradley
SolidWorks Premim 2007 x64 SP4.0
PDM Works, Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU
3.00 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Virtual memory 12577 MB, nVidia 3400
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
Bradley
SolidWorks Premim 2007 x64 SP4.0
PDM Works, Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU
3.00 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Virtual memory 12577 MB, nVidia 3400
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
http://www
Anyways, although not concrete, I think I am settling on a Dell Precision 690-32bit with the following:
2 - Dual Core Xeon 3.00GHz processors
2 - 80GB SATA 10K hard drives in a RAID 0
4GB DDR2 RAM
256MB NVIDIA QuadroFX 3500
And we would get these for just over $4100.00 thru our account with Dell.
I am considering the 64-bit platform, but nothing is certain yet.
I look forward to seeing what others post here.
Good Luck!
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
SATA drives have faster thruput than IDE, but not as good as SCSI.
Also, unless you tell DELL or Gateway to put in drives with 3-year warranties (high-grade), they will put in the standard 'junk'.
Better to go with HP/Compaq than Dell or Gateway......we've had much better luck with Compaq than Dell/Gateway.
We LOVE AMD-64, and they perform extremely well, and sometimes better than Intel.
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
On the Quad / Dual core processor issue, I've spoken directly to a Senior Solidworks development engineer in the UK and he tells me, quad core is a waste of time as SW is a dual core application only, you're better off spending your money on more memory & a faster graphics card.
Hard drives - Definitely Raid 0, and 2 drives if possible.
Processor speed - The faster the better, SW relies on the processor a lot.
Hope this is of some help.
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
Also check the XI website, they have a watercooled Core 2 Duo running at 3.4GHz... Properly configured that would be a very fast system.
Some other (minor) tips: if you work over a LAN a lot get a workstation with a proper network card (broadcom or intel for example), as saving $50 on a network card can make your $1000 cpu perform like a $250 one...
The FX3500 is still a very good choice I think.
Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
Personal experience with fiber optics within an organization: The only really cost effective use of fibre optic networking are backbone lines that exceed the reccommended distance of ethernet. You can pick up a high quality gigabit nic that will provide you with great performance. Your network speed is going to depend much more upon the server os/config/hard drive speed and etc AND the quality of your level 3 devices. Linksys routers/switches will not perform the same as the Cisco name even though both are manufactured by Cisco. Then the network environment is going to come into play be it Citrix, Active directory etc. And then you have network load controlled by your domain architecture, ip subneting, router configuration, and quantity of users. Also the ports on your switch/router need to match the configuration of the nic. After all that you finally get to talk about the NIC.
If you spend the extra couple bucks to get a decent quality 10/100/1000 NIC and your level 3 devices all support gigabit ethernet you will have cost comparable networking. If you want to speed up your network processing have your IT guys give you a direct pipe to your own engineering server(s).
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
The good I meant was a network card that has (some) offload features, eg: they will handle some calculation work instead of making the CPU do their work. Realtek chips, for instance, are really good at hogging your cpu. Better chips feature (amongst other features) interrupt modulation. Usually the more server oriented NICs have better offload features, some even have a TOE (Tcp/ip Offload Engine) to handle virtually every calculation that is needed to move your data around.
Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
2x Xeon 5160 (3.0Ghz)
8GB RAM
Quadro FX 4500
SAS RAID 0 (2x 73GB 15K RPM)
XP-Pro 64-bit
I also threw in a Spacepilot for good measure.
I would suggest checking out Anna's Solidmuse (http://designsmarter.typepad.com/solidmuse/) and scroll down for her spreadsheet that has performance details from people that ran her 'punch tool' test. That spreadsheet is the reason that my system got approved.
Tony
HP NW9440
2 GB RAM
Quadro FX 1500M (84.88)
Solidworks 2006 SP5.0
Solidworks 2007 SP4.0
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
This is on XP x64, Nvidia FX3500 graphics, dual core 2.67 Ghz processor.
So the more RAM you can afford the better for large models, our supplier told me that is the case until you reach 16Gb and then the performance starts to drop off due to other hardware restrictions.
Woolly
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
With that said, SolidWorks runs great on this machine but I don't notice a performance gain with the quad core over the dual core. If you're only running SW dual core would be money better spent.
Also, check the graphics card specs for SW 2008. Only certain cards are going to give you good realview performance.
Rob Rodriguez CSWP
www.axiscadsolutions.com
www.robrodriguez.com
http://designsmarter.typepad.com/rob_rodriguez/
Eastern Region SWUGN Representative www.swugn.org www.nvtswug.com
SW 2007 SP 2.0
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
WinXP 64-bit
2 - Quad Core Xeon 2.00GHz
4GB RAM
256MB NVIDIA Quadro FX 3450
2 - 146GB SAS HDs in RAID 0
Outside of Smarteam causing issues with Solidworks (which was an issue on the old systems), these new machines are much better than what they were using.
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
PW and Cosmos are the only 21 apps that can take some advantage of the Dual and Quad core Processors... its just core SW and some of the add-ins that are still linear.
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP![[pc2] pc2](https://www.tipmaster.com/images/pc2.gif)
www.scottjbaugh.com
"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
I agree with Scott, there is hardly any performance gain from a 64 bit OS (1-5% it seems, currently), so when using smaller models you can stay 32 bit. When running models that consume over 1.5 GB of memory i'd start thinking of going 64 bit, because of the added stability.
Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
SW '07 SP2.0, Dell M90, Intel 2 Duo Core, 2GB RAM, nVidia 2500M
http://designsmarter.typepad.com/jeffs_blog
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
RE: The Ideal SW Computer
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