Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
(OP)
Hi there, thanks for taking the time to help.
I'm to get a new Dell workstation at work with a budget of around £2000. I've specced the following system and would appreciate some comments (i.e. over the top, lacking in certain areas...)
I tend to work with assemblies of 500-1000 parts and recently have started more intensive rendering and COSMOS work.
Base system: Dell Precision 490 with Windows XP Pro x64
CPU: Intel Xeon 5345 (2.33GHz, 1333MHz, 2x4MB) quad-core
Memory: 4GB DDR2 667MHz quad-channel FBD RAM (4x1GB)
Graphics card: nVIDIA Quadro FX3500 256MB
Hard drive: 73GB 15,000rpm SAS HDD
I want the machine to be quite future-proof, hence I think the Dell 490 has space for a second CPU?
Also, with eight DIMM slots for RAM, I was wondering which would be better performance-wise - 4x1GB or 8x512MB?
Lastly, the Intel Xeon 5160 (3.00GHz, 1333MHz, 4MB) is the same price as the quad-core E5345 - which processor is likely to give the best performance now and over the next couple of years?
(I've referred to www.cpubenchmark.net in choosing the CPU...)
Thanks very much for the help,
Chris Thorn
I'm to get a new Dell workstation at work with a budget of around £2000. I've specced the following system and would appreciate some comments (i.e. over the top, lacking in certain areas...)
I tend to work with assemblies of 500-1000 parts and recently have started more intensive rendering and COSMOS work.
Base system: Dell Precision 490 with Windows XP Pro x64
CPU: Intel Xeon 5345 (2.33GHz, 1333MHz, 2x4MB) quad-core
Memory: 4GB DDR2 667MHz quad-channel FBD RAM (4x1GB)
Graphics card: nVIDIA Quadro FX3500 256MB
Hard drive: 73GB 15,000rpm SAS HDD
I want the machine to be quite future-proof, hence I think the Dell 490 has space for a second CPU?
Also, with eight DIMM slots for RAM, I was wondering which would be better performance-wise - 4x1GB or 8x512MB?
Lastly, the Intel Xeon 5160 (3.00GHz, 1333MHz, 4MB) is the same price as the quad-core E5345 - which processor is likely to give the best performance now and over the next couple of years?
(I've referred to www.cpubenchmark.net in choosing the CPU...)
Thanks very much for the help,
Chris Thorn






RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
Eric
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
BTW, to get the 8 DIMM slots you would need the 1KW chassis option (whatever that means) in which case "512MB DIMM not available on the 1KW chassis".
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
I was wondering about quad-core/lower clock vs dual-core/higher clock. At the moment I have a Pentium D 3.40GHz processor with two cores - I take it I should notice quite a difference between that and the Xeon 5160 (when combined with fast HDD and RAM)?
With regard to RAM density I think 4x1GB will do for now... I could always, for example, put four new 2x1GB in the first DIMM slots in a year or so to take it up to 12GB...
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
The 5160 would be around 50 to 100 percent faster than your 3.4GHz Pentium (closer to 100% in most cases I'd say).
Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
We also went with the Precision 490. If it's still available I would save the $300 and get the Quadro 3450. About the same performance, just doesn't support as much of the new RealView stuff in SW2008.
Also you won't really need that 15k rpm SCSI drive as you only use the hard drive when loading file. Go instead with the 10k RPM SATA drive. That's the Western Digital Raptor which actually performs close to most 15k SCSI drives.
This will all save you lots of $$$ which you can put into two SWEET monitors. Dell's Flat panels are awesome and if you've got the space get two 22" ones.
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
See the SolidWorks website for the approved/tested cards for SW2008,
ht
Cheers,
Anna Wood
SW 2007 SP4.0, WinXP
Dell Precision 380, Pentium D940, 4 Gigs RAM, FX3450
http://designsmarter.typepad.com/solidmuse
http://www.phxswug.com
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
www.morrisonpump.com
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
Where my company is coming from is mainly that I can be spending a lot of time (a couple of hours a week sometimes) just sat there waiting for my PC to render a picture or rebuild a drawing of a large assembly.
A faster PC should dramatically reduce that time... but I don't quite know how I'd pitch getting two monitors to them!
Thanks for the continued interest and support,
Chris
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
--Scott
http://wertel.eng.pro
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
Cheers,
Chris
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
Jason
SolidWorks 2007 SP4.0 on WinXP SP2
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
Two monitors means I print out much less. Looking at information on one screen while it is entered into another is better than having to print it out because <ALT>+<Tab> is too inconvenient. No, I can't just copy-n-paste for the examples I'm thinking of.
I currently don't have 2 monitors and really wish I did. I actually prefer turning the second monitor 90 degrees (portrait mode) so it reads pdf files, word docs, and internet pages with the proper perspective, i.e 8.5X11 instead of 11X8.5.
--Scott
http://wertel.eng.pro
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
Scott,
Looks like we are going to need to work on getting you another monitor. Actually we need to do that for all the guys in the group. May take some campaigning but I am sure we can make that happen for you....
Cheers,
Anna Wood
SW 2007 SP4.0, WinXP
Dell Precision 380, Pentium D940, 4 Gigs RAM, FX3450
http://designsmarter.typepad.com/solidmuse
http://www.phxswug.com
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
RE: Dell Precision 490 system specs - any thoughts?
My home PCs video card is 512MB, but it there's no comparison between it and one of the nVIDIA Quadro FX cards...
If you're solely looking at the amount of memory, the next step up is (I guess) the nVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 with 512MB memory, but that's $2000-3000 for the card alone.