Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
(OP)
Hi All,
So I'm going to take the video gamers route and build my computer from scratch. I got tired of trying to "customize" my computer online and decided if I really wanted to get what I wanted I'd have to build it myself.
I'll be posting my endeavor in this forum since the end goal is an excellent scalable Solidworks machine.
Please feel free to contribute your two cents, but don't be offended if I don't take it.
The components that I will need to buy are.
1) Tower
2) Nvidia Quadro Video Card/Cards??
3) Motherboard and CPU
4) 1 Hard Drive, to run windows and applications off of. I already have 2 500GB drives to use as archives.
I'm going to transfer all of my peripherals and bells and whistles off of my current computer so what I'm looking for is really just the guts.
Now some questions.
1) Should the tower and motherboard be big enough to eventually expand to a triple SLI configuration. Can Solidworks even deal with 3 graphics cards.
2) Should I update the ram. I have 4Gb so do I need to? I don't deal with massive assemblies but I do do lots of rendering work. Does Solidworks really take advantage of Ram speed, or just the quantity.
Any other thoughts or experiences will be appreciated.
Cheers
So I'm going to take the video gamers route and build my computer from scratch. I got tired of trying to "customize" my computer online and decided if I really wanted to get what I wanted I'd have to build it myself.
I'll be posting my endeavor in this forum since the end goal is an excellent scalable Solidworks machine.
Please feel free to contribute your two cents, but don't be offended if I don't take it.
The components that I will need to buy are.
1) Tower
2) Nvidia Quadro Video Card/Cards??
3) Motherboard and CPU
4) 1 Hard Drive, to run windows and applications off of. I already have 2 500GB drives to use as archives.
I'm going to transfer all of my peripherals and bells and whistles off of my current computer so what I'm looking for is really just the guts.
Now some questions.
1) Should the tower and motherboard be big enough to eventually expand to a triple SLI configuration. Can Solidworks even deal with 3 graphics cards.
2) Should I update the ram. I have 4Gb so do I need to? I don't deal with massive assemblies but I do do lots of rendering work. Does Solidworks really take advantage of Ram speed, or just the quantity.
Any other thoughts or experiences will be appreciated.
Cheers
60% of the time, it works every time.






RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
More information can be found under the Pages section at http://www.solidmuse.com/
Go to the online section at h
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
I checked out XI but really didn't like the look of their towers.
It also wasn't giving me Quadro CAD cards. Just the Quadro CX cards which I believe are geared for Photoshop and Graphic art. Am I wrong about that?
60% of the time, it works every time.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
As for the "look of their towers" ... who cares what they look like. The tower will probably be pushed under a desk. How it works is what matters.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Solidworks runs _much_ better on a computer that's not also running MS Outlook, MSIE, Picasa, and whatever administrivia is demanded in your environment. Offload to your old computer (or just prevent startup of) anything that isn't directly needed to run SW.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
evenespecially Windows.RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2008 SP4
Nvidia Quadro FX 1000
AMD Athalon 1.8 GHz 2 Gig RAM
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
By bells and whistles I merely meant keyboard and mouse etc. And Outlook express will never run on any machine I own, work machine or not.
And true looks don't matter but this tower won't be hidden it will be in my living room, and my fiance would have something to say about a big black ugly box next to the couch.
Thanks for the replies.
60% of the time, it works every time.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
I'm running a custom-built system with a nice, quiet Antec case (big, slow fans) now, and it jams (had a lot of help from Stefan in specifying the bits and pieces). I use the Core 2 Duo E8400 chip--cheap and fast.
Previously I've had a couple of Xi machines. Ask them to use a different case--they might do it, as long as they have little risk in heat-management issues and the like. I've found those machines to be (by far) the best value available in pre-packaged workstations.
The other way to do it is simply to check out a set of system specs offered by someone like Xi and purchase the bits yourself from newegg.com (or wherever). Tweak what you like at your own risk when deviating from the punchlist.
Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Did you ever run Anna's benchmarks on your new rig?
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Renders very fast, was great for a recent animation project (took seven-hour animation renders down to about three hours since my last Xi box). Nice!
Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
newegg? tiger? the last thing i'd be thinking about is the case.
Just remember, you are your own IT guy. Not that buying a system off dell won't give you problems. I had a Mobo go bad, a HD failure, and then ended up replacing the mobo completely. Makes getting work done a pain in the butt.
get a liquid cooled board. 775 socket. nvidia quadro 570, 1700, or 3700. ddr3 if you can pay for it. pick the right power supply. dvdrw. 10000 rpm is you can't afford solid state. raid1. fastest processor you can buy but up to you on core2 vs quad on what else you are doing at the same time. If you are using sw all the time, i think its a shame to watch those cores idle. rendering, its another story. pick the rest of the bells and whistle you need after you build the system
I have been working on Windows 7 and love the way it manages my hardware. such a treat as compared to XP x64
rfus
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
rfus, sure, the top-of-the-line processor is nice, but the second or third in line is nearly always a much better value. I'd recommend getting the best bang/buck ratio, and simply upgrade the whole system (or slow components) a minimum of every two years. The hard drive will pack up with Windows sludge-ware anyway by then, so you might as well reformat a new system instead of the old.
I don't like Dell anymore because of the crap-ware they pack onto their systems (might be different with "business" grad stuff). Why do that? I've got two laptops that struggle about a minute to open Firefox. Maybe the free education with Linux has an appointment with one of those.
Windows 7 looks quite promising. I'm eager to try it out. I'm due for a new system in about 11 months, so that may be good timing. Would be great to have a 64-bit OS these days.
Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
What mobo and processor are you considering?
Jeff,
What mobo are you using with the E8400 that you ran the benchmark on? Do you have a preference on mother board brands?
I've been in the process of "considering" building my own rig for home use. I've already decided on the E8400 based on your previous advice, but wondered what your thoughts on motherboards were. Are there particular brands/chipsets that you would recomend/avoid?
Joe
SW Office 2008 SP5.0
P4 3.0Ghz 3GB
ATI FireGL X1
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
htt
I love it. Lots of nice details included with the stuff included in the box, plus the way the board is laid out. Seems like the connectors are of higher quality than a DFI board I tried first. So if I were shopping for another board now, I'd look for something by Gigabyte. (I've had board failures with Asus in the past--most annoying thing ever trying to track down.)
Consider something a tad faster than the E8400 now. I'd imagine you could get a better value now--a year after I built this system--with a faster chip.
Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
I agree with you on the bang for buck ratio. I guess I meant get the best processor you can AFFORD to buy. I made this mistake on the fastest AMD 939 in early 06.
rfus
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Thanks for all the great discussion.
I'm going to use 64bit of course so ram is no limit.
I was thinking of an Nvidia board that could eventually run in a triple-sli configuration. Hopefully SW can eventually take advantage of that.
As far as CPU goes, should I go quad core or the new i7 chip??? Most of my work is just modeling and rendering. Not a whole lot of large assemblies. But who knows what the next contract may hold.
But I agree usually breaking the bank for that extra .2 Ghz on a processor usually isn't worth it.
Also I'm in Vancouver, Canada where our dollars is weak as h$$%, so Xi isn't looking as appealing. Tiger direct.ca does have base kits you can buy but it looks like you can't customize them.
60% of the time, it works every time.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
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60% of the time, it works every time.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
i7 is still overpriced at this point. if you can afford it, go for it i guess. one will tend though, when buying/builing computer for components to start to get taken by the hype. next thing you know you are sold on triple-sli and i7 CPU, and you will pay more than you need to to accomplish your job. How often do you find yourself waiting for stuff to rebuild? I render twice a month maybe, and Photoview has made this much quicker.
The motherboard you show is not actually an NVIDIA board per say. There are all kinds of mobo manufacturers using NVIDIA's chips (XFX, Asus, EVGA).
Go on newegg and build up a hypothetical system with specs and pricing. Post it here and i'm sure you'll get some good feedback.
Too bad you don't live in U.S. If you are using this computer as your primary business tool for your self employment engineering services, it is possible that it could be written off in one year with a section 179 deduction.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
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Harry
www.tynevalleyplastics.co.uk
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
I'm gonna put together a selection this weekend and well see what tumbles out of it
60% of the time, it works every time.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Here is the build so far:
XI Base Workstation Config
Upgrades And Options:
Intel i7 920
6144MB Patriot™ Viper 9-9-9-24 DDR3 @1333MHz
Quadro FX 3700 to be added initially. More to follow
Samsung T240
64GB Solid State Drive Patriot Warp SATAII
Vist 64
EVGA X58 MOBO
1100 W Coolermaster PS
Tower COOLER MASTER HAF 932
Total - $2386
60% of the time, it works every time.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Motherboard - EVGA X58 SLI
Processor - Intel i7 920
Ram - 6Gb OCZ OCZ3P1600LV6GK
Hard Drive - 2 x Samsung HE753LJ in a Raid 0 Config
Tower - Coolermaster HAF
Graphics - Nvidia Quadro 3700
Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. I'll be starting to assemble once the tower arrives.
Cheers
60% of the time, it works every time.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Solidworks is a single threaded application that does mostly linear calculations. Having multiple cores is not helpful but doing quick floating point calculations is. For Solidworks, MORE GHZ = BETTER.
For renderings (including Photoworks), and most other software, multiple cores are extremely helpful.
Research your video card, last I checked there were extreme diminishing returns on anything over FX570 to the point of getting a faster card is pointless.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
60% of the time, it works every time.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
All solidworks features and operations are single threaded(extruding, sketching etc). So having a high speed single core is important for doing any modeling work.
I would definitely invest in a backup solution of some kind if I were you (off site and automated), if you still want to do raid 0, spend some cash and go raid 0+1.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Has anybody run an Nvidia 3700 card vs. a 570? Is the cost worth it? I'm leaning towards the 3700 since the 570 can't be used in SLI. And the main goal is that my system can be built upon later.
Thanks
60% of the time, it works every time.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Nvidia has a new generation of cards. You want to be looking at the FX580, FX1800 or FX3800.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html
Cheers,
Anna Wood
SW2008 SP5.0, Windows Vista SP1
IBM ThinkPad T61p, T7800, FX570M, 4 gigs of RAM
http://www.solidmuse.com
http://www.phxswug.com
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
SLI does not exist as a pathway to future upgrades, its meant to be used NOW to chain multiple cards together.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
Where do I find a good Solidworks Benchmark?
Thanks
60% of the time, it works every time.
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
RE: Gonna build a Solidworks Rig From Scratch
First rebuild 16.22s.
Next run with the Quadro 570
60% of the time, it works every time.