BUYING NEW WORKSTATIONS.. 64BIT??

[lordrailie]

HI ALL

WE ARE GOING TO BUY NEW WORKSTATIONS, AND WE ARE LOOKING AT EVERYTHING.. BUT A QUESTION ARISES...

SHOULD WE BUY 64 BIT, WILL BE CATIA BE 64BIT SOON.

SHOULD WE GET DUAL PROCESSORS, OR IS NOT NECESSARY. WE WERE THINKING ON THE NEW XW9300 FROM HP, BUT THEY ARE EXPENSIVE... OR THE INTELLISTATION A FROM IBM...

HOW MUCH RAM SHOULD WE GET.. 2GB MORE...

NEED SOME HELP

UP TO KNOW WE WERE USING CLONIC PCS, WITH 3.2 P4 WITH 2GB RAM SATA HD, AND MATROX PARHELIA 128MB GRAPHICS..

WILL IT BE A BIG DIFFERENCE....

THANKS

 

[catiajim]

V5 is currently 64 bit only in AIX, and only for DMU and FEM. That's not to say it won't expand to more applications or OS's, but only after MS supports a true 64=bit OS.

As for RAM, as much as you can afford!!!!!!! I would definitely start w/ 2GB. If you are going to run XP, you might try to get 3GB.

Also, get the best graphics card you can afford. I'd love to see the results of the newest FireGL from nVidia.

 

[btwilcox]

Just in case you were wondering, the baseline specs for CATIA v5 are located in this link on IBM's software webpage.

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/applications/plm/catiav5/sysreq/sysreq.html

 

[Configurator]

Contrary to Jim, I don't think getting the best graphics card is necessary. I played with V5 on a QuadroFX4000, on the new Wildcat Realizm cards from 3DLabs, etc..

Unless you do a lot of real time rendering, it's really overkill. Were I buying a system myself, I'd probably put a QuadroFX1100 or 1300 in it.


I would recommend the 64-bit systems, but not because V5 will be a 64-bit program any time soon. Rather, they interface with memory much faster than any of the 32-bit chips because AMD put the memory controllor on dye rather than on some slower-than-core-frequency front side bus.

 

[titon]

lordrailie
How much would you be willing to spend on a dual processor, 64 bit enabled workstation?

I configured out of curiosity a few boxes:
-AMD64 2.2GHz dual processor workstation capable (that means I selected only one processor, leaving the second one as an option for later)
- minimum of 2 Gb memory;
- minimum 250 Gb SATA hard drive;
- at least NVidia QuadroFX 1100 video card;
- no monitor

I looked at HP XW9300, IBM IntelliStation A Pro, Sun Java Workstation W2100z, Polywell PolyStation 2020A, Xi MTower 64MP and for reference Dell Precision Workstation 470 Intel Xeon 3.4GHz 2Mb L2 cache.

It looks something like this:
Xi $3150
Dell $3400
Polywell $3540
HP $4000
Sun (3Gb memory and 2 SCSI HHDs but no XP Pro) $4300
IBM seems the most expensive, very few configuration options.

Keep in mind this was just a quick try. Just for the fun of it, Xi has a nice configurator, a little floating window updating the price:

http://www.xicomputer.com/products/mtoweropmp-configure.asp

If it's too much you may want to consider a single processor, but faster, like FX55.
AMD's motherboards are dual core capable, that means in a few months you'll be able to replace your unicore processor with a dual core one with a BIOS update. So you have it, dual processing power!

But I don't know if CATIA V5 takes advantage of dual processor configurations.

I'm not quite sure why you're upgrading now, from your listed configuration it seems you're in need of a faster graphic card Matrox Parphelia is a dinosaur!
Your Pentiums at 3.2 GHz, I suppose they are the older core, are faster than the new cores (Prescott) at the same clock speed (see Anandtech for history) and the fastest one you can get now is a 3.6 GHz (I couldn't get a 3.8 from Dell), barely worth an upgrade:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2353

Until XP64 comes out and V5 is 64 bit capable I'm afraid you're waisting your money and no, you won't see a big difference.

 

[lordrailie]

Thanx guys

Our dealer offered us two workstations, one IBM and one HP, and we are waiting for a Fujitsu Siemens offer.

They offered us hp:
xw4200
3.6ghz,/1mb p4 800fsb/em64t
2x1gb 533mhz ddr2
73gb 10k scsi
quadro fx1300
3120€

IBM Mpro 6225
3.6ghz,/1mb p4 800fsb/em64t
4x512gb pc2 3200 400mhz ddr2
73gb 10k scsi
quadro fx1300
3160€


they told us that dual processor is not supported, and it doesn´t worth to spend more money on the workstation as catia doesnt use it.

we were kind of going for a dual processor capable board, with just one at the moment, for upgrading capability and memory expansion. also I was thinking on 64 bit, for whe the new windows comes.... but will it be better to get that ones we've been offered and change them when the new 64 bit systems comes, or get prepared now....


Actually we are upgrading now, because 1st one of the computers had its motherboard dead, and its been 2 weeks and its not yet repaired (clonic computer) and because we have another two guys in the office with really old computers that are willing for an upgrade, so the two actual cad workstation will pass on to them. Also we think that a certified workstation will be much more stable than our actual ones that crash quite often (mainly because of the graphic device)

 

[lordrailie]

One more question...

difference with XEON 3.4 800 1mb cahe..... 64emt
and AMD opteron 248.....

is the xeon 64 bit??

 

[titon]

Lordrailie
It seems that the sales people are trying to pull a quick one! They’re trying to sell you obsolete technology.
Pentium 4 Xeon offer no upgradeability path, is a dead arhitecture. It looks like the maximum they will ever get out of it is 3.8Ghz and that is because it hit a thermal wall (that’s why the Prescott core was nicknamed Preshot, requires 115W of power!).
Intel’s upcoming dual cores will NOT be pin compatible with the existing motherboards.

“The Xeon is more reliant on frequency-growth and expensive (up 4MB of L3 for the Xeon MP) cache memory to increase the performance as opposed to the Opteron which is focused more on increasing the instructions per clock. The Opteron has no L3 cache and instead has a more generous L1 and L2 cache of 128KB and 1MB respectively. And unlike the Xeon the front-side bus (memory to CPU interface) runs at the same speed of the processor. The point is that higher frequency means higher heat output. “


Lordrailie wrote:
“difference with XEON 3.4 800 1mb cahe..... 64emt
and AMD opteron 248.....
is the xeon 64 bit??”

The short answer is yes if it sports the EMT64 nomenclature, the long one is no!
Here’s a quote:
“The EMT64 chips are still 32 bit chips. Intel will not have any 64 bit consumer chips until next year. EMT64 (Extended Memory Technology 64) chips allow a P4 chip to use the same registers that a 64 bit chip accesses, so that they can use more than the 4GB that a non-EMT64 P4 can access. As a side advantage of this, the chip can "execute" the x86 code, but it does so through emulation using a 32 bit thunking layer. It does not run the 64 bit OS as a 64 bit OS, but as a thunked OS. This is slow and clumsy at best. The point I am trying to make is that the EMT64 bit chips *ARE NOT* 64 bit chips. They are able to use certain functions of the x86 extensions that allow it to access the same registers, but that is all. It is *NOT* a 64 bit chip, nor will it ever be. Intel has announced that it *WILL* produce 64 bit chips next year. I want those who are considering buying a 64 bit computer to understand that while the EMT64 can emulate execution of the code, it is *NOT* a 64 bit chip. Never was, never will be.

Intel produces no consumer 64 bit chips. The Prescott "J" model with the EMT64 designator is a Pentium 4 chip. Like all other P4 chips, it is 32 bit. The EMT64 stands for Extended Memory Technology, and allows the processor to use the x64 core coding to address more than 4GB of RAM. It will emulate running the 64 bit code in Windows Xp x64, but will run it in 32 bit mode only.”

32 or 64 bit, my advice is to get a single processor AMD64 workstation, without dual processor option. A year from now you will be able to take out the 248 processor and just drop a new processor running at 3-3.2 GHz (the equivalent of a Xeon at 4.5-5GHz) or a dual core processor since they will be pin compatible.

Remember that Xeon Pentium 4 is a 7th generation processor whereas AMD64 Athlon is a 8th generation. See the benchmarks:

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=114786&page=3

Microsoft has worked with AMD to develop their upcoming 64-bit operating system (just announced for April) since Intel had no x86 64 bit processors until a month ago!

 

[catiajim]

Sounds like you would be better off to save the money on the Processor(s) and invest it in a second monitor (see the Dual Monitor thread).

 

[windsurferm]

I believe that in the current set up for windows xp only 2gb of memory is usable and that until they launch the 64 bit version this will be the case we tried a machine in the office with 4 in and it made no difference from the 2. Apparently due to how windows caches only 2 can be used on any progs running on windows. I would assume this will be fixed for 64 but don't know.

the bellow link might be of use.

http://www.mathworks.com/support/tech-notes/1100/1106.html

Mark

 

[windsurferm]

The fujitsu siemens offering seems very reasonably priced we have been offered it at £1,800 inc monitor and space mouse.

One interesting bit of web browsing would be the following site which asses usability of the various machines available.

http://www.spec.org/gpc/opc.static/vp8info.html

An interesting thing to note, the top machine alienware is a laptop....

 

[catiajim]

There is a method to get XP to use 3GB of RAM, but my understanding is that each process will only use 2GB. Since Windows and Office uses up to 500MB by itself, using the 3GB switch can make a significant difference.