CPU choice

[Grant101]

Hi all, I’m looking to get a new CPU, but I’m undecided whether to get AMD Athlon 64 3800+ or INTEL 3.6GHz Intel Pentium 4 560.
Could you give me any tips on which are the better choice??


Also can anyone shed any light on Hypertransport for the Intel and Hyperthreading for the AMD?

What is the difference if any? I need a good CPU for rendering.

Thanks in advance

Grant 101

 

[SBaugh]

They are both good, so it comes down to your preference.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users

 

[rporter]

If you go with the AMD get the 939 pin cpu

 

[Grant101]

"rporter (Industrial) 8 Apr 05 9:19
If you go with the AMD get the 939 pin cpu "

Is there any particular reason for this?

 

[MadMango]

Read through faq559-974

The Socket 939 AMD processor has more available bandwidth I believe, even though its not mentioned in the article.

[green]"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."[/green]
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[Heckler]

Solidworks has a section for system requirements that users can access providing your SWx seated is supported

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/SystemRequirements.html?PID=252

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 2.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 1400


Do you trust your intuition or go with the flow?

 

[Grant101]

Can anyone shed any light on Hypertransport for the Intel and Hyperthreading for the AMD?

 

[NickE]

HyperThreading is the Intel version. It uses hardware to simulate two separate processors. Basically it is useless for SolidWorks, and just makes the menus run slow and other thing badly. The photoworks render engine has support for multithreading so it can use the full processor in the render.


Aside: Any particular reason you are using Photoworks for renderings? My experience with it is that it only ever does an ok job and never does anything particularly awesome.

I much prefer PovRay or similar true raytracing software.

nick

 

[cadmaniac]

I am a dedicated AMD user, but am beginning to have my doubts for CAD work. My system is VERY fast and modern, but grinds to a crawl on semi-complex physical dynamics solutions. I suspect pure clock cycles may end up being best. AMD is around 2.5 ghz while Intel is well over 4 ghz. Keep in mind you will need an Intel board and DDR2 RAM which is all a bit more expensive. If you are not going to be animating complex assemblies, then either one is more than enough computer. If you are getting a new board and choose AMD, do get the 939 as suggested. Make sure the board has 4 memory slots so you can run 2 pair of dual channel memory. As I have said in the past, don't skimp on memory. Get performance memory and learn how to set it up properly in the bios. Expect to pay around $250 for a 1 ghz pair (512mb x 2).

Anyone can be Captain in a calm sea.

 

[Grant101]

I use either 3dmax or solidwrx photorender, i havent used PovRay. Thanks for the tip, ill have a look into it.

Im just trying to get some information on rendering and CPU's.

 

[Grant101]

I will be getting a complete system rebuild, im currently trying to differentiate the better system parts & CPU i.e. AMD or Intel and the collective components to go with it for the best performance.

If anyone could recommend a system setup I would be grateful.

Thanks in advance

Grant 101

 

[Theophilus]

Have you sifted this forum for similar topics?
I posted a link to a recent CADalyst review of workstations that discuss some of these issues.
thread559-119270

I use a 64-bit Opteron (AMD) and love it--it's over a year old and still faster than many of the P4 systems my clients have. So there's a lot to be said for the CPU, motherboard, and the architecture that ties everything together. It's not all about the CPU.

I use PhotoWorks all the time and have not found it lacking in reality if I feel like setting up a scene for an hour or two. Brian Hill has some impressive images done with PhotoWorks:

http://www.bxhdesigns.com/

Has anyone posted available renderings using other rendering systems? I keep hearing about them, but haven't seen renderings of things generated in SW and modeled in these other systems. I'm curious to see the extreme diffeence touted here. Isn't Povray a free download?


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[NickE]

PovRay is freeware. although it is amazingly powerfull.

Here is a link to the povray site:

http://www.povray.org

I began using povray many many moons ago when I was first in college. You dont want to know how long it took to render my simple 640x480x16bit first experiments with raytracing. (80486 33Mhz, 1024kbytesRAM, ISA VGA 24bit video card)

PovRay can be very hard to use at first cause it is code driven not GUI. Although this code driven environment allows very detailed images to be created.

I havent outputted anything from SW to Povray yet, since the only thing I've really worked on in Photoworks looked good for the advertisement that was in MachineDesign.

nick

NickE

 

[NickE]

You're right Jeff those stills by Brian Hill are quite nice. I especially like the Lego Car.

check out the Hall of Fame for some truly stunning images.

 

[Theophilus]

Thanks for the follow-up, NickE! Good to know. The renderings at the POV-Ray site are amazing.


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[aamoroso]

Bottom line for all computer advice:

Spend as much as you can on Processor (regardless AMD or Pent).

Spend as much as you can on RAM

Spend as much as you can to get a rock solid SW recomended Video Card.

We don't even put sound cards on our Computers that we use for Cad, that budget money was moved into the video card and processor expenses, along with other perhiperal costs.



Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches.

 

[Grant101]

Thanks for the link NickE! those renderings at the POV-Ray site are excelent.


Thank you all very much for all your advice.

Kind regards

Grant 101