What computer would you guys buy?

[vonbugburg]

It's the end of the year and the tax man says I should spend some money. I currently have a Dell 670 with a Nivida 3400 card. Dell workstations have worked well for me.

Ok, no holds, go for it. What is your dream computer for SolidWorks (2007). Would a Dell 690 with a (very) high end graphics card be a good idea? What about the SLI graphics solutions?

Also, what are your opinions on 32bit vs 64bit for SolidWorks.

Give us your "Christmas" computer dreams.

 

[ctopher]

Check out the FAQ here.
Also thread559-163400


Chris
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 10-27-06)

 

[symjim]

It depends on your application.

For most SolidWorks users, the Dell 390 (similar) with a Core2 Extreme X6800 CPU and Quadro FX3450 graphics will be the fastest system on the planet. If you do a moderate amount of rendering and/or linear FEA, the quad core QX6700 might be a better choice.

If you work on *huge* assemblies and/or do *extensive* rendering/animation and/or nonlinear/fluid FEA and need more than 4GB of RAM, then move up to a Dell 490 with dual Xeon 5160s and 8-16GB RAM. (With 4GB RAM, the 390 is faster an cheaper, with more than 4GB of RAM, the 490 is MUCH less expensive.)

 

[smcadman]

According to SW, running SW 64 improves large assembly performance. This vid also says you can use 8,000 Gb of memory and decrease rendering and fea time.

SolidWorks 64-Bit (x64) Version

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PDOf3IEr4FU

SW07 SP1.0


Flores

 

[Theophilus]

Check reviews for hardware and workstations at Cadalyst.com

Based on these reviews, I've been responsible for three purchases at Xi Computer--by far the most bang for the buck among the tests done by Cadalyst. And I've been happy with the quick service and great performance of the systems.

I've preferred AMD's chips for the same reason, although a lot has changed over this last year--so you'll want to do your own research on what will specifically deliver what you need.

I do lots of renderings and animations (at least I do now). As a result, something with multiple processors/cores goes a long way to speed up the rendering, since all processors/cores will be used to their full extent while rendering. SW still uses (for the most part) a single thread while crunching model geometry, so in this case the fastest chip (single) wins. So it depends what you're doing. I keep a browser and email up while working, along with miscellaneous other processes, so I like having my dual-core AMD FX-60. Very nice for stability and quick performance.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe trumps reason.

 

[ctopher]

Some more info:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=lou+gallo+podcast&spell=1

Chris
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 10-27-06)

 

[symjim]

IMO, the best sources for CAD workstation reviews are

http://www.cadcamnet.com

and

http://www.mcadonline.com.

The benchmarks that they use are much more indicative of "real-world" performance than others. (

http://www.cadcamnet.com

is a paid site - but you can sign up for a 30 day free trial. Their graphics card and notebook reviews are particularly good.)

DigitLife also did a nice comparison of Core2 Duo and Athlon FX processors that included ProE, SolidWorks and MATLAB benchmarks.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/cpu/intel-conroe-2-13-ghz.html

(there's link to a spreadsheet with all the benchmark data.)