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IT Picked WHAT Computer?. Anna Wood RenderBay.com. Charles Culp SWtuts.com. Comparison of Three Systems. Cheap, Expensive and Poorly Specified, and the Suggested System. About Anna and Charles. Anna Wood. Charles Culp. Design Engineer/CAD Admin for Auer Precision in Mesa, AZ
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IT Picked WHAT Computer? Anna Wood RenderBay.com Charles Culp SWtuts.com
Comparison of Three Systems Cheap, Expensive and Poorly Specified, and the Suggested System
About Anna and Charles Anna Wood Charles Culp Design Engineer/CAD Admin for Auer Precision in Mesa, AZ RenderBay.com Product Development Engineer/CAD Admin at Essex Industries in St Louis, MO Designs ergonomic pilot controls SWtuts.com
Goals for Today • Understand which components are important for a CAD Workstation • Understand the enhancements in recent technology • Understand which components provide the best value • Compare a poorly built workstation with a good workstation • Provide a list of good available systems, and a custom system • Feel free to ask questions at any time
Thank You Thank you also to BillMcEachernfor providing the flow simulation benchmark, and Russ Johnston for providing the V3 Simulation benchmark
CPU • It is all about Intel • Tom’s Hardware compares single core operations • Passmark now has a single thread benchmark: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html • Both show blowouts in favor of Intel
Intel • Today’s systems have Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, or Haswell CPUs. These also known as 2nd, 3rd, or 4thgeneration Core i5 or Core i7 processors. These are the E3 or E5 series in the Xeon line, with v2, v3, or v4 at the end of the name.
How Many Cores? • Two is enough for modeling, but four doesn’t hurt • Four is enough for occasional FEA, there is a new solver in SolidWorks 2014 (Large Problem Direct Sparse Solver) that uses more than four cores • For rendering, the more the merrier
CPU Benchmarks • Modeling Benchmark: http://www.solidmuse.com/benchmarks/solidworks-benchmark-punch-holder/ • FEA Benchmark (V3):https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/63854 • Simulation Benchmark: http://www.swtuts.com/?p=700
This graph does not represent true value Best CPU Value for Modeling
How much is enough • Frame rates and user experience • What requires expensive video cards • Changes to SolidWorks 2014 • Benchmarks: • Die Assembly • Press Assembly • Engine Assembly • Cinebench R15 Video Cards
AMD FirePro Video Cards Intel Integrated NVIDIA Quadro • Quadro K600 • Quadro K2000 • Quadro K4000 • Quadro K5000 • Quadro K6000 • Quadro 600 • Quadro 2000 • Quadro 4000 • Quadro 5000 • Quadro 6000 • V3900 • V4900 • V5900 • V7900 • W5000 • W7000 • W8000 • W9000 • HD P4700 (E3-1285v3)HD P4600 (E3-1275v3, E3-1245v3) • HD P4000 (E3-1245v2, 1275v2) Q K5000$1800 V4900 $155 Q K600$161 W7000$800 W5000$440 Q K2000$430 Q K4000$800
Video Card Testing Video Card Testing on a Boxx 4150XT, Core i7-4770K @ 4.3 Ghz16 Gigs RAM, Intel 530 SSD Quadro Driver 320.78 AMD Driver 13.15.2.4
SSD & HDD Overview • SSDs create a significant improvement over HDD, 85% depending on usage • Which brand SSDs are the best? Don’t worry about it too much, that is only a 25% gain • Intel is used by pro’s for high reliability • “SSD’s fail early” is a myth. As a whole they are as reliable, and maybe more reliable, than HDD when used in desktop machines • http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923.html
Comparison of Three Systems Cheap, Expensive and Poorly Specified, and the Suggested System
Prebuilt Options What happened to the Dell T1700?
Prebuilt Disclaimer Page • Everything was priced on January 20th, 2014. I included all discounts and sales at that time. • Prices for all prebuilt systems include Windows 7 Professional. This is approximately a $140 for purchasing the OEM version of Windows 7 on the open market. • The price difference between the Dell and the HP and Lenovo is likely due to the lack of an SSD drive.
Conclusions • CPU is King. • More cores do not decrease rebuild times • That means processor design & speed are important • RAM is a matter of how much is enough • SSD prices have plummeted, buy one • Homebuilt systems add versatility • Overclocked systems mean faster SolidWorks modeling
More Questions? • http://www.swtuts.com/?p=700 • https://forum.solidworks.com/community/administration?view=discussions • Tom’s Hardware, AnandTech, c|net • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)