Building a system for Solidworks/Autocad

[Nab]

Hello!

I am building a computer for my father who uses Solidworks (similar to Autocad). He will also be using the computer for internet and Microsoft Office---he will not be gaming.

We are looking to spend around $450 for just the computer (we do not need monitor, keyboard, mouse). I will be using the DVD drive off the old computer. We do not have any brand preferences and we will be running at default speeds. I want to buy in a week or so, and hopefully build it in two weeks.

I have a Frys and Microcenter near my house, so that is why I am looking at their websites. If you know of better prices if I order online (newegg?), please let me know .

I do not know a lot about computer hardware, but my computer savvy friend suggested the following build:

CPU: Athlon™ II X4 640
Motherboard: M4A78LT-M LE Socket AM3 AMD 780L mATX

http://www.microcenter.com/specials/...ndlePROMO.html
$106

Video Card: PNY VCQFX380-PCIE-PB Quadro FX 380 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Workstation Video Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-274-_-Product
$137

RAM: PNY Optima 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model MD8192KD3-1333
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687

$65 (after MIR)

Hard drive: Samsung 1TB SATA/300 7200RPM 32MB Buffer - HD103SJ

http://www.frys.com/search?search_ty...mit.y=15&cat=0
$65

Power Supply: CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 CMPSU-430CX 430W ATX12V Active PFC Power Supply

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687
$35 (after MIR)

Sound Card: On board

Case:
edit: Looking for a smaller case.

DVD drive/Keyboard/Mouse/Monitor: Do not need.

OS system: I have already purchased windows 7 64-bit

Anything else I am forgetting?

Thanks in advance for all your help!

-Nab

 

[fffblackmage]

RAM is waaaaaaaaaaay too expensive (for just 4GB). Since we're talking about running a CAD program, getting more ram is much more beneficial than getting faster ram. For the same price, you can get twice the ram:
G.SKILL Value Series 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 - $80

This is cheaper if you don't mind MIRs:
PNY Optima 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 - $85 ($65 AR)

600W is overkill, and Coolmax is not known for high-quality PSUs. A better 400W unit would make more sense than a cheap 600W unit.
CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 - $45 ($35 AR)

 

[BoomerD]

From personal experience, cheap video cards don't handle AutoCad very well...there's a reason professionals use FireGL and Quadro cards in their builds.
At one time, you could flast ATI cards with the FireGL drivers and get better AutoCad performance. I don't know if that still holds true.

 

[d33pblue]

Agree on the RAM. You can get much better prices on Newegg. I would also recommend getting a different PSU. You don't need 600 watts and Coolmax isn't the best brand anyway. Spend a few bucks on a good PSU, since every component in your case is dependent on this one part. The integrated sound card will be more than fine.

And it's really tough to say about the video card. For most personal tasks a consumer card would be fine. However if you are dealing with large, complicated assemblies, then a pro level card would be beneficial. It really comes down to what kind of work you're doing and how tolerant you are of lag.

 

[Nab]

RAM is waaaaaaaaaaay too expensive (for just 4GB). Since we're talking about running a CAD program, getting more ram is much more beneficial than getting faster ram. For the same price, you can get twice the ram:
G.SKILL Value Series 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 - $80

This is cheaper if you don't mind MIRs:
PNY Optima 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 - $85 ($65 AR)

600W is overkill, and Coolmax is not known for high-quality PSUs. A better 400W unit would make more sense than a cheap 600W unit.
CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 - $45 ($35 AR)

Thank you very much, I will amend my list with those suggestions!

 

[Nab]

From personal experience, cheap video cards don't handle AutoCad very well...there's a reason professionals use FireGL and Quadro cards in their builds.
At one time, you could flast ATI cards with the FireGL drivers and get better AutoCad performance. I don't know if that still holds true.

The FireGL starts at $160 on newegg and the Quadro starts at $130. I am leaning toward the Quadro just because it is cheaper....is this a safe option?

Agree on the RAM. You can get much better prices on Newegg. I would also recommend getting a different PSU. You don't need 600 watts and Coolmax isn't the best brand anyway. Spend a few bucks on a good PSU, since every component in your case is dependent on this one part. The integrated sound card will be more than fine.

And it's really tough to say about the video card. For most personal tasks a consumer card would be fine. However if you are dealing with large, complicated assemblies, then a pro level card would be beneficial. It really comes down to what kind of work you're doing and how tolerant you are of lag.

I changed the RAM and PSU to the recommended ones above. Furthermore, he has a great computer at work, so he will be using the one at home (the one this thread is about) for mostly looking/updating the drawings. So I am sure he can tolerate a bit of lag.

 

[BoomerD]

The FireGL starts at $160 on newegg and the Quadro starts at $130. I am leaning toward the Quadro just because it is cheaper....is this a safe option?




I changed the RAM and PSU to the recommended ones above. Furthermore, he has a great computer at work, so he will be using the one at home (the one this thread is about) for mostly looking/updating the drawings. So I am sure he can tolerate a bit of lag.

Quadro-based graphics cards are fine for your application...just remember, like any graphics card, you get what you pay for.

 

[Nab]

Quadro-based graphics cards are fine for your application...just remember, like any graphics card, you get what you pay for.

He has a single monitor at home, will this Quadro workstation graphics cards still work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-274-_-Product

 

[BoomerD]

Nab, I don't know. Damned Detonator Dynamite isn't working again. The page doesn't load, but I did some tracking and found this card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814133274

It looks like it will work, how fast it will be is another question. I have no experience with Solid Works, only AutoCad and Sketch-up...and both are very "hard hitters" for the graphics card.

Doing more research at PNY, I found this bit of info:

http://www3.pny.com/MarketingPromoti...ategory_ID=452

http://www3.pny.com/QuadroPDFs/PNY_Solidworks_2011.pdf

The Quadro 380 is listed on the SolidWorks site, so I'm sure it will work...but again, how fast is another question. (it's only 256 Mb of RAM)

 

[Nab]

Nab, I don't know. Damned Detonator Dynamite isn't working again. The page doesn't load, but I did some tracking and found this card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814133274

It looks like it will work, how fast it will be is another question. I have no experience with Solid Works, only AutoCad and Sketch-up...and both are very "hard hitters" for the graphics card.

Doing more research at PNY, I found this bit of info:

http://www3.pny.com/MarketingPromoti...ategory_ID=452

http://www3.pny.com/QuadroPDFs/PNY_Solidworks_2011.pdf

The Quadro 380 is listed on the SolidWorks site, so I'm sure it will work...but again, how fast is another question. (it's only 256 Mb of RAM)

Thank you very much for the information, I will look into it.

 

[Knavish]

Solidworks will run on a computer with a basic "gaming" video card. It will even work with the integrated video from your motherboard. It won't be fast on integrated graphics, but I don't think that the lowest end "pro" level graphics card will be blazing fast, either. If you look here, you can see that the FX380 uses a G96 GPU. This is the same as a Geforce 9400GT, so it'll have gaming performance around the same level as your integrated graphics.

If you're on a really tight budget, see how the system runs with integrated graphics. If you've got a gaming card in some other computer, try it & and see how it performs. In my experience, Solidworks can run relatively simple models on a very cheap gaming card with no problems. If you want to test integrated graphics, you might do better to buy the "free" MSI 785GM-P45 motherboard (integrated Radeon 4200) rather than that Asus board (integrated Radeon 3000).

 

[Nab]

Solidworks will run on a computer with a basic "gaming" video card. It will even work with the integrated video from your motherboard. It won't be fast on integrated graphics, but I don't think that the lowest end "pro" level graphics card will be blazing fast, either. If you look here, you can see that the FX380 uses a G96 GPU. This is the same as a Geforce 9400GT, so it'll have gaming performance around the same level as your integrated graphics.

If you're on a really tight budget, see how the system runs with integrated graphics. If you've got a gaming card in some other computer, try it & and see how it performs. In my experience, Solidworks can run relatively simple models on a very cheap gaming card with no problems. If you want to test integrated graphics, you might do better to buy the "free" MSI 785GM-P45 motherboard (integrated Radeon 4200) rather than that Asus board (integrated Radeon 3000).

I do not have another desktop computer where I can pull a gaming card and test it out. I was always under the impression that integrated graphics are terrible (no evidence to back this up) and along with the recommended settings on the Solidworks website (and posters saying how taxing Solidworks is on the graphics card), I went with the Quadro graphics card.

If you think the graphics card won't make much of a difference, I can consider buying a graphics card after testing out Solidworks on the integrated I suppose.

After comparing the MSi and Asus motherboards it seems that the MSi is superior (better integrated graphics, can support up to 16gig memory).

 

[Davidh373]

You don't have a big enough budget for a machine to do what you want well. It is beyond minimum requirements, but AMD I would at very least get an Opteron. You can actually get a consumer card that will perform better for the $130 Quadro. Something like the GTX 450, or even a 9800GT would get you more out of Cad or other 3D apps. However, the drivers aren't "Licensed", or "certified", but given you probably want the most performance for you dollars before you feel like spending $80 more than you should have to for drivers.

 

[mfenn]

Your current list looks fine to me. The FX 380 isn't going to set any land speed records, but you do get the Quadro drivers.

 

[Nab]

You don't have a big enough budget for a machine to do what you want well. It is beyond minimum requirements, but AMD I would at very least get an Opteron. You can actually get a consumer card that will perform better for the $130 Quadro. Something like the GTX 450, or even a 9800GT would get you more out of Cad or other 3D apps. However, the drivers aren't "Licensed", or "certified", but given you probably want the most performance for you dollars before you feel like spending $80 more than you should have to for drivers.

I don't know much about video cards (or computer hardware for that matter). I was just going off of what what recommended on the Solidworks website. What I understand is that I will get more for spending less by going with a GTX450 or 9800GT, is that correct? I'm not sure what the Quadro drivers do except assume that they significantly help in programs such as Solidworks and Autocad?? Kinda confused.


What is the smallest size case I can get that will house this setup? He doesn't want to take up a lot of room apparently... >.>

 

[Davidh373]

I was just going off of what what recommended on the Solidworks website. What I understand is that I will get more for spending less by going with a GTX450 or 9800GT, is that correct?

Think of it this way, Quadro cards are the same hardware as geforce cards, with licensed drivers. They are optimized a bit, for example, the FX 380 appears to be a 8400GT. The 8400GT (now with even more VRAM) is only $35. It is a roughly 4-5 years old, and the 450 is new as of late last year, and it has 1GB VRAM. I am positive you will have better performance with all that hardware advancement, even if you aren't getting the Quadro drivers. On the other hand, you might choose the 9800GT to save some money, and still get a small boost in performance.

You might even consider a GTX 460 1GB, it's $50 more that the 450, but it would be a huge jump in performance even over the GTS 450.

I would just forget about quadros at this price range. $130 is barely enough for a decent-good graphics card on the consumer market without having to spend 40% more for a professional driver.

May I ask what your overall budget is? There isn't too much that can be realocated in this build, but you could possibly pack in some great hardware If I knew your budget.

What is the smallest size case I can get that will house this setup? He doesn't want to take up a lot of room apparently... >.>

Ask him to measure the space he has. Then we'll tell you. He'll also want to keep things cool, and too small a case might smother it...

Really, all said and done this is the lowest budget I've ever seen for a CAD build buy about 200% (normally people would post at least 1k for a rig to run this kind of stuff).

 

[KGB]

Get the Quadro card.

This is CAD not CoD.

 

[Davidh373]

This is CAD not CoD.

lol... yeah... an 8400 to run CAD... excellent idea... why don't you just put a Celeron in that build? or better yet a Dual core2 generation Xeon... it's CAD right? I use a Geforce card with all my special effects software and I can get up to 1.5 mil. polys without seeing slowdown, 3 mil. polys without Max, Maya, or Softimage crashing... I highly doubt he'll get 2 objects in his scene without crashing that old quadro. Software drives the hardware, not the other way around. That 256MB RAM is going to be the limiting factor here, not the "untested" drivers.

 

[KGB]

lol... yeah... an 8400 to run CAD... excellent idea... why don't you just put a Celeron in that build? or better yet a Dual core2 generation Xeon... it's CAD right? I use a Geforce card with all my special effects software and I can get up to 1.5 mil. polys without seeing slowdown, 3 mil. polys without Max, Maya, or Softimage crashing... I highly doubt he'll get 2 objects in his scene without crashing that old quadro. Software drives the hardware, not the other way around. That 256MB RAM is going to be the limiting factor here, not the "untested" drivers.

Have you ever used SolidWorks? Unigraphics? IDEAS? CATIA?

This is NOT about how many polygons/second the card can handle. It's about support!!!

If the OP puts a gaming card in there, loads up SolidWorks and it crashes he has to call SolidWorks for support. When they hear he doesn't have a Quadro card in there, ... the only thing he's gonna hear is 'click'.

Got it?

 

[BoomerD]

I heartily agree that the 380 card the OP linked to will have terrible performance. It's old technology, has a very minimal amount of RAM, and will definitely slow things WA-A-A-Y down.
When I took AutoCad in college, I tried to run AC2005 on my home PC with an ATI X850ST PE card. The card was about 2 years old...so not horribly old tech...but also 256 Mb of RAM.
It ran AutoCad, but not very well. I was able to do what I needed, but slowly and with piss-poor graphics. Even Sketch-Up bogged that system down badly.
The PC's in the school's architecture classes also had P4's in them, but had either ATI Fire GL cards, or nVidia Quadro cards...and they ran MUCH better than mine did, even though I had more system RAM in my PC. (definitely helped, but wasn't a major factor)

The OP seems to be trying to build a SolidWorks rig on a shoestring budget. Unfortunately, while I can probably accomplish it, he'll be VERY disappointed in the end results.

 

[Knavish]

... Even Sketch-Up bogged that system down badly.

Does Sketch-Up even support Pro cards? Their site does not recommend them. Perhaps if Sketch-Up didn't work, it was a symptom of overall poor graphics performance.

 

[BoomerD]

Does Sketch-Up even support Pro cards? Their site does not recommend them. Perhaps if Sketch-Up didn't work, it was a symptom of overall poor graphics performance.

The video card I was using barely met the minimum requirements for Sketch-Up.

3D class Video Card with 256 MB of memory or higher. Please ensure that the video card driver supports OpenGL version 1.5 or higher and up to date.

Recommended:

3D class Video Card with 512+ MB of memory or higher. Please ensure that the video card driver supports OpenGL version 1.5 or higher and up to date.

SketchUp's performance relies heavily the graphics card driver and it's ability to support OpenGL 1.5 or higher. Historically, people have seen problems with Intel based cards with SketchUp. We don't recommend using these graphics cards with SketchUp at this time.

We used the "PRO" cards in architecture class every day...Sketch-up ran like a race car on them.

 

[Knavish]

Well my web browser just ate the nice reply that I typed out...grrrr... my key points:

• Top end Quadro cards historically do way better in CAD than top end gaming cards -- this is due to the software drivers and firmware of the cards enabling a few extra functions.
• I've never seen a performance per dollar comparison between low end Pro cards and mid-level gaming cards. (These happen to be nearly the same price.) Unless Solidworks is intentionally written to cripple non-Pro cards, I don't see how the bottom-end Pro card could win.
• A pro card is going to be necessary if you need to call Solidworks support about problems / bugs.
• I'm pretty confident that 785G integrated graphics will run basic stuff like the Solidworks built-in tutorials with no problem. I ran Solidworks 2008 on a 2.2Ghz CoreDuo with a Geforce 6600GT with no problems on basic models.

 

[yh125d]

I haven't worked with solidWorks, just AutoCAD/CADWorx, but whether you need a pro card or not is very, VERY circumstantial depending on what you're working on. Some stuff pretty much requires one to run right, some stuff runs on integrated just fine. For what I do, it's not necessary. Hell, before recent upgrades, the fastest computer in the office was an older AMD dual core machine with integrated x1300, and it handled big 3d wireframe models quite well. (the other machines it compared to all had quadro fx1500/1700)


My point is, research on what you specifically plan to do before you buy, and find out whether you need one for your specific intended tasks or not. Either way though, even if what you're doing is heavily graphically accellerated, I'd be very surprised if a quadro "9400gt" is faster than a GTS450 of equal price.

 

[Davidh373]

This is NOT about how many polygons/second the card can handle. It's about support!!!

polygons/ second?...

he has to call SolidWorks for support.

He has to call the application for support?! I thought Autodesk handled support for the application...

Anyways, in all my days not once have I had an application, professional (like the many autodesk products I've used [3DS Max, Maya, Softimage, Mudbox, Solidworks, autocad]) or not, crash because of a graphics driver. I've had games crash on ATI drivers, but never has something I was running crashed because of the driver. Autodesk MAY not honor a support ticket, but my point is he probably won't ever need support. In 4 years of using and owning pro software, I haven't once had a problem so catastrophic I had to whine to them.