Let me know if this setup is worthwhile buying. I was planning on having Shady build me a PC and was just browsing TD’s build kits.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=840163&CatId=332
It’s not cutting edge technology but I would say it’s a solid platform. I love amd they make great processors. And the price is good too. What is your intent with the system? Business or gaming?
He likes to stream lots of porn. He spends 2 hours a day streaming and jerks off in 2 minutes.
Ditto. It’s a solid deal and I prefer AMD as well but what are your goals? The case does not lend itself to expansion very well that would be my only gripe.
That would probably do the trick for you Adam, would be a few hundred bucks cheaper as well as no need for a dedicated video card. Unfortunately I don’t know how much stress the programs your going to use will put on it, but if that old 7900 I gave you did the trick then this should be fine
It would be for SW 2010/2011 only, nothing else. I wont even be running the solidcam on this one.
I was also looking at this kit, which had a separate video card.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=808304&CatId=332
The only issue I could possibly see you running into is it not being a supported card for solidworks, they only support professional/workstation cards, not consumer cards… I looked around and just selected a consumer card people said they had work with solidworks when you first had come to me
Chances are any of these cards will do just fine, but if you ever need support from them or if something is not rendering correctly your going to be SOL
Workstation cards are bank unfortunately
I’d say just search around and see if people use these cards with sucess on SW
Yeah that’s one thing that made me cough a little. I do tax the systems from time to time with some of the larger assemblies. And support is nice, one of the reason I need to update anyway. Their cutting support for XP systems.
I am still looking at the system you pieced together, but just wanted to see what other viable options where out there, hence why if I can get a system that does what it needs and run a GC that’ll definitely do the job of rendering then I’d be good to go with that…
I think a workstation card is worth getting if you’re gonna be doing hella 3d modeling. I’ve never used solidworks but i’ve used 3ds max for countless amounts of hours and oh what a difference a workstation card would of made
for the money thats a good start tho ! I just built a couple 300 dollar systems this past week with about the same specs
Either of the two systems you posted would probably do the job just fine, the biggest issue is going to be the video card, if you have been doing any SW stuff on the machiens you have now, anything you get will be a million times better, the video cards going to be the biggest pain in the balls in making sure its goign to work and render correctly.
I’m with singh, if you can spring the money I’d say get the workstation card for peace of mind…
Now’s the time to buy a system too prices be dropping lately
Yeah I’ve been noticing the price drops lately so I’m thinking if I can at least get the major bits here I can get the other peripherals for it later.
Workstation cards are loot(upwards of $4K for some) but I did look at some of the Nvidia Quadro stuff before. The Q2000, price seems to be right around $400-440 for it and I’ve been reading some good reviews on it. Since that’s what you’re both saying to do, I have no problem spending money on that.
One thing I have noted is that 2010/2011 requires the CPU to support SSE2, which I have no idea what it means. :dunno
I don’t understand what it is exactly but I think it has to do with how the processor compiles a certain set of data which I’m guessing Solidworks uses, I believe all Intel and AMD CPU’s these days support it.
If anything taking one of those barbones kits and then using that Q2000 should do the trick, as most of the rendering is done with the GPU vs the CPU in the case of Solidworks/CAD.
If you really wanted/needed to keep costs down you could probably get away with a good dual core chip with that GPU, but its one of those you mine as well do it right things. If you go intel, your deffinately going to want to go i7, if you go AMD pretty much any AMD quad core will do the trick, the 965 Quad only being around ~70-80 bucks and its a killer processor. If your really feeling frisky you can get the AMD’s 6 core’s which last time I looked are well under 200.
A lot of whats out now will do the trick, its just a game of mixing/matching quality parts together tryign to find a good price.
Well I was looking at either this Quadro 2000, or their slightly lesser w-card the Quadro 600
The big differences between the two cards lie in the GPU specs and memory, with the 2000 variant costing some odd $40(600 only costs ~$180). The 2000 also has three digital outputs vs only one for the 600 card, however I cannot ever see myself using more than one monitor at a time.
I don’t know if the extra ~$300 is worth spending on the 2000 card for an extra ~20GB worth of bandwidth, and the performance difference between GDDR5 and DDR3 memory on the card(Q2000 and Q600 respectfully).
Q2000 specs
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-quadro-2000-us.html
Q600 specs
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-quadro-600-us.html
Let me know what you think of above. I’m planning to pickup that first kit I listed and one of these Nvidia cards with a windows 7 OS and drop it all off to you for your magic :tongue
Ive run SW on non-workstation cards with no issue…not sure where this “need” comes from especially for a build that will ONLY be supporting SW…
Any modern built comp will support everything SW can throw at it (if that’s all its running from day 1)
I honestly not sure Adam, unfortunately not having really dealt with rendering specific needs I don’t how how complex what your doing is or really how much you can throw at these cards… The 600 might be enough, i just don’t know…
See below
Sounds like you deal with this quite a bit, at least more then me… I know running SW with a consumer card is generally not an issue, where it may become an issue is with support from SW if he should so ever need it, maybe something doesnt render properly, and could possibly be due to the card who knows…
Also, I’d imagine that a workstation card would compile a render a bit better then a consumer card, but then again i’d imagine it depends on how complex your getting in SW…
Adam maybe you should shoot the shit here with STATUS sounds like he has a few more notches in his belt when it comes to SW
Im no pro, but have ran every SW (from 2007-11) on different machines within the last 5 years. That’s why I said, any comp that you build, with modern/new-technology,
will almost always support SW and all of its requests.
I have seen some crazy shit when trying to render under SW’11 once, on a SW-dedicated laptop- graphics card caused a crazy ‘static’ where the colors/screen distorted quickly, and reverted. This is caused by a virtual memory ‘overload’, and not graphics/video related, fwiw.
I always go overkill when building for 3D however…I can’t deal with 1000part+ assemblies ‘lagging’ while im trying to get something to work.
Get the best you can budget. Period. Unless you like lag on rotate/zoom :lol
yeah , but it depends on how complex of a model you have on screen…
I dont use solidworks, but I know with 3d modeling im the kind of guy that likes to tweak and even model the project through the 3d viewport and rotate it around , if its laggy and hard to use then it really will change the workflow alot
also probably the biggest advantage is when it comes time to render a screenshot or animation… I know with a desktop pc running intergrated graphics it could take lets say an hour for an image to render where as it could take maybe 5 minutes for a high end graphics card. Thats just an example not actual figures.
@ adam, that quatro 600 will be fine for sure
It’s not SW that I need training in trust me. That program has been my life since early 2000’s :lol
I’ve run off shelf systems right down with some of my renders. Parts totals don’t really mean much but individual part complexity is what makes the assemblies difficult to render on some machines. I really run into problems with the CFD over the larger assemblies, like the kit car bodies… That’s what’s sucking balls on my PC lately and why I want a machine that can handle it 100% without breaking the bank. Time is money and while taking a few minutes to render something might seem trivial to most, when you have to render/correct/adjust the same file a couple dozen times a day those minutes add up real quick and costs me money.
One reason I am trying to save a little money on this machine is because I have to build another dedicate machine to run my new CAM software. That one doesn’t have to be as balls ass crazy but it’s still a few hundred bucks extra I had not anticipated spending.
I’ll try that Q600 card and see how it works. I guess worst case it doesn’t and I just have to buy a better model.
Shady, you gonna be up to build this thing here for me? 
Yeah just let me know when, either bring it to me or we can get together on a weekend and im sure I can come up there and take care of it for you, wont take to long. Hell you could come to my house too I don’t think its to far from your place?
On weekdays the only day I have free is usually tuesdays as the wife doesnt work that night, other then that its friday night after 8 or saturday morning/afternoon… sundays I have completely free