Hey guys,
We are looking at upgrading our current machines as we dont think they are handling the drawings as well as we need them to. Options we have been given so far from IT:
Option 1:
* 2 x Intel® Xeon® Quad Core Processor E5430 (2.66)
* 6GB Memory;
* 146GB 15000RPM SAS HDD
* PCI/PCIe Tower (7x9)
* NVIDIA Quadro FX-1700 512MB PCIe
* Windows Vista Business 64
Option 2:
* INTEL CORE 2 QUAD Q9450 [Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66 12MB CPU]
* 8GB(4x2GB)DDR2-800 ECC
* 146GB SAS 3GB/S 15K RPM
* NVIDIA QUADRO FX3700 512M VIDEOCARD
* LSI 3041E 4 PORT SAS/SATA
* IEEE 1394b 3 PCI CARD
* WIN VISTA BUS 64 OS [Microsoft Windows Vista Business 64 OS]
My suggestions, based on researching benchmark tests and these forums, have been that we should go with a much faster processor (at least 3.2GHz) based on the fact that our highest spec machine here has a Intel Core 2 E6750 2.66GHz processor, and the CPU struggles on some of the bigger drawings we have. We probably dont need anything more than a dual or quad core. We are thinking quad core as we are thinking towards the future a little.
Also top performers in the benchmark test have overclocked CPUs. I am waiting for IT to give me their opinion on overclocking and if they are willing to look at it as an option if we find the 3.2GHz still doesnt have enough get-up-and-go. What is the general consensus amoungst solidworks users here, do many people on here have overclocked computers at work?
The main items we are looking at is faster CPUs, faster hard drives (we've been given the option for 15000 rpm SAS HDDs) and I have suggested the nVidia FX3700 is a good choice based on benchmarking test results on the nVidia website.
Ive done a lot of research and think we're much better going with the Intel Core 2 Quad over the Xeon, but I would like to hear opinions from some of you guys as we really want to get the best value for money with our worksations, and see them last 3-5 years.
Your advice is much appreciated!
We are looking at upgrading our current machines as we dont think they are handling the drawings as well as we need them to. Options we have been given so far from IT:
Option 1:
* 2 x Intel® Xeon® Quad Core Processor E5430 (2.66)
* 6GB Memory;
* 146GB 15000RPM SAS HDD
* PCI/PCIe Tower (7x9)
* NVIDIA Quadro FX-1700 512MB PCIe
* Windows Vista Business 64
Option 2:
* INTEL CORE 2 QUAD Q9450 [Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66 12MB CPU]
* 8GB(4x2GB)DDR2-800 ECC
* 146GB SAS 3GB/S 15K RPM
* NVIDIA QUADRO FX3700 512M VIDEOCARD
* LSI 3041E 4 PORT SAS/SATA
* IEEE 1394b 3 PCI CARD
* WIN VISTA BUS 64 OS [Microsoft Windows Vista Business 64 OS]
My suggestions, based on researching benchmark tests and these forums, have been that we should go with a much faster processor (at least 3.2GHz) based on the fact that our highest spec machine here has a Intel Core 2 E6750 2.66GHz processor, and the CPU struggles on some of the bigger drawings we have. We probably dont need anything more than a dual or quad core. We are thinking quad core as we are thinking towards the future a little.
Also top performers in the benchmark test have overclocked CPUs. I am waiting for IT to give me their opinion on overclocking and if they are willing to look at it as an option if we find the 3.2GHz still doesnt have enough get-up-and-go. What is the general consensus amoungst solidworks users here, do many people on here have overclocked computers at work?
The main items we are looking at is faster CPUs, faster hard drives (we've been given the option for 15000 rpm SAS HDDs) and I have suggested the nVidia FX3700 is a good choice based on benchmarking test results on the nVidia website.
Ive done a lot of research and think we're much better going with the Intel Core 2 Quad over the Xeon, but I would like to hear opinions from some of you guys as we really want to get the best value for money with our worksations, and see them last 3-5 years.
Your advice is much appreciated!
Given the Performance/price ratio of 15k drives compared to good SAS drives..
You may be better off to go with Sas drive(s) and use the $ difference to get a faster CPU such as the 9550, Only a few bucks more than 9450.. or ideally a 9650 or 9770 if budget allows ..
i assume it's being set up with Raid.. (The LSI Controller)
What Raid level, How many drives.. (R5 seems to work best for me I.M.O.)
Hope that helps
The only quad core I see at 3.2GHz is the QX9770. If you go that route I would also match it with DDR3-1600 RAM.
You will probably have a hard time finding a motherboard (other then Xeon) that supports more then 8GB of RAM.
Just a thought.
Thanks for the replies, really appreciate it.
Whats the reason behind staying away from the ECC RAM? I am sure I have read this somewhere, just want to justify to IT the reasons why its not as ideal for solidworks so we know where we are headed.
I think the LSI controller is just part of the package, I think we would only be running the 1 hard-drive, and maybe partitioning it. All our files are stored on a network server so storage is not a big issue with us.
I have asked IT if we can get the fastest Intel Core 2 Quad they can get hold of, and if we can get it overclocked at all. We're in Australia so it would be ideal if we can find someone who can do this for us and not void warranty. I agree clock speed is going to be the major factor here, we are seeing CPU usuage quite frequently hitting 100% on our 2.13GHz machines, and frequently going over 80% on our 2.66GHz machine, suggesting we need something much faster than that.
I dont think we will have a need for more than 8GB RAM for a while yet, we are running fine on "4GB" on XP 32bit, and even when the CPU is hitting 100% there is still no page file usage, so 8GB RAM would be plenty for us until the next upgrade.
Thanks again!
Regards,
Rich, does that scale to quad core? If you open a drawing with more then 4 views, maybe some detailed views or section views will it push your quad core CPU to near 100%?
Partitioning your single harddrive will not give the same performance as installing 2 harddrives. The limiting factor in harddrive performance is how fast the head can read the disk spinning underneath it. If you partition 1 harddrive as 2 drives you only have 1 head so you can only read 1 drive at a time. If you have 2 harddrives you can read both at the same time.
If you're planning to read both drives at the same time, put 2 harddrives in. If your planning to us the partition as recovery or to store old files, a partition is fine. Just remember if your harddrive fails you will lose any data on partitions as well.
They have a built in Error correction step, which in turn consumes an extra clock cycle to process same data bit.. slowing it down,
If your not gonna have a raid setup, then they must be specing out the LSI controller for the SAS drive..
Going along with Daniels advice:
Multiple partitions on a single drive for performance reasons, such as one partition for Apps, and one for VM is pointless honestly... Either way, no matter what, you still only have one physical drive.. and one drive can only access one thing at a time...
as Dan mention's.. One "Working" partition. and one for backuping up.. that's fine.. But it's not really failsafe..
Also: Dan,
When i'm in a larger drawing (with lot of views) it typically runs up 35-40%
And when doing some complex surface modeling.. (Only when Surface Modeling)
and also when working with mesh data it can run up higher yet..
and obviously, renderings tap out 100%
DDR3 memory also has a latency overhead, but this is compensated by faster FSB speeds. 800MHz unbuffered DDR2 memory is about the same speed as 1066MHz DDR3 memory - but MUCH less expensive.
The QX9770 CPU requires fully buffered memory. There are no motherboards that support this processor and DDR3 memory.
Franky, nothing is going to give you a huge performance increase over your E6750. The dual core E8500 would be about 20% faster and downright cheap. If you are absolutely sold on the quad core, either the Q9550 or QX9650 would give you a modest performance improvement at not too punishing a price. I wouldn't recommend the Xeon platform unless you need MORE than 8GB RAM or MORE than 4 cores.
Once change I'd make is to get the new 2.5" Velociraptor hard drives instead of the more expensive SAS drives.
Since your current machine is nearly as fast as any replacement that you can buy now, you might want to wait for the new Nehalem platform. Preliminary performance numbers are very impressive - about 20% faster than current Core2s at the same clock speed.
I'd still question the value of the QX9770 over the QX9650. At XI Computer, you'd pay $900 more for the QX9770 with 8GB DDR3 memory vs the QC9650 with 8GB DDR2 memory ($500 for the CPU, $300 for the RAM, and $100 for the motherboard).
Is the extra 200MHz worth 900 bucks?
If I were going quad core, I'd get the 2.83 GHz QX9550. At XI, it's another $730 less than the QX9650 - and only $230 more than the e8500. Some people don't care about money, but I think $1630 is a lot to pay for less than a 15% improvement in performance.
The 9770's fsb runs at 1600mhz.. The 9650's fsb runs at 1333mhz..
That's 267mhz faster..
True, 200mhz cpu core speed difference is not a huge gain by itself..
But a 267mhz faster fsb is a considerable difference..
A 200+mhz increase in fsb, will have much more effect than 200mhz core increase..
I build a non-expensive system in February through Newegg.com and used a single Core 2 Duo E8400. Cheap chip, starts at 3.0GHz and can be overclocked to 4.0GHz from what I'm seeing in certain forums. And though I do renderings rather intensively once in a while, I've used multiple cores/chips for over ten years and typically see 100% with those processors extremely rarely with SolidWorks if not rendering. So by my experience the dual-core chip is certainly faster with SolidWorks than the more expensive quad-core offerings.