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Building a new PC

Question asked by Valentin Leung on Feb 10, 2009
Latest reply on Feb 11, 2009 by Valentin Leung

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Dear All,

I need to spec out a computer for a new comer and wanted some feedback from you guys to keep cost lower.

First, what is the advantage of a FX4600 over a FX1700. We work with some 4600 in our office, but I would not mind lowering this spec to get more power elsewhere... Is it just like games? ie, I move the model around and the FX1700 will be slower than the 4600?

Dunno if it's the right place to talk about that, is there anybody who tried to softmod a 8800 series in quadro? does the hack get performance improvements in SW? I know that DirectX presents improvements, but was told that OpenGL don't.

Our workload is 70% of design/drawing, 20% of simulation, 10% of 2D drafting. Does the difference of price between a 2 core cpu 3.0GHz and a 4 core cpu 2.5GHz worth it? As I know that SW is purely monothreaded... I was thinking if I should throw away so much money in the cpu.

Last thing, I don't mind going SSDs (I found that the speed increase difference worth the price), is there any feedback about using SSD in Solidworks? I will have large amount of RAM (8GB) but still, windows page a lot of data...

Thanks for the input.

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Tapani Sjoman Feb 10, 2009 9:48 AM

Core i7 outplays any other CPU. Even 920 is better than any Core 2 CPU.

Punch holder test

(Ordered also 3 workstations with core i7 last week ...)

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1-70W0UV @ Tapani Sjoman on Feb 10, 2009 10:01 AM

Go with the FX1700 and invest the difference in a Core i7 CPU. The FX4600 won't speed up core SW applications, it might improve rotating and zooming a model. The FX1700 is a step up from the FX570 that quite a few people are using.

SW drawing and simulation both use multiple cores.

There are a few guys that have softmoded their cards, I don't think there are any instructions on the forum.

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Valentin Leung Feb 11, 2009 12:29 AM

Tapani, yup, I saw that icore7 is better, but our company only buys at Dell... where no Precision model can be configured with a i7... unfortunately.

Daniel, thanks, I'll go for the 1700 then.

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Valentin Leung Feb 11, 2009 5:08 AM

Thanks Kelvin, I saw that one too, I think I am going to buy a computer from scratch. My boss is ok for me to go buy the parts and mount them by ourselves.

One of the problem with Dell is that I need it to run XP 64 as all of our computer runs it and the option is only available on office machines.

Anyway, for the news, I just softmoded a 8800GTX that I had in our quality lab (the cg comes from a home computer):
Dell computer
300G Hard drive single drive
Dual Core 1.8 GHz
windows 32bits
3GB RAM
Modded 8800GTX to FX4600
SPEC bench gives 74sec...

On my workstation:
Quad core 1.8 Xeon
windows 64b
4GB RAM
SAS RAID
real FX4600
I obtain 53 secs.

I am not sure by how extend the softmod works, but at least, I have realview that can be enable and the displays does work, prior to the mod, the display was completely erratic. So I consider that half of the mod works.

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5 Replies

Tapani Sjoman Feb 10, 2009 9:48 AM
Mark Correct
Correct Answer
Core i7 outplays any other CPU. Even 920 is better than any Core 2 CPU.

Punch holder test

(Ordered also 3 workstations with core i7 last week ...)
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- 1-70W0UV @ Tapani Sjoman on Feb 10, 2009 10:01 AM
  Mark Correct
  Correct Answer
  Go with the FX1700 and invest the difference in a Core i7 CPU. The FX4600 won't speed up core SW applications, it might improve rotating and zooming a model. The FX1700 is a step up from the FX570 that quite a few people are using.
  
  SW drawing and simulation both use multiple cores.
  
  There are a few guys that have softmoded their cards, I don't think there are any instructions on the forum.
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Valentin Leung Feb 11, 2009 12:29 AM
Mark Correct
Correct Answer
Tapani, yup, I saw that icore7 is better, but our company only buys at Dell... where no Precision model can be configured with a i7... unfortunately.

Daniel, thanks, I'll go for the 1700 then.
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Kelvin Lamport Feb 11, 2009 12:33 AM
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Correct Answer
Dell has a PC with the i7 CPU.
http://forum.solidworks.com/fo...tid=134&threadid=18653
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Valentin Leung Feb 11, 2009 5:08 AM
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Correct Answer
Thanks Kelvin, I saw that one too, I think I am going to buy a computer from scratch. My boss is ok for me to go buy the parts and mount them by ourselves.

One of the problem with Dell is that I need it to run XP 64 as all of our computer runs it and the option is only available on office machines.

Anyway, for the news, I just softmoded a 8800GTX that I had in our quality lab (the cg comes from a home computer):
Dell computer
300G Hard drive single drive
Dual Core 1.8 GHz
windows 32bits
3GB RAM
Modded 8800GTX to FX4600
SPEC bench gives 74sec...

On my workstation:
Quad core 1.8 Xeon
windows 64b
4GB RAM
SAS RAID
real FX4600
I obtain 53 secs.

I am not sure by how extend the softmod works, but at least, I have realview that can be enable and the displays does work, prior to the mod, the display was completely erratic. So I consider that half of the mod works.
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