I have just upgraded to SW 2009 SP3 on my old Sony Vaio which
has ATI Mobility Radeon X700 graphics and although it works ok it
is really slow. I have been considering updrading it for a while
and I think that this might be the time to do it and have a budget
of around £2500.00
I am not too computer savy so please excuse my ignorance with this post.
I have my own small sheet metal/fabrication business and do all the administration myself on one computer. This new computer would be required to do all this by not only running SW but Sage accounts, Payroll and MS Office as the main applications (obviously not at the same time). It would also need to be a laptop as I would use it both in the office & at home (both with docking stations).
Due to this I would much rather use XP Pro 32 as I know everything works with this. Also, as I have only been using SW for less than a year and as I'm still struggling to get to grips with it I don't have any large files to worry about and out and out speed for SW is not a critical issue.
I have looked around and from what I can see the Dell Precision M6400 seems to be the one to go for.
I spoke to Dell to ask what the difference was between the M6400 and the M6400 Covet, I was told that there were some minor spec differences (though he could not tell me what) but the main difference was that the Covec had an Orange aluminium case. With a price difference of £680.00 I decided there and then that I did not like orange!
The spec I have looked at so far is as follows;
Precision M6400
Intel Core 2 Duo (2.4Gz, 1066Mhz, 3Mb)
Upgraded memory to 4096Mb
Upgraded HD to 500GB
Graphics NVIDIA Quadro FX3700M (upgraded to 1Gz)
Windows XP Pro 32 bit
Do you think this sounds OK, the graphics upgrade is over £400 and I was wondering if it was worth it.
Any sugestions would be appreciated.
I am not too computer savy so please excuse my ignorance with this post.
I have my own small sheet metal/fabrication business and do all the administration myself on one computer. This new computer would be required to do all this by not only running SW but Sage accounts, Payroll and MS Office as the main applications (obviously not at the same time). It would also need to be a laptop as I would use it both in the office & at home (both with docking stations).
Due to this I would much rather use XP Pro 32 as I know everything works with this. Also, as I have only been using SW for less than a year and as I'm still struggling to get to grips with it I don't have any large files to worry about and out and out speed for SW is not a critical issue.
I have looked around and from what I can see the Dell Precision M6400 seems to be the one to go for.
I spoke to Dell to ask what the difference was between the M6400 and the M6400 Covet, I was told that there were some minor spec differences (though he could not tell me what) but the main difference was that the Covec had an Orange aluminium case. With a price difference of £680.00 I decided there and then that I did not like orange!
The spec I have looked at so far is as follows;
Precision M6400
Intel Core 2 Duo (2.4Gz, 1066Mhz, 3Mb)
Upgraded memory to 4096Mb
Upgraded HD to 500GB
Graphics NVIDIA Quadro FX3700M (upgraded to 1Gz)
Windows XP Pro 32 bit
Do you think this sounds OK, the graphics upgrade is over £400 and I was wondering if it was worth it.
Any sugestions would be appreciated.
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc...-3740645-3955549.html
look at the workstation models on both sites. Hope this helps some.
Due to the drivers any Quadro card is much better then a gaming graphics card. For basic SW usage the higher end Quadro cards don't provide much improvement over the low end Quadro's.
We all know the graphics card makes a huge difference when it comes to SolidWorks, with only RAM as the other major factor.
Three makers out there that have SolidWorks approved graphics cards in laptops:
Dell ***** http://www.dell.com/content/to...&s=bsd&~page=6&~tab=1
HP *****
"> http://h20331.www2..../Hp...=reg_R1002_USEN
Lenovo ***** W700 which is the one I purchased because for the same price as the other I obtained 6GB of DDR3 RAM
I worked for a VAR for years and have been using SolidWorks for around 10 years now. Do not buy a laptop or any pc with any other graphics card than Quadro. I have just seen and heard too many problems coming from the others. When at SolidWorks World I told the ATI guy that directly and he said, "we are working on it"
Also, do not go with any card that is less than a Quadro 570. Make sure whatever card you get has the little GOLD DOT when you use http://www.solidworks.com/sw/v...ardtesting.html
They say that the others will still work but I 98% of the time they do not work well.
It's kinda like how SolidWorks says it will run on 512GB of ram but we all know that's crap to truly work in the software.
The one exception I would make to what you said was that the desktop ATI FireGL cards appear to have fewer problems than the Quadros. SolidWorks is almost guaranteed to have graphics problems even with approved cards, and so far, the FireGL is getting good ratings even from people I trust to be properly cynical about what constitutes "fine" or "perfect" (such as Anna Wood).
If you want a "laptop" for SW use, I have a friend who got a massive portable from Xi, with the same system available from Boxx. I had one of the previous generation available from Hypersonic. They have desktop processors, video, and are very heavy, but portable.
I currently have a Dell M4400, which I consider to be a bit of a compromise, mainly the display is not very good. The Dell M6400s are an even bigger compromise because they are very expensive and have a laundry list of problems that seem to come standard issue.
I agree with you there are no guarantees that any approved graphics card (Quadro, FireGl or FirePro) will work flawlessly/perfect with SolidWorks of late. Even with approved graphics drivers. This seems to have really been noticable in SW2008 and more so in SW2009 on my computers.
Anyway, I am no longer a Nvidia Quadro only graphics cards person. Having recently tested and purchased an ATI FirePro card. The FirePro's are on par with the offerings from Nvidia. Does this mean they are perfect... No. But at the moment I think it is more of a SolidWorks issue.
Not sure what is going on with SolidWorks and graphics card performance these last few releases. Seems to be something has gone downhill. Is it the Windows OS, SolidWorks or the graphics cards/drivers. When you see the same issues on Quadros and FirePros these kinda leads me to believe the problems lie with SolidWorks. There seem to be some strange interactions with the OS and how SW is implementing the rendering of the graphics area in SolidWorks.
FWIW,
Another interesting thing that happened was that all of a sudden on some files, I could not get the real view graphics to show.
I'm starting to think that its a SolidWorks problem, and SolidWorks is passing the buck and blaming the hardware, drivers, OS and the machines themselves. Everything but thier finicky software.
I use laptops becasue I need the portability, and since I basically teach high school kids, I do not need the best and the fastest. Most designs will have fewer than 25 parts, and fewer than 50 basic features. No fancy surfaces, or realview will be used.
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/s...ystemRequirements.html
I added another 2GB of RAM and use the /3gb switch.
The basic specs are;
Intel DualCore 2.53Mhz
2GB RAM
17" WUXGA+ 1920 x 1200
nVidia FX2700M
250 GB 7200rpm SATA II
LightScribe DVD+/-RW
Intel 802.11a/b/g/draft-n
Bluetooth 2.0
External Ports:
VGA
HDMI
4 USB
Firewire
E-SATA
SD*MS/Pro*MMC*XD
RJ45 (Gigabit)
RJ11
Overall it's a couple of pounds lighter than a Dell.
The styling is also a bit cleaner.
I'm happy with it so far.
So far so good. I have not had a chance to properly use SolidWorks, but the initial impressions are very good.