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Would you Upgrade or Replace My Workstation?

Question asked by Ryan Laplante on Dec 18, 2009
Latest reply on Dec 24, 2009 by Ryan Laplante

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Currently I have a 2 year old system consisting of

Asus M2n-E mobo

AMD6400+ @ 3.2 Ghz

Corsair 800 speed ram 4 gigs (4x1)

ATI FIreGL 5200 256MB PCI express

Vendetta 2 aftermarket cooler for CPU - CPU stays in 40-55C under 100percent load for 3-10 hours for rendering

Corsair 620 watt Power supply

Full Size case with 120mm intake 80mm output fans

2 HDD coolers

3GB switch enabled and I have seen programs use 2.7gigs under XP Pro 32 bit so I know its working.

My Punchholder rebuild times are around 156 seconds with this setup??

I could upgrade to

64 bit OS

Faster Ram and 8 gigs of 1033Mhz

Quaddro FX 1800

1k power supply

Or I could possibly buy something new for around 1600 dollars.

I build executive furniture and some of it is quite complex as far as geometry

I see long rebuild times on my Surface fills and complex sweeps or lofts.

I model the cushion surfaces and piping as accurately as possible and this takes a lot of surface work ussually.

I have seen 40MB+ parts -

Using the feature - Insert- Save bodies - to make assemblies out of my multibody parts - really eats resources right now over 2 gigs being used on some save bodies.

Sorry for the long post - and thank you ahead of time.

No one else has this question

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17 Replies

Anna Wood Dec 18, 2009 6:47 PM
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If you want a faster system spend money on a new CPU. SolidWorks is cpu bound and you will get the most speed improvement with a new cpu.

So yes, I would buy a new system.

I am sure you can get a system for around $1600 that will be considerably faster then what you have today.

There are multiple examples in the punch holder benchmark spreadsheets.

Cheers,

Anna
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- Ryan Laplante @ Anna Wood on Dec 19, 2009 5:52 PM
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  Ok I iwll start pullings stats off of the punchholder result sheet and seeing whats in the budget. thanks!
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  - Pankaj Bir @ Ryan Laplante on Dec 20, 2009 8:36 AM
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    Dear Ryan Laplante,
    
    The modelling technique being pursued by you is great but with my extensive modelling and coding experience I've realised a few things.
    
    You pretty much get caught up putting in to much of detail in the master model. And before you realise -its too late.
    Sometimes its much faster breaking the model after critical relations between your frame and cushion elements have been established.
    Details that link one body(part) to another must also be added.
    However details pertaining to each body itself can be added after splitting the master model into separate part files. So modelling the
    finer details of the cushion elements etc.
    
    Working on these part files individuallly really boosts speed. This is especially true since your machine config is limited
    
    Your assembly could then reflect the final results.
    
    When you finally buy that ultimate machine I would really like to know what your productivity improvements are.
    
    Thanks.
    
    Pankaj Bir
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    - Ryan Laplante @ Pankaj Bir on Dec 21, 2009 12:55 PM
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      Its not gonna eve be close to the ultimate machine but it should rebuilt in less time than the 3 min I wait for it now. And my machine is actually 3 years old - the CPu is newer but still has L1 cache size of 128Kb and L2 cache size of 1024Kb.
      
      Look at the memory subsytem performance here in GB per second - I have the slowest chip in the comparisons. still pretty fast for most things though.
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1-70W0UV Dec 21, 2009 7:38 AM
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Ryan,

If you're not having problems with your power supply the bigger power supply will gain you nothing as far as performance.

The FX1800 should improve zooming and rotating the model but will have pretty much no effect on rebuilt times.

Faster RAM will help a little. A 64bit OS isn't faster then a 32bit system so if your not having trouble with out of memory error you're not going to gain much.

The CPU is the biggest key to SW performance, so I would second Anna's opinion. A $1600 computer with a new CPU will give you much better rebuild times, vrs the little bit you will be able to gain by tweaking your current computer.
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- John Jablonski @ 1-70W0UV on Dec 21, 2009 11:17 AM
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  Um....can I ask....why not just buy a new CPU?
  
  Wouldn't that be the easiest thing? Pop it in, no reinstalling, configuring, moving settings, etc associated with buying a new rig. Should be a helluva lot cheaper too.
  
  -john
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  - David Paulson @ John Jablonski on Dec 21, 2009 11:30 AM
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    John,
    
    The new CPU's use a different socket with many more pins (1366? vs. 771). You'd have to replace the motherboard too.
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  - Jim Zink @ John Jablonski on Dec 21, 2009 12:21 PM
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    He's pretty much at the top of the line of CPUs for his motherboard (Socket AM2). Any CPU worth having would require a new motherboard and new DDR3 memory. Once you get to that point, a new system starts looking pretty good.
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  - Ryan Laplante @ John Jablonski on Dec 21, 2009 12:45 PM
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    I have a dual 3.2 right now - not much faster for AM2+ socket right now. The Phenoms are not officially supported by Asus and so that is the problem so far.
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    - John Jablonski @ Ryan Laplante on Dec 21, 2009 12:55 PM
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      As of BIOS 1504 the Phenom X4 9950 (HD995ZXAJ4BGH),2.6GHz,125W,rev.B3,SocketAM2+,Quad-Core is supported according to the Asus website. Granted it's slower (2.6 v 3.2GHz), so I don't know how that would work. So yeah, I suppose a new rig is probably best.
      
      If you're looking to trash your existing computer let me know, as I offer a free recycling program for crappy old computers like that. You just pay for shipping, and I take care of the rest. ;-)
      
      -john
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      - Ryan Laplante @ John Jablonski on Dec 21, 2009 1:13 PM
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        Crappy no. slightly outdated yes.
        AMD Dual 3.2Mhz arnt exactly outdated dualcores - almost though
        this will probbaly become online - offsite storage for work files just throw a couple TB of drives and set up the FTP.
        Ok so what I feel are necessary components so far are are gonna be
        
        Core i7 920 / 960
        Nvidia Quadro FX 1800
        DDR3 1600Mhz ram x 6GB
        80 GB SSD or 10K drive
        500GB 7200rpm dive
        
        Look at the bottleneck in memory throughput I have to deal with
        
        http://techreport.com/articles.x/15818/5
        
        my dual 3.2 is solidly at the bottom for this test. the 6400+
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        Harold Brunt @ Ryan Laplante on Dec 21, 2009 1:06 PM
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        I think John is yanking your chain. Note the " ;-) " at the end of of the post.
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        Ryan Laplante @ Harold Brunt on Dec 21, 2009 2:25 PM
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        Alright I figured this wasnt ready to be shipped to a third world country just yet.
        
        I am still doing research and might wait till after xmas sales to decide - thanks for all the input so far.
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        Anna Wood @ Ryan Laplante on Dec 21, 2009 1:38 PM
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        Ryan,
        
        Do not go by that particular benchmark result. That is not a valid result. The feature statistics does not update correctly all the time and one needs to do a refresh in the Feature Statistics box. The 58.16 seconds is what my rebuild time is on my models that I set-up for download. I missed catching that one and questioning the results before I posted it in the list.
        
        For a Core i7 920 stock system, the punchholder rebuild will be in the 75-80 second range.
        
        Cheers,
        
        Anna
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        Ryan Laplante @ Anna Wood on Dec 21, 2009 2:24 PM
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        Ok awesome, thanks for the input again.
        Lots and lots of options I like what I have speced out so far.
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        Dave Solly @ Ryan Laplante on Dec 21, 2009 8:43 PM
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        Looks like a pretty good system, one comment would be to go with Windows 7 64bit.
        you'll be wasting the system to stay on 32bit OS. And I say windows 7 because it is the fastest (microsoft) OS available, XP 64bit IMO is a peice of crap
        and 32bit cannot possibly address more than 4Gb of ram
        
        SSD drive is what I'd like to get in a desktop when I eventually stop moving around and come off this laptop
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        Ryan Laplante @ Dave Solly on Dec 24, 2009 1:27 PM
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        It will def be WIndows 7 64 bit.
        
        thanks for inpout I iwll post again as I decide more.
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