I am trying to price out a new workstation for one of our CAD users and after going through some of the posts here and other information on the web, I have to say that I'm a bit confused as to what the best processor is. I know that this is some subjective based on what we do with it. So, we do some assemblies, nothing I would call huge. The majority of what we do is tooling design so we use surfacing, indenting, combining, splitting a lot. I know indent and splitting seem to take a lot of resources but will these features use more than one processor on the computer? Or are we still better with a single, 6 core processor that is as fast as we can afford? I here the i7 name tossed around but looking at Dell's site (locked into a Dell at this point) I don't see them offered on any of the Precision Workstations. How would a W3680 compare to that? Is that the best single processor? What would be a good dual processor, E5620?
So I guess here are my questions.
-1 processor system or 2 processor system?
-Whats the best processor for a 1 processor system?
-Whats the best processor for a 2 processor system?
-Based on what we use Solidworks for, is there a benefit for a 2 processor system?
Thanks for any input you can provide!!
Ahh the great debate!!
Go with the Single fastest processor as many have said. I personally like the core i7, I have slower core i7 laptops that are smokin some of our faster CPU desktops in the punch holder. Sometimes with baffling results.
Oh, and go with either 6 or 12Gb of RAM on win7 64bit if possible.
So, maybe get a Dell Mobile Workstation? Then you'll have a Core i7 and mobility....too bad you're stuck with Dell, there are some good competition out there! Boxx and Lenovo being my two other favorites. Boxx actually has a laptop coming out with a core i7 3.33ghz desktop CPU in it, with FX cards sometime next month I believe....that's what I'm waiting for!
Good luck, you should have plenty to go on now.