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Hardware Comparasion

Question asked by Matt Halfmann on Mar 6, 2007
Latest reply on Mar 6, 2007 by Anna Wood

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The majority of our CAD computers have Dual Core AMD Opteron 175 Processors and ATI FireGL V5100 graphics cards. BUt we have one that has an Intel Core 2 processor and and NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500. All other componants and settings are the same. The standard computer that we have it takes about 15 minutes to open one of our standard drawings, but it is cut in half on the single computer with the intel processor. Will that processor and graphics card have that much of a gain?

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Jeff Mirisola Mar 6, 2007 3:28 PM
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Without trying to sound like a smart a$$, I'd say the results speak for themselves...

Search the threads for hardware. The topic of hardware performance has been brought up many times.
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Gerald Davis Mar 6, 2007 3:40 PM
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Matt -
I suspect a big part of the difference is the video card.
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- Anna Wood @ Gerald Davis on Mar 6, 2007 4:01 PM
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  I suspect it is more the Core 2 Duo and then the video card. The Nvidia Quadro series is superior to the ATI Fire GL's in my opinion. The new Intel Core 2 Duo's are very good processors. I agree with Jeff, it is your new hardware that is giving you superior performance.
  
  Matt, what is the specific model number of Core 2 Duo that you have?
  
  I was an AMD fan until Intel came out with the new Core 2 Duo processors. I will be buying Intel C2D (E6600 or higher) at work and at home until AMD comes out with a superior product. Intel has retaken the performance lead by a wide margin with their new C2D's.
  
  Regards,
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  - Matt Halfmann @ Anna Wood on Mar 6, 2007 4:12 PM
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    It is a Core 2 Duo 6300
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  - Jeff Mirisola @ Anna Wood on Mar 6, 2007 4:32 PM
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    I love it when you agree with me, Anna. It makes me feel as though I may actually know something!
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    - Anna Wood @ Jeff Mirisola on Mar 6, 2007 6:13 PM
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      Matt,
      
      You would be even more happy if you bumped the Intel system up to an E6600 or E6700.
      
      Our current minimum computer specs for our Engineering dept are Dell 390's, Intel C2D E6700, 2 Gigs of RAM, Nvidia FX3450's and 160 Gig SATA, 10K rpm hard drives on a Windows XP 32 bit system. About $2400 from Dell with no monitor. If you need to lower costs, go with an FX550 and 80 Gig SATA, 10K rpm hard drives. ($1900)
      
      For Windows XP 64 bit, I would bump the RAM up to 4 gigs on a Dell 390 system. About $2700 from Dell with no monitor and the better hard drive and video card.
      
      The CPU gives you speed, the 64 bit operating system allows you to address more system memory.
      
      On drawings SolidWorks is regen'ing your drawing views as a multi-threaded operation (it uses both cores). If you aren't maxing out memory, then the 64 bit is not doing much for you. You will get more bang for the buck with better CPU's.
      
      Your detailer should have as good as a computer as your designers. Large drawings are as system intensive as anything you will do on your computers. As you are seeing with the drawings you are creating.
      
      Your C2D E6300 is at the bottom of the performance spectrum for a workstation. We look to go middle of the road to higher when spec'ing out new systems. There is a sweet spot on the price point where the price really sky rockets when getting in the "extreme" series of CPU's both from Intel and AMD. We spec CPU's one notch below that point.
      
      Your AMD Opteron 175 is about a two year old cpu.
      
      My opinions are likely to change in a few months when SW 2008 comes out and Vista becomes more mainstream. I beleive they will need more system performance then today. I want to get computers with as much headroom as possible but still not break the budget. We look for the workstations to last up to 3 years in engineering before being moved into other parts of the company.
      
      Anyway, probably more then you wanted to hear... :-)
      
      Regards,
      
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