nharmon220 :
After doing some more digging from what you told me, it would seem Quadro would be better suited to the task.
As for the Xeon debate, while I did find that the majority of users had Xeons in their workstations, I also found some forum threads and a few random users saying the i7 's are comparable. Have you used an i7 yourself? Since the majority side with Xeons, that will be my first choice, just curious though in regards to the capabilities of the i7 if you've had firsthand experiences.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-PRECISION-T7500-2x-XEON-3-33GHZ-QUAD-CORE-CPUS-24GB-MEM-2x-1TB-FX3800-/171079304140?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item27d51f03cc
That link is a similar make to what you linked to me. Outside of getting a Quad 4000 (and are the "versions" i.e. the "k" types, something to save up for?), would that setup be fine on its own then or do you see anything that would be better to directly update? (one thing I noticed when searching is the minor price difference between 2 X 1 TB mem vs the 2 X 2TBs. Ive read that the 2 TB's are a little more unstable for some reason, but I always thought the more mem in something the better?) And in regards to RAM there were also some minor price differences with the 24g vs 48g. While I know the more RAM the better, is the 48 worth the price or is it simply overkill and a waste of money?
Thank you for all your help thus far! (and sorry Swissperc for kind of highjacking your thread, but since we're looking similar builds, figure the info still helps you too
)
nharmon220,
After spending a lot of time evaluating graphics cards, I came to the same conclusion concerning Quadros. My situation is a bit different though, as I tend to use software for years- I use AutoCad 2007, Solidworks 2010, Adobe CS4, Corel Technical Designer is X-5- only one version behind, but before that I was using Corel Suite 12 - at least five years old- from the early XP days. I also use WorpPerfect X-4- five years old. The Quadro FX 4800 (380-bit, 1.5GB, 192 CUDA cores))I use has specific drivers for Solidworks 2010 and CS4. there was even a specialized FX 4800 called the "CX" that was optimized for CS4. Software makers that were so CUDA-centric are changing towards more OpenGL, but the more modern Quadros are also strengthening their Open GL support so they will run everything.
As to specific Quadros, I am convinced the great graphic card today is the Quadro K5000, but that is also $1,800. Tthe new Quadro K6000 (12GB) will be a landmark, but that ground-breaker is also $5,000. The K5000 is reputed to be especially great for 3D animation and video editing. I recently decided I would find a card that would run Sketchup a bit better - it's amazing how slow a 50MB model can get- and decided on a Quadro K4000, which has many of the K5000 attributes except a different GPU, 4GB to the K4000's 3GB and twice as many CUDA cores. I'm not fully committed, but at the moment I'm thinking is to wait until used K5000's are less than $1,000- they sell for as little as $1,100-1,300 now. I also like a wider bandwidth and the K5000 is 256-bit while the K4000 is 192-bit. Wikipedia has a good, quick guide to compare Quadro features >
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Quadro
In my use actually, a Quadro 4000 (2GB) would probably be sufficient, but as I will be eventually upgrading software and new rendering software (thinking of vray) is OpenGL and DirectX 11, the Quadro K4000 is more future-looking. I imagine a K4000 working very well in your applications. Again, the choices are so dependent on applications and proportions of use. If the budget is a problem another tactic would be to have a Quadro 4000 to start - get a bargain on one- $275 or so, and then replace it in eight months or a year with a K4000, 5000 , or even K5000.
The Precision T7500 listing looks quite good. The Xeon W5590 is rated on Passmark dual CPU benchmarks as no.33 with a score of 10,691. The dual X5460 (4-core 3.15GHz) is no.60 at 8,170. If you see one reasonably, the CPU to have in a T7500 is the Xeon 5680 six core 3.33GHz, rated no 16 at 14,291 (dual)- really really good. For comparison a single E5-2687W (8-core, 1,934) is a 3.1GHz, rated no.
1 and scores 14,586, so the computation power of a dual x5680 is theoretically higher than a single E5-2576W and will have 12 cores / 24 threads as compared to 8 cores / 16 threads- 50% more cores/ threads. The Quadro FX 3800 is one of the better old series Quadros- fantastic in 2D, and is still quite sought after used ($90-$175). It seems that the X800 Quadros- FX 1800, 3800, 4800, and 5800 were the top in their times. If I had that T7500, I would put my FX 4800 in and buy either a Quadro 4000 or K4000 relatively soon but in your use- have a 4000, K4000, 5000, or K5000 on Day 1. By the way, Quadro 5000's are very good cards that are becoming very reasonable used, but for once I will advocate the future looking "K" series.
With regards to RAM, the more the merrier. Keep in mind that with a dual CPU, the RAM is divided symmetrically between the two CPUs. so having 24GB is the same as having 12GB on a single CPU machine. My (generous) formula for RAM is to take 3GB for Windows 7, 2GB for each application, 1GB for Internet, and 2GB for open files between all applications. As I often will have > AutoCad 2D, Sketchup Pro, Solidworks, two applications in Corel Technical designer, Adobe CS or rendering, Wordperfect, and Mozilla Firefox, simultaneously, that score = OS 3GB, Applications 13GB, Files 2GB, or a total of 18GB.
This was a voyage of discovery and the reason my Precision T5400 came with 4GB grew to have16, and why the HP z420 I purchased recently has 24GB of ECC 1600 (supports 64GB). The Precision T7500 with dual CPU's supports 192GB of RAM (DDR3 1333 ECC) and my suggestion would be to have 32GB to start (= 16GB each CPU) and consider an eventual 64GB total. The 48GB system might be sufficient as is (= 24GB each CPU) and not need to be increased- again it's how many applications you run at once. Remember the RAM has to be the same speed and type and is located in the slots in a particular pattern of size and pairs
http://www.dell.com/support/Manuals/us/en/19/Product/precision-t7500
Drive size> Because of the way they're made, the larger the HD, the better they perform- higher memory density means access is faster. I started with an IBM 486 in 1993 that had an 85MB HD- that's Mega's and not Gig'a's and ever since have been a HD conservative. I added up all the files I've ever created since 1993- excepting music- and the total is only 108GB. I can easily have a 500GB drive with Windows, applications, and every file I've every done. On my new computer, I'm have a 250Gb Samsung 840 SSD and I plan to have the OS, applications and nearly all the files on that one drive, and back up to a 500GB mech'l drive. If that drive were a 1TB, then all the music files too. 3D models and animations and video though can eat drive space quickly. But, I do like the idea of having a RAID 1 that backs everything up and keeping a system image for quick recovery. Precisions have good RAID controllers. What size drive(s) do you have now?
[The Good Old Days > In 1993, I filled the 85MB drive and bought the largest then made-a 528MB for $570. At that rate per MB, a new 1TB drive would cost more than $1,100,000! ]
i7's > I've never been around i7's. I've never gone into an architectural, engineer's, graphics designer's, or industrial designer's professional office that used anything but either Xeon or Mac, except in the office business computer and those often have dual core Intel or AMD. There are very few programs that use more than one core plus hyperthreading -Sketchup, Solidworks, Inventor, and Revit are mostly single-threaded and rendering is one of the few that can use them all. There are some recent sound processing applications- Sonar- that can us multiple cores It appears to me that effects processing has some computational similarities to rendering. The i7 and Xeon E5 are close cousins and you can see the counterpart CPU's- an i7-3820 and E5-1620, and i7-3930X and E5-1650, and so on. Xeon E3 are similar to Core i5. There are no i7 8-core, equivalents of the Xeon E5-2XXX series which are the current models that can be used in pairs, nor the Xeon E7's which can be used in 4 and 8 CPU systems. Imagine having 8X Xeon E7's at $4,600 each (that's 80 cores / 160 threads) and a system with 4,096GB of RAM ,.. Actually the Intel 4000 and now 4600 integrated graphics does remarkably well in 2D, but as it's not sufficient in 3D, one may as well use a Xeon which doesn't have the IG.
Sorry for such a long ramble.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
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