ArcGIS Workstation Upgrade

[donimic]

Good morning everyone,

I do a lot of work in ArcGIS at work and am having difficulty displaying large data sets without the computer freezing (this particular project requires 5-10 million color coded data points displayed in arcscene). I have limited knowledge in computer hardware beyond building my personal home computer, but since everyone here was very helpful during that enterprise I thought i would try my luck again when it comes to my work struggles.

I Have pasted some of the computer specs below and before I go ask for hardware upgrade I would like to know where to best put the money, or what i should do in general.

The computer is somethign my company purchased from Dell so i do not know paticular componet brand/specs

CPU: Intel Xeon CPU E5-1620 0 @ 3.60Hz
RAM: 20BG
GPU: 2x NVidia NVS-300

Thought or suggestions? thanks in advance for all your help

 

[sadams04]

CPU - You have a very solid CPU. A little dated, but it has plenty of processing power...
MEM - If 20GB is meeting your needs, there is no need to add more.
GPU - The NVS-300 cards were OK, but by todays standards have room for improvement. This is where I would focus. Maybe consider a newer Quadro K2000...
STORAGE - Do you have an SSD in the mix? You could very well be waiting on your disk just as much as anything else. Sequential reads / writes on a traditional spindle drive aren't all that high, and moving that workload to an SSD would make the computer feel like a whole new machine (no longer waiting on the HD).

 

[bambiboom]

donimic,

Application Settings: I've never used ArcGIS, but my understanding -(gleaned from looking into a Matlab system for a friend a few months ago) is that there's an ArcGIS server management sub-application that allows CPU multi-threading - similar to rendering programs and Matllab (though in Matlab this has to be coded) , you can apply more cores / threads to the geodatabase positional calculations. You might inquire if this is indeed the case as setting up mutli-threading would be the easiest way for possibly dramatic improvement. So, first on my list would be to look into the server management for multi-threading. A side note: ArcGIS might be licensed by the cores used (servers are like this), so you might want to check the allotment in case the program is unexpectedly locked to a certain number of cores.

B: Check file fragmentation

GPU: Secondly, as ArcGIS is 2D, the strictly 2D Quadro NVS's may work well on smaller datasets, but the bandwidth, double precision, and calculation assets are limited in a large project. You might consider consulting ArcGIS about recommended graphics cards and in particular, mid- to higher level AMD Firepros, which are very calculation oriented- high double precision. A Firepro W7000 might be a very positive change as it acts as a co-processor in the positional calculations- like adding more CPU cores.

CPU: If you have a Dell with an E5-1620, it's probably a Precision T3600, which is a very good system with a high potential for your use. If you're still having troubles and work is seriously impeded, plus you've learned the work can be multi-threaded, you could also consider changing to an E5-1650 v2 six core @ 3.5 / 3.9GHz > $560 to $600:

http://ark.intel.com/products/75780/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-1650-v2-12M-Cache-3_50-GHz

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=E5-1650V2

> and this particular CPU has among the best cost / performance ratios of any Xeon.

B: Check the modernity of the BIOS

This is an interesting question and I for one would appreciate knowing what you find out.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB DDR3 ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro K2200 (4GB)> Intel 730 480GB > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H 2560 X 1440 > Windows 7 Professional 64 >
[ Passmark Rating = 4402 > CPU= 9280 / 2D= 7971 / 3D=3480 / Mem= 2558 / Disk= 4498]

Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB DDR2 667 ECC> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys WMP600N WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 and and Dell 19" LCD > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit >
[ Passmark system Rating = 1859, CPU = 8528 / 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]