CAD build

[OutofDate_1980]

My Father asked me to build a system for CAD. I'm also planning to build one for myself.

I have some dated experience with LAN/WAN (Cisco, Novel 3x/4x) and VidConf (Polycom/VideoServer), but haven't built a PC from the ground up.

After reading many reviews at this site, I priced the following from Newegg.

Details:

MB: GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard ($259.99).
#Don't want to skimp on MB and understand this manufacture is very good for OC.

Case: (1a) COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower
PSU: (1b) COOLER MASTER UCP RS700-AAAAA3 700W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER
(Combination price) ($269.98)
#Don't think I need more watts, unless I use 3x GF GTX 285.

CPU: Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor ( $294.99)
#I will need to OC to at least 3GHz for the CAD machine, but if needed will ~shudder~ spring for one i7 965.

CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 120mm SSO CPU Cooler ($84.99)
(Note: only 120mm cooler fan for 1366 socket listed at Newegg I found.)
#Know nothing about this cooler, but think I need a 120mm fan.

GPU: XFX GX285NZDFF GeForce GTX 285 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card ($349.99)
#Should I spring for more ? IMU more cards will give you better frame rates for gaming, but don't know if this is applicable for CAD.

SDRAM: Mushkin 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory ($204.99)
#Confused about RAM. Stock i7-920 is limited to 1066MHz, but when OC will need RAM with tighter timing, such as this or Crucial Ballistex 1600 ?

Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS 300GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s ($459.98) (Note: this is for two drives for RAID, in this example mirroring)
#Was thinking of adding a small SSD Intel X25-M 80 GB (399.99) for OS and Apps, but mixed reviews here.

DVD: LG Black 6X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 6X Blu-ray DVD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner Super Multi Blu-ray Disc Burner & HD DVD-ROM Drive Model GGW-H20L - Retail (229.99)
#Haven't a clue, OEM version used on one of the builds here. I'm hesitant to use OEM due to lack of experience.

Card reader: SIIG JU-91RW12-S4 9-in-1 USB 2.0 Card Reader/Write + Floppy ($54.99) (Yes, Floppy also, please don't beat me senseless)
#Will need a floppy on one of the machines.

Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech 967557-0403 Silver/Black USB + PS/2 RF Wireless Slim Cordless Desktop S 510 ($47.99)
#This appears to be the best value at Newegg for a non-gaming machine.

Speakers: JBL DUETAL 12 Watts 2.0 Speaker ($39.99)
#Same as above.

LCD: HP LP2475w Black-Silver 24" 6 ms (GTG); 12ms Widescreen LCD Monitor ($609.99)
#Understand Dell has an e-IPS LCD available in Australia for half this price, but not sure if e-IPS equates to H-IPS

Comes in at about $2,907.86, which is $500.00+ over the $2,500.00 build here.

Is there anything here that is questionable ? I'm not tied to Newegg, just a convenient source.

Suggestions or comments appreciated.

btw I will need to copy some data files from an EIDE HD. Is this possible to do with SATA controller ?

 

[calinkula]

Anyone with experience work with workstation level GPUs vs. desktop/gaming level GPUs? Yeah, the hardware is about the same, but drivers make the difference. To sum it up the $2000 workstation GPU sucks at gaming, but there has to be value somewhere for the market to support that price.

 

[xthekidx]

Run those raptors in Raid 0 for your OS system/applications. Then get 2 1tb WD Caviar black drives in Raid 1 for your data. The Intel SSD's are incredible, but not worth the price.

Do not get the i7-965, the 920 will reach an OC of 3.8 ghz on air, if you really put time and effort into it and have a good mobo, it will go higher.

Don't get that PSU, its a shady model, the only Coolermaster PSU's worth getting are the Real Power Pro series that are over 800w, others have a relatively high failure rate. Look at Corsair PSU's or PC Power&Cooling PSU's.

From what I understand, CAD is more a CPU intensive app than GPU, so if this machine isn't going to be used for gaming, you don't need that GTX 285, you could go with a 9800GTX or Radeon HD 4850. But if there is a chance that you will game with this rig, then stick with the GTX 285.

For coolers, that Noctua is very good, but a bit overpriced IMO. I would go for the CoolerMaster V8 or wait for the V10 to come out (interesting looking design, kinda unique). They are great coolers and have Red LEDs to match your HAF case.

Motherboard: I would go for the GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5, its the next step up from that one and has more features, the UD4P is something I would suggest for someone who is on a tighter budget.

Stick with that ram you picked out, Its very good and cheaper than most other ram at that performance level. To get the ram to run at the right speed, when you overclock your i7 CPU, you up the BCLK and the ram multiplier times the BCLK gives you the ram speed.

 

[cadder]

You have to consider what CAD program he is going to use, since different ones have different requirements.

I've used AutoCAD for the past 20 years and it doesn't need a quad core nor does it need a fancy GPU. We are also using Revit now and it uses a quad core for some things but not for most of its work. It will make use of some GPU's, the ATI FireGL's are recommended for it.

What these programs really like is a lot of CPU power in a single core. My new workstation uses an E8500 at 3.8GHz, 4GB of ram, a WD Velociraptor 300 for C:, an ATI FireGL V3600 video card.

Other programs however might make better use of a quad core and/or a more powerful GPU.

 

[Outlander_04]

What kind of CAD work?

If its drafting and engineering you do NOT need a high powered gfx card . Basic rendering is going to require the cheapest quietest $40 card . Large 3d animations might benefit from a heavy duty gfx card .

For 4 years we ran SOLIDWORKS on a 2.8 gig pentium 4 with very basic nVidia card . Most of the work was automotive body components . Rendering was instantaneous . And thats on a computer with about a 10th of the cpu power and 2% of the gfx power .


Just in case you didnt get it the first time : DO NOT USE A GAMING GFX CARD ... esp a noisy leaf blower of a card that will probably have your dad praying to become deaf

 

[xthekidx]

Yeah just get like an HD 3650 or something if there won't be any gaming done on this machine.

Been doing some research, looks like for CAD Nvidia Quadro FX would be the best way to go, but those cards are spendy. Here is a cheap one:
http://compeve.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=176&zenid=1b9ffc97accf93f3187b493161a9c182

Here is a more expensive one:
http://www.compuvest.us/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=347490

Here's top of the line:
http://www.katerno.com/detail/s/50598/p/VCQFX5800-PCIE-PB/PNY-Nvidia-Quadro-FX-5800-4GB-PCI-E---VCQFX5800-PCIE-PB

Mind you, those are the best deals I found on those cards, other places sell them for hundreds more.

 

[OutofDate_1980]

Anyone with experience work with workstation level GPUs vs. desktop/gaming level GPUs? Yeah, the hardware is about the same, but drivers make the difference. To sum it up the $2000 workstation GPU sucks at gaming, but there has to be value somewhere for the market to support that price.

Thank you for your reply. I'm also attempting to give a modest "gaming" experience, my father does have grandchildren and great grandchildren, so a bit of "bragging" rights would be beneficial, as the kids play on "his" machine .

Primary consideration is still CAD applications.

 

[xthekidx]

Well since there will be some gaming, and the video cards that are designed to assist in CAD are so outrageously expensive, I would say just go with a normal gaming graphics card. If you want a 26" monitor, I would say get a GTX 280 or 285.

 

[OutofDate_1980]

Run those raptors in Raid 0 for your OS system/applications. Then get 2 1tb WD Caviar black drives in Raid 1 for your data. The Intel SSD's are incredible, but not worth the price.

Do not get the i7-965, the 920 will reach an OC of 3.8 ghz on air, if you really put time and effort into it and have a good mobo, it will go higher.

Don't get that PSU, its a shady model, the only Coolermaster PSU's worth getting are the Real Power Pro series that are over 800w, others have a relatively high failure rate. Look at Corsair PSU's or PC Power&Cooling PSU's.

From what I understand, CAD is more a CPU intensive app than GPU, so if this machine isn't going to be used for gaming, you don't need that GTX 285, you could go with a 9800GTX or Radeon HD 4850. But if there is a chance that you will game with this rig, then stick with the GTX 285.

For coolers, that Noctua is very good, but a bit overpriced IMO. I would go for the CoolerMaster V8 or wait for the V10 to come out (interesting looking design, kinda unique). They are great coolers and have Red LEDs to match your HAF case.

Motherboard: I would go for the GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5, its the next step up from that one and has more features, the UD4P is something I would suggest for someone who is on a tighter budget.

Stick with that ram you picked out, Its very good and cheaper than most other ram at that performance level. To get the ram to run at the right speed, when you overclock your i7 CPU, you up the BCLK and the ram multiplier times the BCLK gives you the ram speed.

Thank you for your reply.

Do you think 600 GB is necessary for OS and Apps via RAID 0 ? I was thinking that RAID 1 would be good for "auto" back-up of data and a very fast drive for OS and Apps could be backed up less frequently. There is some distance from where I live and my parents and they, like me, can be somewhat remiss in doing the appropriate measures for data recovery.

I was thinking that around 3.5 GHz OC would be a more conservative compromise, due to travel distance limitations to fix problems, but I "know nothing", so can experiment on secondary build.

PSU, will do more research, this was a "bundled" package for the MB, may be a reason.

CAD, from my understanding, is CPU intensive, but "hope" that some of the younger "gaming" generation can do some "ohs and awhs" with granddad.

Thanks for your suggestion on coolers.

MD: as I don't want to skimp, an extra $50.00 on per build sounds reasonable.

Per Newegg, quoted Mushkin RAM is out of stock and deleted from my cart. Need to do more research, very quickly.

I have additional messages on this topic. Will reply after some shut-i. Appreciate the response from all.

 

[xthekidx]

Here's some good bang for your buck ram, not the best thing out there but very good and at a very reasonable price for 6gb 1600mhz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227365

 

[xthekidx]

The whole point of raid 0 is performance. The whole point of raid 1 is conservation of data. You will not get a performance boost from raid 1 but your data will be very secure. You will get a large speed boost from raid 0 but your data is half as secure, both have their advantages and disadvantages. If the performance isn't that big of an issue, as they are 10,000rpm drives anyway, I would just buy 1 velociraptor and not bother with raid and save some cash. WD is very reliable and those drives come with 5 year warranties, WD could not offer this if failure was common.

 

[xthekidx]

For a "modest gaming experience" on that monitor, look at HD 4870 or GTX 260 core 216 if you want to save some money over than GTX 285.

 

[OutofDate_1980]

You have to consider what CAD program he is going to use, since different ones have different requirements.

I've used AutoCAD for the past 20 years and it doesn't need a quad core nor does it need a fancy GPU. We are also using Revit now and it uses a quad core for some things but not for most of its work. It will make use of some GPU's, the ATI FireGL's are recommended for it.

What these programs really like is a lot of CPU power in a single core. My new workstation uses an E8500 at 3.8GHz, 4GB of ram, a WD Velociraptor 300 for C:, an ATI FireGL V3600 video card.

Other programs however might make better use of a quad core and/or a more powerful GPU.

Not sure of which CAD app will be used, but probably a product from AutoDesk, hoping my father can help me when he becomes an out patient.

He's retired, but used dedicated graphic workstation for atmospheric science experiment platforms for NASA.
He'll use CAD for this machine for design/architectural. Mom wants a new house.

I do have a friend who does CAD work and he mentioned the 3GHz requirement, but like you he uses a single core.

I can be flexible, as I can use the rejects for my machine which has less demanding requirements.

I have to reexamine the graphics card, other posts suggest the 285 is for gaming and may not be appropriate for CAD.
Note: My only experience with gaming is I played Doom a few times many years ago, but the gaming community does push the envelope on hardware, which is why I try to pay attention to them.

Thanks for sharing your CAD experience.

 

[OutofDate_1980]

What kind of CAD work?

If its drafting and engineering you do NOT need a high powered gfx card . Basic rendering is going to require the cheapest quietest $40 card . Large 3d animations might benefit from a heavy duty gfx card .

For 4 years we ran SOLIDWORKS on a 2.8 gig pentium 4 with very basic nVidia card . Most of the work was automotive body components . Rendering was instantaneous . And thats on a computer with about a 10th of the cpu power and 2% of the gfx power .


Just in case you didnt get it the first time : DO NOT USE A GAMING GFX CARD ... esp a noisy leaf blower of a card that will probably have your dad praying to become deaf

He'll use CAD for this machine for design/architectural. Mom wants a new house. Grandkids will play games.

Dad does have to use hearing aids.

Thought the video card was my less controversial selection based on the reviews here. Oh well, will check out the posted video suggestions and re-read reviews.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[OutofDate_1980]

Yeah just get like an HD 3650 or something if there won't be any gaming done on this machine.

Been doing some research, looks like for CAD Nvidia Quadro FX would be the best way to go, but those cards are spendy. Here is a cheap one:
http://compeve.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=176&zenid=1b9ffc97accf93f3187b493161a9c182

Here is a more expensive one:
http://www.compuvest.us/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=347490

Here's top of the line:
http://www.katerno.com/detail/s/50598/p/VCQFX5800-PCIE-PB/PNY-Nvidia-Quadro-FX-5800-4GB-PCI-E---VCQFX5800-PCIE-PB

Mind you, those are the best deals I found on those cards, other places sell them for hundreds more.

I went over to Auto Desk and checked the Getforce 9xxx and 8xxx series.
These cards are recommended and supported for 2008 and newer software.
I venture the 28x and 29x would work also, but didn't see them tested

It appears OpenGL needed the more expensive cards.
Auto Desk dropped OpenGL and switched to DirectX in the 2008 and newer versions.

It appears Auto Desk users are happy about being able to use the *cheap gaming* instead of the expensive professional cards with this switch to DirectX.

Thanks for your reply. Hope the OpenGL info is helpful.

 

[OutofDate_1980]

Here's some good bang for your buck ram, not the best thing out there but very good and at a very reasonable price for 6gb 1600mhz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227365

Thanks CL 8 (8-8-8-24) It appears 12gb on a ASUS board requires a drop to 1333MHz, which is not an issue with my build.

 

[cadder]

Do you think 600 GB is necessary for OS and Apps via RAID 0 ?

We tend to go crazy with hard drive space lately, which is OK because it is so cheap and readily available. My current machine has stuff stored on it, photos, downloads, programs, apps, digital photos, that I've been saving since the beginning of time, and the total space used on its hard drive is about 80GB. The average person doesn't need much space. If they save lots of movies, music, maybe digital photos, they can use up a little more space.

It appears Auto Desk users are happy about being able to use the *cheap gaming* instead of the expensive professional cards with this switch to DirectX.

Autocad will run fine on almost ANY video card. I work on large building models with my basic video card. I even work quite a bit over the internet via remote desktop, where all of the display information is sent over the internet then through wifi to my laptop, and even this works pretty well. Buy whatever video card you want, but don't think you have to buy anything beyond a plain VGA card to run autocad.

 

[Akebono 98]

The way I see it, CAD will likely be run on anything you put together here. What drives the build here is that Great-Granddad should have a "Ferrari" to take the little ones out for a spin when they come over. Given his technical background, I'm sure all these little details matter to him and despite what you've said about "primary CAD, gaming on the side", it seems to me that this is really more like "drive a Ferrari to work" because I'm an enthusiast.

So with that in mind, a few comments for your build:

PSU: You will need 850W for nVidia SLI, preferably Corsair 850TX or PCP&C's 860 watter. 750W for a single nVidia card.

CPU: You don't need an i7 965 Extreme, just get the best heatsink and OC the 920.

CPU heatsinks: The Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 1366RT is the best, but expensive. Scythe Mugen 2 is a better value. If you want to show off a bit, then look at the upcoming Xigmatek Thor's Hammer.

Mobo: Don't get the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 unless you need the extra features over the EX58-UD4P, as it's a waste of money. Asus P6T Deluxe is also an excellent overclocking board, but wait for the V2 if possible. If you want to be different, there's always the Asus P6T6 WS Revolution...

RAM: The black heatspreader Mushkins at 7-8-7-20 timings (#998679) would be my first choice, but there's also the G.Skills at CL7 (link) or the Corsair Dominators (link) if you want the better finned heatsinks.

Simple storage solution: 1 Velociraptor for main and then one slower drive (640GB WD Caviar Black or Samsung Spinpoint F1) for storage / backup / mirror, etc. You could always keep your data on the main drive and backup to the second, thus avoiding RAID, etc. And just burn important backups to DVD. I assume that with your family's technical ability, creative partitioning will not be a problem.

If you don't mind the added complexity, then RAID 1 for data drives is ideal in your particular situation--"automatic" backup, as you say.

Note that the larger modern HDDs are fast because of their high platter density. That's what we get them for, not just because we need 1TB of storage (which we don't).

Blu-Ray: The Blu-ray *burner* is a waste of money, just get a Blu-ray *reader* (e.g. LG GGC-H20L) and burn any discs in DVD format to save money. If you're not using this rig for home theatre purposes at all, then just get a $25 DVD burner.

OEM optical drives are fine, because the mobo comes with a SATA cable to connect it. Retail versions come with software, though.

Floppies are useful for those rare occasions--doesn't hurt to have one.

Do you need a "special" mouse for precision movement, like the Logitech MX Revolution or something like that?

If you want a fancy LCD monitor with an unusually high quality screen, suggest the 24" Samsung 245T, with the S-PVA panel.

The mobo has an EIDE port for your old HDD.

Notwithstanding the discussion on video cards for CAD (which makes things pretty easy), if you want bragging rights with the great-grandkids, then look to scale GTX 285 cards--that'll give 'em plenty to brag about in Crysis... and Great-Granddad will be the one going ooohh, aaahhhh, look what my *CAD* station can do!!!


P.S. For your "regular" CAD station: E8600 / Asus P5Q Deluxe / Corsair Dominator DDR2-1066 / Xigmatek HDT-S1283 / PCP&C Silencer 610 / Velociraptor 300GB

 

[jyjjy]

NEVER buy a workstation video card.
You can easily softmod an low end nvidia gaming card into a workstation card that costs 10x as much.

 

[OutofDate_1980]

Do you think 600 GB is necessary for OS and Apps via RAID 0 ?

We tend to go crazy with hard drive space lately, which is OK because it is so cheap and readily available. My current machine has stuff stored on it, photos, downloads, programs, apps, digital photos, that I've been saving since the beginning of time, and the total space used on its hard drive is about 80GB. The average person doesn't need much space. If they save lots of movies, music, maybe digital photos, they can use up a little more space.

It appears Auto Desk users are happy about being able to use the *cheap gaming* instead of the expensive professional cards with this switch to DirectX.

Autocad will run fine on almost ANY video card. I work on large building models with my basic video card. I even work quite a bit over the internet via remote desktop, where all of the display information is sent over the internet then through wifi to my laptop, and even this works pretty well. Buy whatever video card you want, but don't think you have to buy anything beyond a plain VGA card to run autocad.

It's taking me a while to digest information from this board and I have made adjustments to my proposed build.

I'm still investigating GPU's , but still may go for the 28x/26x series. It's probably overkill, then again a little entertainment may be worth the price, at least for the younger set.

Storage is still an issue, may still go for the SSD for OS and apps, but step back to 7200 on drives for data over RAID 1, there are logistics which I have to consider, i.e. data recovery.

Anyway ... thanks for your thoughts, which challenges the confused, which I'm a proud member.

 

[Shadow703793]

For PSU get this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341011&nm_mc=OTC-RSS&cm_mmc=OTC-RSS-_-Power%20Supplies-_-PC%20Power%20%26%20Cooling-_-N82E16817341011
PC Power & Cooling 750
$70 after MIR

You DO NOT need a 800W PSU for SLI. See: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-radeon-power,2122-4.html
Look at GTX280 SLI, max 3D draw is 390W. A good 750W PSU (ie Corsair/ PC Power & Cooling) will work fine.

Also there is a kit for Core i7 and XIGMATEK HSFs. See: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233028
and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233027

 

[eodeo]

AutoCad started supporting DirectX about a year ago- since than OpenGL went to its rightful place- dumpster and unlucky OS users (mac, linux...)

Aside from being faster and looking better than OpenGL, D3D (part of DirectX) isnt artificially limited to work properly on workstation cards. This means that your gaming card would work as good, and likely better than workstation cards. For one it would work better since there isnt gtx 285 quadro equivalent yet. The best quadro has to offer is Quadro fx 5800, that is gtx 280 chip with 4gb ram.

Since you're not going to use more than 512mb of video ram (guaranteed), you dont get to own 3gb of useless extra ram, but you get a faster card.

If you want almost 2x faster card, go for ATI 4870 1gb version. Due to difference in architecture, pure vertex transforming power of this card is more than 10x greater than gtx 280. This doesnt transform into better gaming performance (unless you play like me with 8x aa), but it does transform into better CAD performance.

Note- there are too many things to explain here. but know just this. Both cards are really fast and 4870s victory is on paper only, since both cards can transform more than a billion of polygons in real time. 4870 comes out as a winner due to price alone. That and if you game at 8x anti aliasing.

 

[Shadow703793]

^eodeo, do you happen to play Spore? Your sig looks like some thing from the game...

 

[cadder]

P.S. For your "regular" CAD station: E8600 / Asus P5Q Deluxe / Corsair Dominator DDR2-1066 / Xigmatek HDT-S1283 / PCP&C Silencer 610 / Velociraptor 300GB

Here is what I spec'd for my CAD workstation, after lots of reading on this site:
Case: Antec 300
PS: Antec 500W
CPU: E8500 @3.8GHz
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
CPU cooler: ZALMAN CNPS9700
Memory: Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5
Hard drive 0: WD Velociraptor 300Gb
Hard drive 1: 1Tb WD
Video: ATI FireGL V3600
DVD RW drive: Pioneer DVD RW
OS: WinXP

We use AutoCAD2009 and Revit Structure 2009

AutoCAD alone will run on fairly modest hardware (years ago I started by running AutoCAD on an original IBM PC at 4.77MHz) but Revit needs all it can get. Plus we have third party add-ons for AutoCAD that are written in much slower languages and slow down AutoCAD by a lot when they are in use.

Re: DirectX... isn't that only under Vista? I remember reading that under XP AutoCAD would use OpenGL, but under Vista it would/could switch to DirectX. Or was it that DirectX9 was available under WinXP but AutoCAD required DirectX10 which wasn't available until you switched to Vista?

 

[OutofDate_1980]

The way I see it, CAD will likely be run on anything you put together here. What drives the build here is that Great-Granddad should have a "Ferrari" to take the little ones out for a spin when they come over. Given his technical background, I'm sure all these little details matter to him and despite what you've said about "primary CAD, gaming on the side", it seems to me that this is really more like "drive a Ferrari to work" because I'm an enthusiast.

So with that in mind, a few comments for your build:

PSU: You will need 850W for nVidia SLI, preferably Corsair 850TX or PCP&C's 860 watter. 750W for a single nVidia card.

CPU: You don't need an i7 965 Extreme, just get the best heatsink and OC the 920.

CPU heatsinks: The Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 1366RT is the best, but expensive. Scythe Mugen 2 is a better value. If you want to show off a bit, then look at the upcoming Xigmatek Thor's Hammer.

Mobo: Don't get the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 unless you need the extra features over the EX58-UD4P, as it's a waste of money. Asus P6T Deluxe is also an excellent overclocking board, but wait for the V2 if possible. If you want to be different, there's always the Asus P6T6 WS Revolution...

RAM: The black heatspreader Mushkins at 7-8-7-20 timings (#998679) would be my first choice, but there's also the G.Skills at CL7 (link) or the Corsair Dominators (link) if you want the better finned heatsinks.

Simple storage solution: 1 Velociraptor for main and then one slower drive (640GB WD Caviar Black or Samsung Spinpoint F1) for storage / backup / mirror, etc. You could always keep your data on the main drive and backup to the second, thus avoiding RAID, etc. And just burn important backups to DVD. I assume that with your family's technical ability, creative partitioning will not be a problem.

If you don't mind the added complexity, then RAID 1 for data drives is ideal in your particular situation--"automatic" backup, as you say.

Note that the larger modern HDDs are fast because of their high platter density. That's what we get them for, not just because we need 1TB of storage (which we don't).

Blu-Ray: The Blu-ray *burner* is a waste of money, just get a Blu-ray *reader* (e.g. LG GGC-H20L) and burn any discs in DVD format to save money. If you're not using this rig for home theatre purposes at all, then just get a $25 DVD burner.

OEM optical drives are fine, because the mobo comes with a SATA cable to connect it. Retail versions come with software, though.

Floppies are useful for those rare occasions--doesn't hurt to have one.

Do you need a "special" mouse for precision movement, like the Logitech MX Revolution or something like that?

If you want a fancy LCD monitor with an unusually high quality screen, suggest the 24" Samsung 245T, with the S-PVA panel.

The mobo has an EIDE port for your old HDD.

Notwithstanding the discussion on video cards for CAD (which makes things pretty easy), if you want bragging rights with the great-grandkids, then look to scale GTX 285 cards--that'll give 'em plenty to brag about in Crysis... and Great-Granddad will be the one going ooohh, aaahhhh, look what my *CAD* station can do!!!


P.S. For your "regular" CAD station: E8600 / Asus P5Q Deluxe / Corsair Dominator DDR2-1066 / Xigmatek HDT-S1283 / PCP&C Silencer 610 / Velociraptor 300GB

Thank you for your insightful comments. Ferri would be too flashy for Dad, but he would opine a Lexus is a fine means of transportation and just because it comes with that $1k+ stereo system doesn't distract from it's primary purpose, but then again, father almost ran a police car off the road while he was passing, several years ago. "look what my *CAD* station can do!!!" is very succinct.

One video card so 750w PSU = Corsair CMPSU-750TX or PCP&C's (favorite flavor ?, Newegg has some good sales on the PCP&C 750w).
(If the grand kids want more they can get hands dirty and wallets lighter and add more cards and a beefed up power supply.)

The i7-920 appears to be the heads up favorite.

Any preferred link for the Scythe Mugen 2, I couldn't find at Newegg ?

I'm guessing the extra features of the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 are the extra PCI2 and SATA ? Newegg has a combo price for the i7-920 and UD5 for 558.98. The UD4P (239.99) + i7-920 (294.99) =534.98. Do you think the extra $24.00 for the extra features (more PCI and SATA) would be wasted. I have no idea if these features offer any benefit over the UDP4.

Having a hard finding Mushkins at 7-8-7-20 timings (#998679) in stock. Any suggestions ?

Thanks for your explanation of the HD relationship between high platter density, capacity, and throughput.

The overwhelming advice I received is not to get the SSD (Reviewed as so fast, but not worth the cost). I was also informed that only the real power users ever came close to using 80 GB. With that in mind, how about RAID 1 (2x159.99=319.98) Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (bare drive). Don't know what "bare drive" means.

As for partitioning, I use to order Compaqs, their drives had a small partition for system files (backup of BIOS, etc), which I guess they did to keep the user from deleting these files. If I use RAID 1 then I don't think partitions would be beneficial.

Placed Blu-Ray "reader" LG GGC-H20L in cart.

You got me here "..."special" mouse for precision movement, like the Logitech MX Revolution...", it appears this is for scrolling large documents, is this useful for CAD ?

I read that H-IPS was a better mfg process than S-PVA. I haven't heard any more news on Dell's e-IPS LCD panel. Have any reviews on 24" Samsung 245T ?

The build for me is just a number crunching, database machine. A use of RAID 0 here may be beneficial, as my understanding is that database files derive better performance via RAID 0. There are other RAID methods, but they maybe be a bit esoteric for these builds.