Processor advice

[Hazbeen77]

HI,

3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7-3770 processor (3.40GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.90GHz) or
AMD FX-8350 Eight Core CPU (4.00GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)

for use CAD /3D Design?

 

[FALC0N]

Similar performing chips for that particular task. But the FX-8350 is much less expensive. I would go that route.

 

[avenseth12]

I dont know you budget but I would agree the FX 8350 is suited for your needs and is much cheaper

 

[geofelt]

How well threaded are your cad apps?

If your apps can use all 8 threads of the FX-8350, then it will do better for that.
On the other hand, the faster cores of the 3770 will prevail elsewhere.
Here is a link to a comparison of several environments:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=697

And... for 5% more cost, the 3770K can be overclocked to give you 25% more performance.

 

[groundrat]

Basically, you are building a workstation. Have you checked any workstation manufacturers on line to see what components they use?

Not one uses AMD. Every major manufacturer uses 2011 socket Intel with Xeon processors.

I myself have been critical of this. I feel that the Zambezi chipset could be, with very little trouble, made to compete with Intel in this niche. But AMD doesn’t feel so, so Intel owns the workstation market.

Too many people do not understand the difference between a high end gaming machine and a rendering workstation. They are completely different animals with different purposes. They even sport radically different GPUs. A really, really good gamer graphics card will set you back $800-$1000. A really, really good rendering card will set you back $4000- $6000. That is just the GPU, not the CPU or the motherboard. Search out the two lines: Firepro and Quadro.

Workstations are so close to being servers that most just run Server as an OS instead of 7 Ultimate.

I am not trying to discourage you. If you want to render, there are solutions that you CAN afford. The Firepro V4900 is a decent mid-range rendering card that goes for $150. It does eyefinity and crossfire. I just don’t want you to buy and build a high end gaming machine only to find that when you try to render large files they are unusable.

 

[FALC0N]

How well threaded are your cad apps?

If your apps can use all 8 threads of the FX-8350, then it will do better for that.
On the other hand, the faster cores of the 3770 will prevail elsewhere.
Here is a link to a comparison of several environments:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=697

And... for 5% more cost, the 3770K can be overclocked to give you 25% more performance.

Any program that benefits from hyperthreading will benefit from CMT. So that position is fallacious from the start. And all CAD programs benefit from multiple cores. Also, workstations rarely overclock.

 

[avenseth12]

A good graphics card for $800 to $1000; I can get one for $390 and play any game on the market on ultra settings