Suggestions for High-End PC?

[therock003]

I really need to build a powerful computer so that i can work with CAD/GIS business applications with ease. I'm not good with deciding the parts from scratch so i would really need your help with this.

Could you recommend some parts for this matter?

 

[Fruity]

Depending on the CAD apps that your are using, but as a general rule for CAD machines:

1. Use a high end core 2 duo - not many CAD apps utilise quad core. E8500 or similar should do UNLESS you want to run more than one instance of the app or do lot of other work while the CAD app is running, in which case quad core is your way forward.
2. Lots of RAM. Lots and lots. 8Gb if you are running big models / simulations
3. Good graphics card (HD4870 or higher)
4. 64 bit operating system. Check compatibility with the apps that your are using. Early versions of Catia V5 (up to R16 I think) won't run on Vista. R18 I think does. Not sure about Pro-E or IDEAS etc

And get a good monitor....

If you can post back what applications you use it may be easier to give more specific advice. A budget would also help.

Fruity (ex CAD jocky!)

 

[therock003]

Well mostly Autocad and many of its verticals, then Bentley and ESRI and possibly some additional programms running on cad environment like Microsurvey and Carlson Survey.

I hear that CAD applications nowadays utilize D3D and it's not really nesecary to go for quadro cards, does that hold true?

 

[Fruity]

Indeed quadro cards are not necessary any more for most new apps (autocad included), although things like the nVidia FX5800 Quadro is a great performer for CAD work, but then at £2500 is better be!!

So far as I know Autocad doesn't use quad core technology, but from the sounds of it you'll be running more than just AutoCad so quad core is probs your way forward.


Do you know what kind of model size you'll be running? If they're relatively small models (say 20mb) and you're not doing any simulation work then a slightly modified quad core mid-range gaming machine will do you.
The bigger the models / assemblies and the more complex the work, the higher spec you will need.

AutoCad has never been an especially 'power hungry' application when compared to the like of Pro-E, Solidworks, Catia or IDEAS. But then its also a lot less capable.

I wouldn't bother with a Core i7 processor for this - something like a Q9650 will give a better result. If you want to play it safe then go for crossfire / SLi graphics. It will reduce the model fill / rendering times.
Since this seems to be work related stuff, think about going for a RAID set-up on your hard drives - something like RAID 10 or RAID 5 to give some redundancy in case of hard drive failure.

As far as the motherboard is concerned, Intel X38 / X48 chipset with ICH9R Southbridge will give solid performance and dependability. Its a bit borderline as to whether to go with DDR2 or DDR3 RAM. Mostly depends on your budget and what upgradability you want.


EDIT: AutoCad 3DS is multithreaded so should use multicore processors. What version are you using?

 

[therock003]

Are you sure i shouldnt go for an i-core processor just to be on the safe side?The Thing is that if i spend money on an lga775 system i lose upgradabilty.

While on an i core mobo i can start small and make a future upgrade with a bigger badder cpu.

I dont use 3ds max, i use civil 3d/map3d and raster design mostly. One of the biggest issues is when I attach large resolution tiffs and i zoom in. Also when i deal with large survey files with lots of points and surfaces, it starts acting up.

I also agree that going for a quadro is an overkill. But will it be eficient using radeon in crossfire?

 

[Fruity]

If you're interested in keeping upgradability then Core i7 won't do you any harm (the 920 isn't far off the price of a Q9650 anyway). I could be wrong, but raster work will be improved by the core i7 multimedia instructions.

Just looking at the system requirements for Civil 3D (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=8915326) which shows the minimum requirements would be blown away by a core i7. safe? Yes!

Something like 2 HD4850's (or HD4870's) in crossfire will be easily enough to display what you need and at greater than the recommended resolution.
Bizarrely Autodesk are commenting on the minimum frame buffer size (128Mb) rather than clock speeds which play a far greater role. Nevermind eh!

But seriously, the HD4850 / 4870 will chew up most fps games (which are designed to stress graphics to their limit) so won't have any problems with your apps.

Do you have a budget in mind for this?

 

[therock003]

I max out at 1.5000 EUR. So far this is a setup with the basics.

I agree that i920 is good for its price range, the next step is to pay double and advance to 2.93Ghz which is not worth it for now. Also i included a 4870x2. And added a 2x3x2GB Ram.

What do you think?

I still dont know the case/psu and if i should go for an SSD rather than sata2-HDD.

 

[Fruity]

The P6T is certainly one of the best X58 boards around. 12Gb RAM combined with Vista X64 operating system will do just fine for even huge simulations, models and rasters.

It looks like you'll run short on budget, bearing in mind that you still need PSU, Case, operating system and hard drives. From the specs above you'll only have around €220 to cover those costs until you meet your €1500 cap.

In that case, downgrade your RAM to a 6Gb triple channel kit (e.g. OCZ Gold 1600MHz) and use crossfired HD4850's. That should open up another €350 - €400 to cover additional costs.

For the PSU, go for a branded high capacity unit. This will allow for future graphics card upgrades. I use a Zalman 1Kw PSU and its never let me down (approx €150)

Hard Drives: as previously mentioned, use a RAID 10 or RAID 5 consisting of 4 identical drives and a hardware RAID controller. WD Black edition drives are fantastic! Capacity is up to you....
A good SSD drive with reasonable capacity is around the €500 mark. Bit too much!!

Case: The bigger the better; but if you intend to overclock the processor / graphics then make sure of adequate cooling. Can't give any specific recommendations.

Operating System: Vista X64. The exact edition is up to you and what you need out of it. Imo the ultimate edition isn't really worth the money for most people.

Thoughts?

 

[therock003]

I have alreay got an OS and the hard drives and the monitor. For hard drive matter i agree, spending that much is going overboard, but i think of it as having a fast OS with quick application loading times, and then using my external drives for saving and backing up the data.

Now as far the case, i need something elegant, + space efficient,i dont need it to be bulky.

On the psu matter i dont have any experience at all. I only know that the best ones have the 80+ logo. I found a zalman of 1k but it costs around 200 euro which is kind of a lot for a psu and i dont even know if its worth it. Also i've been told to aim for single rail psu's whatever that means!

http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.806365

Also here's a1.5 Thermaltake toughpower costing as much as the 1k zalman.

http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.650648

 

[Fruity]

Antec 300 case (an old favourite!) should suit your needs. Good cooling and good compatibility with large graphics cards. Price should be in the region of €80.

The Corsair TX 850W looks like it might be good? Price is around €130 (http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.553115). I'd be a little more comfirtable with a 1kW+ unit, but the cost is liekly to get too much.

It looks like the biggest bottleneck you are likely to run in to is with pagefiling. CAD apps are well reknowned for using huge amounts of it. Any way you can use your hard drives to reduce this could have big knock on effects on performance.

 

[Fruity]

What HDD's do you have?

 

[therock003]

I have

http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.303709 x2
http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.301643 x2

I also have 4xMaxtor 320GB and then i have 2 500GB MyBooks one passport essential 500GB and lots of external enclosures.

 

[therock003]

Could you please go ino a little bit more detail as to the pagefile issue? Why does it happen and how can i counter-attack it?

 

[Fruity]

Briefly (i need to go out in a minute):

Pagefiling is system of using your hard drives as "RAM". But no matter how much RAM you have, Windows will always use Pagefiles. The problem is that access / retrieval times from hard drives are very slow and therefore no matter how good your system, a large unmanaged pagefile will always slow you down.

If you have more than one HDD then use the following set-up:

1 WD 640GB for the operating system
1 WD 640GB for application installations

(the 640Gb SE16 drives are very good drives!)

Split the pagefile usage between these drives. this means that the system can use two drives to simultaneously access two pagefiles and then combine them, hence reducing access times. If you install any of the other HDD's then you can also use them for pagefiling and further reduce waiting times.

Using different drives for the operating system and applications will reduce loading times and data retrieval times.

More later if you have any more questions! Gotta go out now!

 

[therock003]

Are they good drives, really? I only got them cause they were cheap!

I didnt know that by installing application on drives outside the OS you achieve faster times!

Ok will talk more later cause i gotta run as well, thanx a lot for your help so far, really appreciate it!

 

[Fruity]

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14380 for a review of your WD drives....for the 'bang per buck' there wasn't much better at the time (only a year or so ago).

To give an idea on hard drive structure here's a screen grab of my set-up (also used in part for CAD work)

XP has its own dedicated hard drive (C)

Pagefile (E) is also dedicated, but also used for data backups on the inside disc tracks.

Drive G holds all work files (despite it being called Backup!)

Windows 7 has a dedicated drive (H) although the drive its on is for 'flexible' work so it won't be a windows 7 install for much longer.

AppsXP (F) and AppsW7 (H) are actually partitions of the same drive. The drive has been structured so that the XP apps are on the outside of the disc where retrieval times are fastest.

When running in XP, the pagefiles are stored on drives C, E & F using Windows system management. To set-up the pagefile:

Start Menu - right click on Computer, select Properties, Advanced System Settings.
Then select the Advanced tab, then Settings under the Performance heading.
Click the Advanced tab, then click Change under Virtual Memory.

Uncheck 'Automatically manage paging file size for all drives'. You can now allocate pagefiles to any drive you want. I still tend to use the 'System managed size' option - Windows tends to be quite good at it!

The other thing you can think about is putting your two Seagate Barracuda in to a RAID 0 config and use them for work file storage. That way if you have huge models to open they will retrieve and save a little faster.

 

[therock003]

If storing pagefile information across multiple disks is better then wouldn't it be better if used 4x300 instead of 2x640?

As i said i also have 4 of these babies!

http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.302711

They used to be a good deal back when i got them, much like The WD's are today. (Although the Seagates 1.5TB are an even better "bang per buck" as you call it!)

 

[Fruity]

Sorry, i missed you mentioning the Maxtors on your post - was in a hurry!

In that case....

Put all 4 Maxtors in a striped mirrored array (RAID 1+0 aka RAID 10) and use the WD drives to save work files. Sripe them (RAID 0) if you can (i don'w know if you can have two separate arrays operating on the same PC).

What this will do is divide each section of all the files into smaller parts and split them accross 2 of the hard drives, allowing the PC to access the data at twice the rate (theoretically!). At the same time it will save copies of the data to the other 2 hard drives. This means that if one (or even two) of the drives fail then you don't lose any data. Everything can be 'rebuilt' from the working drives.

This had a downside that although you'll use 4x300GB drives, you will only get 300GB storage capacity out of them. Following the 'performance hard drive storage rule of thumb' of not allowing a hard drive to get over 50% capacity, if you intend to have more than 150GB of operating system and applications installed then 2 x 640GB may suit better, especially if the drives are newer.

Incidentally, you commented about 'single rail' PSUs earlier (not something I know much about), but by pure chance Silverion77 posted this link earlier. Everything you need to know about power supply rails!

http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3990

 

[therock003]

First of all let me say that i'm concerned due to the fact that i hear that todays mobos may not support future generation core i7 and i should probably wait and that made me worried.

On another note, word is that newer graphics card are coming out with direct-x 11 support. That also became a concern to me since i intend to buy the most expensive card, but where will that leave me if there's no future dx11 support?

Other than that i found 2 Antec cases that i like but one of them is small and wont fit mobo and 2x gfx right?

http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.808565 <- Micro
http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.808564 <-Extended

As for OS do you really think it should be vista? IT seems like a very resource-hungry OS, and i wouldnt want to waste any memory for irrelevant system processes. So far i'm working with server 2k3 and i thought this might be a good time to try then server 2k8 x64.

Sorry for being so thorough but since i'm spending so much money (it's a lot for me) i need to be certain that i buy what's best for my needs!

Again, i appreciate your input on all this!

 

[Fruity]

I see your concerns about future mobos and new generation graphics cards, but that's just life i'm afraid. You have to get the components that are right at the time when you buy. If you wait until DX11 cards are available and within budget then there will be a newer and better RAM available (or whatever!) which your mobo won't support......

The mini P180 won't fit your motherboard in, let alone the graphics cards, so that's a no go.
The P182 is a nice case (never seen it before). Fits your mobo but can;t say for sure about the graphics cards. Can't see it being a problem though. If you want to make sure contact Antec and ask (http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/EUnewticket.php)

For the OS...i don;t know how Windows Server 32 bit deals with RAM, but if it's anything like XP/Vista 32 bit then anything more than 3GB will be a waste. Presumably 64 bit server will be ok with the RAM regardless.

It goes without saying, check the compatibility oif your applications with server editions if you go that way!

Vista isn't anywhere near as resource hungry as people think - it's really only a problem for older computers. New multi-core systems pretty well chew there way through Vista. Your proposed i7 system won't even know its there
Vista does have one advantage over XP; it deals with graphics far more readily. Synthetic benchmark scores almost always score better for graphics in Vista (and conversely XP beats Vista for CPU perfromance in the same benchmarks).

 

[Fruity]

Quick update: it looks like the next releases of Core i7 CPUs will have LGA1366 format, so should be ok with your mobo proposal.

 

[therock003]

Hi, i'm still looking into it. Supposedly the x55 chipset is due to come out, which may surpass the 1366.

Do you have any information about the next releases of core i-7?

Besides that i'm still hang up on the gfx. I found that the asus ws revolution provides 6 pcie express slots, and i need to know if i can have up to thre double core radeon.

http://www.plaisio.gr/product.aspx?product=1224913

 

[Helloworld_98]

no, 1366 x58 will support the next generation of 1366 processor, or Gulftown which are 8-core, 16 thread processors.

LGA1156 will last a shorter length of time than 1366 due to server sockets generally lasting longer lengths of time.

 

[therock003]

LGA1156, will be a server socket? So that must be like an update to XEON right? So anyway i'm almost decided, but i forgt one thing.

Fruity my friend, what would you say for a Monitor? I do have an LG 22" but maybe it would be best if i could get my hands on a 2560x1600 monitor right? Do you have any recommendations for this type of thing?

 

[Fruity]

Fruity my friend, what would you say for a Monitor? I do have an LG 22" but maybe it would be best if i could get my hands on a 2560x1600 monitor right? Do you have any recommendations for this type of thing?

Hi rock. Sorry for the late reply - i've not been round much for the last week or so....

2560x1600 monitor eh? That would be, errrrrrrrr, overkill! You'd be looking at 30" or so for that - expect to sped iro £1500!

But if you want to go that route.... I hate using this word, it physically hurts when i say it, but, DELL. They do some fantastic hi res monitors - i've used a few at work and can safely say that they are the best CAD monitors I've ever seen.