AutoCad-Can anyone help me?!

Froggie101

Hi everyone,

Ok well I need help iv to get a pc for college this year but I do nixers part-time so its gotta be able to run AutoCad and other design programmes aswell. Only problem is I havent a clue what kinda spec it needs.
Can someone help me?!
Thanks,
Boards newbie!

8T8

Is this a self build or pre-built unit your looking for ?

And what is your total budget ?

Froggie101

I dont really know what to do, was lookin at both options. Want to spend as little as possible, but will spend whatever i need to get a decent one. Was hoping in or around 1000, give or take.

Johnniep

To be honest, unless you are doing heavy 3d work or using alot of images etc in cad, you don't need anything special in the way of a pc. Just ensure it has plenty of ram (1gig would be fine) and try and avoid integrated graphic cards.

Other that that, you should be fine!

(Desktop or laptop???)

jozi

We have a P3 700(there abouts)mhz pc with i think 384mb ram and old nvidia gfx card here in the office running Autocad 2000. It works fine, sometime a little slow loading. It does crash from time to time (win98 problem?) but i think thats just down to the windows install being several years old.

Pc im using is a a P4 3.2ghz with gig of ram and its more tan able to handle cad 2006. My laptop with a 1.73ghz pentium mobile cpu run it grand as well.

I'm sure there's a min spec you should go by, hopefully the above is of some help.
As was mentioned already, once your not going to be doing 3D you dont need at top of the range uber pc.

Jozi

8T8

Well Komplett sell some pre-built system and you can also specify exactly what components you want in the PC by clicking the 'customize with expert options & buy'.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/kd.asp?bn=10723

As what Johnniep said the main points for CAD work I think would be;
Reasonable CPU
Lots of RAM ideally at least 1GB

Try one of these units if you upgrade it to 1GB of RAM you should have a very capable system & should handle anything you throw at it (but it's not the cheapest you could go for either).

Dilbert75

Are you planning to use AutoCAD LT (2D only) or full AutoCAD (3D)? Makes a big difference to the spec.

Froggie101

No I want to get full AutoCad.

Thanks for your help, one more thing tho...I was goin to just go to Dell for one then if anything goes wrong I can send it back to them. What you think?
See I dont know a thing bout programming.

godtabh

I've 2007 LT running on a 1Ghz PIII with 256 ram. Crashes the odd time but is genearlly good.

I've civil 3D on a laptop with 1.73 Ghz Pentium M but 512mb ram and it struggels alot.

So it all depeneds on what version of autoCAD you will be using

Froggie101

desktop i think!

BadCharlie

Dell or prebuilt by Komplett i would go in your case. You can get something that wont cost you the world and will do you just fine.

Or pick up a copy of last months CustomPC and they build a computer for 250pounds without a monitor they gave 3 examples of what u can get for 250pounds. Thats about €370 give or take a few €.

godtabh

BadCharlie wrote:

Or pick up a copy of last months CustomPC and they build a computer for 250pounds without a monitor they gave 3 examples of what u can get for 250pounds. Thats about €370 give or take a few €.

Any chance you could post this up. Wouldnt mind seeing that myself

BadCharlie

kearnsr wrote:

Any chance you could post this up. Wouldnt mind seeing that myself

Infact its this months mag and not last months. Should be still be in the book stores only costs €6.60 or there abouts.

There web site is www.custompc.co.uk and they might have something about it there.

godtabh

BadCharlie wrote:

Infact its this months mag and not last months. Should be still be in the book stores only costs €6.60 or there abouts.

There web site is www.custompc.co.uk and they might have something about it there.

Good stuff. Was only asking cause if it was last months mag there would be little chance of me getting it

tba

yeah just pick a budget and push all your money into a decent monitor and ram and you should be grand.

WizZard

Shameless plug - but I'll have 2x Dell Precision P470 workstations for sale in the next week, which would be perfect for that kind of use (Dual Xeon 3GHz, nVidia Quadro PCI-E workstation graphics). They'll be going relatively cheap and with warranty as they are ex-company stock.

Froggie101

WizZard wrote:

Shameless plug - but I'll have 2x Dell Precision P470 workstations for sale in the next week, which would be perfect for that kind of use (Dual Xeon 3GHz, nVidia Quadro PCI-E workstation graphics). They'll be going relatively cheap and with warranty as they are ex-company stock.

Ok so who thinks it a good idea to but off this dude?!

BadCharlie

Froggie101 wrote:

Ok so who thinks it a good idea to but off this dude?!

Well he can be trusted as i have seen him sell and buy stuff from boards in the past. As in if you like what his selling thats up to your self.

Froggie101

sure i dont even know if whats he offering would work,i know what he siad but sure he could tell me it would and i wudnt know any different!

WizZard

Was away for past week. (BlackHat )
These workstations will be absolutely perfect for 2D/3D work. If you go to Dell and explain what you need that is what they would recommend.

To figure out if you can trust me you can search through the old For Sale forum for my name to see previous dealings.

Usually I would advise for someone DIY it for the experience if nothing else, but if it's a business/crtical machine I find it's useful to have the extra warranty. Your call anyway

irlrobins

If Wizzard says it will suit you I'd believe him. I'll vouch for Wizzard both on buying/selling and knowledge of tech stuff. He knows his shit. End of.

WizZard

Thanks for the vote of confidence irlrobins <blushes>

masteroftherealm

WizZard wrote:

Was away for past week. (BlackHat )
These workstations will be absolutely perfect for 2D/3D work. If you go to Dell and explain what you need that is what they would recommend.

To figure out if you can trust me you can search through the old For Sale forum for my name to see previous dealings.

Usually I would advise for someone DIY it for the experience if nothing else, but if it's a business/crtical machine I find it's useful to have the extra warranty. Your call anyway

Ive bough and sold a few grands worth of gear off Wizzard at this stage!
All his stuff is always good.

And dam u how was blackhat?