New Build - PC for Construction Engineer

Calhoun

Hi Folks,

I wonder if you could help me out please, my soon to be brother in law is looking for a new PC for his work as a construction engineer. He uses programs like the new CAD ect and is looking for something with a half way decent graphics card.


1. What is your budget? €500-600

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? 3d Modelling ( i believe that is part of the CAD program)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No, had only had desktop replacement until this point

5. Do you need a monitor? [No]

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [1680x1050] [No]

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [No]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes/No, Ideally no as i will have to help him do it but if it means a better performing system for what hes spending i will

8. How can you pay? [Credit Card/Laser/Bank Transfer/Etc...]

9. When are you purchasing? ASAP, he wants it before Christmas but due at this late stage i have advised that is probably unlikely

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? No help required.

unseenfootage

You're probably talking about Inventor Professional . I use it at college.

I just assembled my own workstation with the following components.

MSI Z77A-G45 G3 ATX Socket 1155
Intel Core i5-3550 Boxed
Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM (not yet installed, running 2gb )
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB
1.5TB Seagate Barracuda Green 5900.3
Thermaltake Smart 550 Watts


I'm using the onboard graphics controller and it works fine for now.
However if you have huge assemblies then a GC becomes mandatory.

All the above , plus case, cables, dvd etc ..costs €680

Calhoun

What is inventor professional? I haven't got a clue the only thing i got out of him when i asked what he wants is it must be fast.

Let me go check back with him some more.

tuxy

On that budget I think this is good

Item|Price
ASRock B75 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€68.24
Intel Core i5-3570 Box, LGA1155|€190.05
16GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile schwarz PC3-12800U CL10-10-10-27|€64.11
BitFenix Merc Beta|€32.04
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€54.44
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€83.40
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€88.02
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€599.29

If you had more to spend Maybe put an SSD in and a Nvidia card might help because of the cuda cores.
IntelHD graphics is normally good for non gamers.
16gb memory should be good for CAD work.

unseenfootage

Inventor is used to model parts in 3d...

Mine is fast enough, the ssd speeds things up considerably. Power on, shutdown as well as program starts and closing down is like nothing you've ever seen before.

I'm not a gamer so this system is adequate for my needs,

unseenfootage

Hey tuxy. How is the ASRock mainboards compared to MSI?

tuxy

Well it has the B75 chip which is cheaper than the Z77 in the MSI.
You would want the Z77 if you plan to overclock but is a waste of money if you don't.
It's a good board, I've used it in a build before.

tuxy

I could drop the RAM to 8GB and go for a slightly lower clocked i5 and we might be able to fit a SSD into the €600 budget.

8gb and SSD or 16 and no SSD, which would be best for cad?

tuxy

Item|Price
ASRock B75 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€68.24
BitFenix Merc Beta|€32.04
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€83.40
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€88.02
Intel Core i5-3330 Box, LGA1155|€164.69
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€29.39
Samsung SSD 830 128GB SATA 6GB's Basic|€94.99
Antec BasiQ VP450|€40.92
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€620.68

Just over budget when you include shipping

unseenfootage

I'd go for the 8gb plus ssd.

Autodesk , makers of cad and inventor recommend 8gb plus a graphics card for assemblies with more than 1000GB
2gb for less than that.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15402497&linkID=9242018#section4

tuxy

unseenfootage wrote: »

I'd go for the 8gb plus ssd.

Autodesk , makers of cad and inventor recommend 8gb plus a graphics card for assemblies with more than 1000GB
2gb for less than that.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15402497&linkID=9242018#section4

You would need a Nvidia quatro graphics crad in there to meet that recommendation

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/1024+MB/48721/PNY+QUADRO+600+1024MB+DDR3+BULK.article

Alkers

Ask him what CAD software he will be using and take a look at the recommended specs e.g. http://usa.autodesk.com/autocad/system-requirements/
Is he based in an office or in a site office? If it's the latter, the offices often get really really dusty so you'd want some sort of way of managing this, removable filters or something in the case.

unseenfootage

^ You're right. I'm still learning inventor and would not do assemblies with more than 100 parts next semester so I'm holding off on the graphics card. The Intel HD seems to be working fine for now.

However Calhoun's brother in law might have different requirements.

Calhoun

First, thank you all for your input its greatly appreciated.

I have asked him what version of cad he is using and seeing if he currently has a gfx installed in his laptop so i can get an idea of what needs to be added to his build.

He wont be working in a site office this will be mainly used in his home office and he plans to use the laptop while doing customer demo's ect.

tuxy

Also the i5 3770 and all i7's have the intel HD 4000 graphics while the rest have the intel HD 2500 graphics , does anyone know if that would make a difference to CAD work?

ED E

Long times since I've done any CAD work but AFAIK many of the packages will benefit largely from a workstation GPU.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/workstation-solutions.html

Theres much of a muchness with integrated GPUs AFAIK as it's all based on CUDA.

tuxy

Maybe an i3 with a quadro card? If €600 is max budget.
I guess we can't say until we know what software he uses.

Calhoun

Spoke to him there earlier, he is using the newest version of autocad. 600 isnt the ceiling on the budget he could push it some more he wants something he can use for a while so is open to expanding his budget.

Although he is not sure about the SSD he would like to have a hard drive and possible backup hard drive without having to do a partition on a single HD.

Dubba

I'd say if he's not doing any 3D rendering (3DS Max would be slow), any ol machine will do. My office is running Architectural Desktop 2010 on an old pentium 4 PC no bother...mostly 2D tho. I've been using CAD since R12 and with every new release we've had no problem running it on mid - low spec machines.

If I was getting a new PC to manly use as a 2D CAD workhorse, I'd buy cheap and spend the money on a nice big screen

tuxy

I'm thinking this is a good build then
Item|Price
ASRock B75 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€68.24
BitFenix Merc Beta|€32.04
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€83.40
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€88.02
Samsung SSD 830 128GB SATA 6GB's Basic|€94.99
Antec BasiQ VP450|€40.92
16GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile schwarz PC3-12800U CL10-10-10-27|€64.11
Intel Core i5-3570 Box, LGA1155|€190.05
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€680.76

autocad is a 64bit program so is capable of using loads of ram so it's nice to be able to put 16GB in when ram is so cheap.
The SSD should speed things up too.
Unless someone who uses autocad can confirm the quadro is really worth the money I'd leave that out.

areyawell

Any sort of graphics card will do. Doesn't need an absolute beast. Cad is not CPU intensive or even really GPU intensive.


Item Price
BitFenix Merc Alpha €34.00
Windows €85
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W €42.28
ASUS M5A78L LE, Sockel AM3+, ATX €50.15
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Box, Sockel AM3 €85.87
16GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile schwarz PC3-12800U CL10-10-10-27 €64.11
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s €88.02
Sapphire Radeon HD 7750, 2GB DDR3 €87.03
Samsung SH-118AB DVD-RW €13.33
Shipping €18.99
Total €560

tuxy

areyawell wrote: »

Any sort of graphics card will do. Doesn't need an absolute beast. Cad is not CPU intensive or even really GPU intensive.


Item Price
BitFenix Merc Alpha €34.00
Windows €85
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W €42.28
ASUS M5A78L LE, Sockel AM3+, ATX €50.15
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Box, Sockel AM3 €85.87
16GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile schwarz PC3-12800U CL10-10-10-27 €64.11
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s €88.02
Sapphire Radeon HD 7750, 2GB DDR3 €87.03
Samsung SH-118AB DVD-RW €13.33
Shipping €18.99
Total €560

If that's true then why would you pick the 7750 when that motherboard comes with the ATI Radeon HD 3000? Maybe upgrade to that version of the motherboard but with dvi for a few exta euro and remove the 7750

Andy!!

Definitely go for a CUDA enabled nVidia card if you're doing 3d work... never know when you'll want to render out your creations

If you're on a budget maybe go i7 but without a dedicated GPU for now? Then pop one in later.

tuxy

Is it worth €100 for hyperthreading?

Andy!!

tuxy wrote: »

Is it worth €100 for hyperthreading?

Perchance not, would depend on what software he has though.

Oh and I would really recommend an SSD over a back-up drive, they're awesome. Dropbox is grand for backup.

ED E

For 64-Bit AutoCAD 2013
Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, or Home Premium (compare Windows 7 versions) or Microsoft Windows XP Professional (SP2 or later)
AMD Athlon 64 with SSE2 technology, AMD Opteron® processor with SSE2 technology, Intel® Xeon® processor with Intel EM64T support and SSE2 technology, or Intel Pentium 4 with Intel EM64T support and SSE2 technology
2 GB RAM (4 GB recommended)
6 GB free space for installation
1,024 x 768 display resolution with true color (1,600 x 1,050 with true color recommended)
Internet Explorer 7.0 or later
Install from download or DVD

Basically, my phone could run autocad That said, if he's working on very big projects/3D work rather than simple 2D plans then it'll ramp up.

Cant be sure but I suspect any more than 8GB ram might be overkill, unless he's using a load of textures on rendered plans there shouldnt be a lot of data to be loaded from what I can see.

unseenfootage

Calhoun wrote: »

Spoke to him there earlier, he is using the newest version of autocad. 600 isnt the ceiling on the budget he could push it some more he wants something he can use for a while so is open to expanding his budget.

Although he is not sure about the SSD he would like to have a hard drive and possible backup hard drive without having to do a partition on a single HD.

You mentioned in your original post something about 3d modelling. Was this incorrect? Does he only do 2d drawings then? This is an important piece of information and a potential gamechanger.

Nevertheless, Tuxy's recommendation is adequate, although even 2gb of ram will be good enough for Autocad.

Calhoun

unseenfootage wrote: »

You mentioned in your original post something about 3d modelling. Was this incorrect? Does he only do 2d drawings then? This is an important piece of information and a potential gamechanger.

Nevertheless, Tuxy's recommendation is adequate, although even 2gb of ram will be good enough for Autocad.

No he doesn't only do the 2D modelling i think, he was talking about having to render it every once in a while and it taking ages.

Andy!!

He definitely needs to go with an i7 then to start, then an nVidia when he can afford it. Eventually you do want to render your CAD stuff. If he's not putting on a custom cooler and also will not have money for a card within two months I would suggest he goes with an i5 and 650 ti minimum.

tuxy

Andy!! wrote: »

He definitely needs to go with an i7 then to start, then an nVidia when he can afford it. Eventually you do want to render your CAD stuff. If he's not putting on a custom cooler and also will not have money for a card within two months I would suggest he goes with an i5 and 650 ti minimum.

Is that based on your experience of autocad? Even in adobe premier that makes excellent use of hyperthreading you see a 20% reduction in rendering times for a 50% exta cost premium.

Sounds like unseenfootage is the only person on here with enough knowledge about autocad to give real advice.

NTMK

tuxy wrote: »

Is that based on your experience of autocad? Even in adobe premier that makes excellent use of hyperthreading you see a 20% reduction in rendering times for a 50% exta cost premium.

Sounds like unseenfootage is the only person on here with enough knowledge about autocad to give real advice.

AutoCad doesn't like Hyperthreading. Autodesk even recommend turning it off
I5 is a good choice

It uses Cuda for different applications so an Nvidia card of some sort with Cuda is recommended.

8gb ram is fine for now easy and cheap upgrade if he needs it

an SSD is nice and speeds things up but not essential

Andy!!

tuxy wrote: »

Is that based on your experience of autocad? Even in adobe premier that makes excellent use of hyperthreading you see a 20% reduction in rendering times for a 50% exta cost premium.

Sounds like unseenfootage is the only person on here with enough knowledge about autocad to give real advice.

Its based on 12 years experience with 3dmax, maya, other 3D programs, as I'm a 3D animator rendering in CAD programs is the same setup . With video editing its a different ballgame altogether; you're better off with more RAM there to load more footage into cache. Sure come render time the CPU importance kicks in but they are different fields entirely.

I would say an i5 ivy gen, 8 gig of ram and a 650ti will get him quite far.

unseenfootage

There seems to be some confusion about what product he is actually using. Autocad is just one of a stable of products from Autodesk, which also makes Maya (3d animation software) and Inventor which is used for modelling parts in 3D and then assembling them as part of a machine or mechanism.

People have a tendency to use generic words hence using the word autocad for something wheich may very well be inventor professional or even maya.

If he is just using autocad then he could get away with an off the shelf desktop. I used it on a pentium 4 with 1gb Ram and it worked great. Even Autodesk lists a Pentium as a base requirement.

For 3D modelling Tuxy's recommendation here - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=82143106&postcount=9 is spot on. 8GB should be more than enough though.

tuxy

Andy!! wrote: »

He definitely needs to go with an i7 then to

Andy!! wrote: »

I would say an i5 ivy gen,

This is confusing, if he definitely needs an i7 then how could anything else be an option?

Andy!!

I stated that if he is going to be able to buy a card within two months he should go with i7. If not, i5 and 650ti.

That post tuxy posted is indeed grand if all he'll be doing is CAD. But for CUDA/GPU rendering he'll need the card. He did mention that his renders were too slow. If his software supports GPU rendering, a 650ti will make a big difference.

tuxy

unseenfootage wrote: »

There seems to be some confusion about what product he is actually using. Autocad is just one of stable of products from Autodesk, which also makes Maya (3d animation software) and Inventor which is used for modelling parts in 3D and then assembling them as part of a machine or mechanism.

People have a tendency to use generic words hence using the word autocad for something wheich may very well be inventor professional or even maya.

This seems to be where the confusion is coming from.
Some Autodesk software will make use of multi core while others will only use single core. Some will make use of specialised graphics cards while some won't.

tuxy

Andy!! wrote: »

a 650ti will make a big difference.

So a 650ti is better than a QUADRO 600? The Quadro is only €20 more expensive.
I know nothing about quadro cards.

Andy!!

tuxy wrote: »

This seems to be where the confusion is coming from.
Some Autodesk software will make use of multi core while others will only use single core. Some will make use of specialised graphics cards while some won't.

Aye but typically people use several different softwares, at least experiment. Best to set him up for everything related possible.

Andy!!

tuxy wrote: »

So a 650ti is better than a QUADRO 600? The Quadro is only €20 more expensive.
I know nothing about quadro cards.

Completely different setups. I was not aware Quadros came so cheap these days, Ive always used consumer cards. If hes getting far more cores for 20, and does no gaming, then by all means. It all comes down to the amount of CUDA cores at the end of the day

tuxy

Andy!! wrote: »

It all comes down to the amount of CUDA cores at the end of the day

I don't know if it's that simple, apparently the cuda cores in the 600 series run slower than the 500 series. So you can get lower performance even though there are more cores. Does that sound right? I don't know for sure.

Andy!!

tuxy wrote: »

I don't know if it's that simple, apparently the cuda cores in the 600 series run slower than the 500 series. So you can get lower performance even though there are more cores. Does that sound right? I don't know for sure.

Judging by my render times vs someone who has a 5 series exact same classification, yes word going around is nVidia did some intentional gimping.

Alkers

ED E wrote: »

Basically, my phone could run autocad That said, if he's working on very big projects/3D work rather than simple 2D plans then it'll ramp up.

Cant be sure but I suspect any more than 8GB ram might be overkill, unless he's using a load of textures on rendered plans there shouldnt be a lot of data to be loaded from what I can see.

Any old PC might do fine for running AutoCAD with one drawing open but in an office environment you are likely to have huge AutoCAD files with 100s of XREFs in each drawing and you are likely to have several drawings open at the same time. Also the files may all be stored on the local network rather than on the computer he's running CAD on. I've worked with AutoCAD on an old machine in such an environment and it was a nightmare.

Calhoun

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you all. Thank you for the time and effort and all your opinions, gives me a really good position to go my brother in law and advise him on what to do.

I believe the recommendations people strongly believe is that the i5 spec is decent enough and that a gfx card might not be needed.

One last question he is open to a gfx card and if he did want one the recommendation is to go with a quadro gfx card example on thread was http://lb.hardwareversand.de/1024+MB/48721/PNY+QUADRO+600+1024MB+DDR3+BULK.article.

thanks all

Calhoun

Sorry posting again so soon, was just talking to him again and he has advised that he is using Revit, when i checked the spec pages online it looks like its advises using multi-core processor for heavy use.

I dont know how much he is using but would i be safe advising him to purchase an i7 if he is doing allot of rendering?

marco_polo

GPU is not important for 2D autocad at all, so i wouldn't waste money on the quatro.

http://www.cadcamperformance.com/2011/06/discrete-or-integrated-for-2d-tasks/

Revit in the other Hand seems to love a powerful multicore CPU but again GPU appears to not be a factor at all here. Seems to hypertthreading may help in some scenarios for Revit so i7 may be back on the table, especially as it seems there is no need for a dedicated gpu.

Excellent Revit CPU thread here on official forum.

http://www.revitforum.org/hardware-infrastructure/74-revit-hardware-cpu.html

Calhoun

thank you , let me have a looksie. I have emailed him pretty much advising him that he needs to set realistic expectations of what he wants to do and how much he wants to spend.

He seems to be of the opinion that he wants it all to run "fast" but i have no idea what it is he does with it in detail. So basically put it to him he needs to be realistic on usage and budget and we will build him something around that.

Andy!!

Calhoun wrote: »

Sorry posting again so soon, was just talking to him again and he has advised that he is using Revit, when i checked the spec pages online it looks like its advises using multi-core processor for heavy use.

I dont know how much he is using but would i be safe advising him to purchase an i7 if he is doing allot of rendering?

Yep sounds like my suggestion of i7 now GPU later will do him grand

cherryghost

As an AutoCAD and Revit user (not in the last year mind you) also, the difference between i5 and i7 performance on the program is neglible in AutoCAD (most of the time the i5 was actually faster), but for Revit the i7 is about 20-30% faster than the i5.

Sold my i5 regardless as I game and do video encoding as well, but I recommend at least a top i5 CPU and perhaps an i7 if he has the budget to do so.

For GPU I reckon he's using AutoCAD for 2D and Revit for 3D rendering. Something along the lines of a 6670 or perhaps a 7750 would do fine as it's not intensive enough for the need high end GPUs.

tl;dr, fast CPU, GPU around the 70-100 euro mark.

Calhoun

lol thanks again, good food for thought i will explain it to him. This needs to be done strategically and i need to allow him make the decision otherwise ill be doing tech support on this forever