When using 3D CAD in the corporate world, it is a good idea to spend the capital on a workstation. If you are limited on disposable capital, or work in a smaller office, a PC can serve you well for about 1/3 the cost of a workstation. Just keep in mind that you will probably have to upgrade a PC more often than a workstation to maintain the performance you are seeing as the CAD software improves, and your work becomes more demanding.
The key difference between a workstation and a PC is that a PC is a general-purpose machine designed for a broad range of tasks, such as running productivity suites (Word, Excel). A workstation is designed to meet the requirements of a number of more specific markets and applications (CAD, Animation, etc).
Workstations are more stable than comparable PCs. They have ECC and/or registered memory, larger power supplies, better cooling (with built-in overhead for expandability). Workstations are tested and certified to work for the applications they are designed for. Workstations usually allow for greater expandability, having more PCI slots, higher RAM capacity (via more memory slots), and larger disk capacities.
A PC will work for doing limited things, like MCAD, CAE or ECAD, though it would be hard to find or build a PC that could do all of these equally well. Also keep in mind that SolidWorks will not take advantage of dual-processors or HyperThreading technologies. But, if you are going to be working in several different programs simultaneously (SolidWorks, MoldFlow, COSMOS, AutoCAD) the extra processor will make a huge difference. So the decision will boil down to what performance you need from your computer, based on the type of work and industry you are in.
Thanks to Eng-Tips members [blue]alexit[/blue], [blue]Istre[/blue], [blue]RonNagle[/blue] and [blue]Sbaugh[/blue] for their insights.
