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64-bit questions 1

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cmm

cmm

Mechanical
Jan 11, 2002
95
US
I'm about to get a new workstation, but I can afford to wait a few months if there's new tech on the horizon.

Is it worth waiting for XP 64-bit?

Does anyone know when Solidworks is going to adapt to take advantage of 64-bit processing?

Is it worth the extra cash to buy a 64-bit workstation if the OS is 32-bit XP Pro?

Based on past experience with Solidworks and graphics cards I plan on choosing Nvidia, perhaps a Quadro FX 1100. I see that Nvidia released a Quadro FX beta driver for XP 64-bit back in October. Anyone using this driver?

Any general advice would be greatly appreciated too.

Thanks!!
Chris
 
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The only available 64 bit processor (for mainstream use) is the AMD Athlon64/Opteron. While this processor is 64 bit, it still performs VERY well in 32 bit. Well, enough in fact, that it either beats or equals any other 32 bit x86 cpu. Thus, there is really no reason to shy away from the AMD64 solution right now for performance reasons. It offers some awsome performance with a good deal of futureproof features inits ability to seamlessly transition to 64 bit.

Personally, I would wait a bit.
Right now, the 'consumer' level Athlon64 uses a socket-754 interface, but a transition to a Socket-939 is planned soon. Thus, I would wait for the Socket-939 cpus if planning on going the Athlon64 route.
The Athlon64 FX and Opteron, targeted towards the extreme enthusiast and server/workstation markets, uses a Socket-940 interface which should remain the same for some time. Thus, it really does not matter if you buy now or wait, since this interface should be around for a while.

The 'consumer' level Athlon64 has been shown to perform very close to its Athlon64 FX and Opteron counterparts at a much lower price level, so I would go for the Athlon64.

As for the 64 bit software issue, IMO, it really is a moot point right now as the AMD64 processors perform so well with 32 bit code anyway. MS has released a WindowsXP 64 preview for AMD64 systems, so it may not be too far away from final release (I would guess 6+ months). Then SWX has to release a 64 bit version as well (maybe a couple months after MS).
Most experts seem to say that 64 bit software will most likely perform a little WORSE than 32 bit anyway. The real (immediate) benefit in 64 bit software will be its ability to handle LARGE amounts of memory. Thus, the main benefit of a fully 64 bit system for SolidWorks will likely only be seen if you are working with very large assemblies that surpass the current 2-4GB limit of 32 bit systems.

Conclusion:
Sure, go for a 64 bit system, but wait for the Socket-939 Athlon64 cpus before upgrading.
64 bit software will get here eventually, but it will be a while, and besides, the AMD64 bit systems already run 32 bit software faster then anything anyway.
 
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SW doesn't support 64-bit and I don't know if they will anytime soon.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP [borg2]
CSWP.jpg

faq731-376
 
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ScottB is right, windows installer does not support 64b at the moment. It was stated that, although everyone hates the WInstaller right now, one of the driving forces to keeping and developing it was to remain windows certified (resulting in 64bit compliance.) It is in the works.

DG
 
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I don't think Arlin is correct, saying that AMD has the only commercially available 64-bit proc...Sorry, Itanium2 has been out for quite awhile now. And you can get XP in 64 bit form right now. As for SW being 64-bit compiled? I don't know.

From a performance standpoint, there is no disadvantage running 32-bit apps on 64-bit Intel EPIC, but no gain, compared to P4 technology.

Andrew
 
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the3car,

There is definitely a gain, however, in comparing the AMD 64-bit set with a Pentium 32-bit set.

The architecture that backs up AMD's Opteron (on motherboard, chip, etc.) creates quite a punch in performance. My 1.7 Ghz Opteron runs 32-bit applications much more efficiently than a 32-bit 1.7 Ghz equivalent Pentium-based solution. In fact, for some applications, the Opteron runs near 3 Ghz Pentium performance.

Again, it's not necessarily only in the chip, but in the wide-open channels to the RAM, graphics card, HDD, etc. that greatly reduces bottlenecks in moving information around. (Perhaps similar to Silicon Graphics NT-based solution from a few years back--advantage was huge in the bus architecture.)




Jeff Mowry
Industrial Designhaus, LLC
 
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Jeff,

I will agree with you on the bus architecture. I still think that the EPIC instruction set is superior to the AMD. If Intel could be get more apps to compile under EPIC, then we might see some rather interesting results, especially in Floating point. I am used to dealing with CFD codes, which tend to be more proc constrained than memory or disk constrained. You do bring up a good point, about various apps being faster/slower given the bus architecture. You have to agree that on Integer and Floating Point, EPIC wins?

From a Solid Works perspective, the bus to the graphics is probably most important, and memory being second. I don't think the proc is working very hard at all. So, to answer the guys question as to whether he should move to 64 bit..NO..even if the code were available.

Andrew
 
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Speaking from my own personal experience and as a long time SWX user, I believe the CPU is a huge bottleneck along with memory latency. Now granted, I am not working with very complex assemblies (single fan models mostly)

As a point of interest:
I currently use a P4 2.2 NW machine w/2gig of ram as my work workstation.
An associate purchased an Athlon 64 3400 for a home machine and raved about performance in Solid Works.
I ran some meshes and performed various other tasks on my workstation and recorded time it took to complete each. Then I ran the exact same tests on his home machine and found to my surprise in some cases his home machine was slightly better than 2x as fast.
Of course the 3 tests I used are unofficial, but the results were pretty dog gone impressive.

I’m seriously thinking about an upgrade

Anyone else have any experiences using these new system?



Mike EFix
 
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Andrew,

Wow--your depth of knowledge on this issue certainly surpasses mine. However, like MikeEFix, I have performed some practical tests to find the 64-bit uses in the SolidWorks (and related) arena show significant performance increases.

Of course, this does depend on how you use SolidWorks. Processor bottleneck magnitude will differ if a user has a large assembly of simple parts vs. a moderate assembly of complex parts. This comes down to which case represents the biggest challenge to the processor (vs. RAM or graphics card ability).

I tend to create complex parts (industrial design) and small assemblies and even use PhotoWorks often to render. I have always used Pentiums for previous workstations. Most of my clients do as well (have gotten to play with lots of workstations from on-site work). I couldn't believe the difference in model crunching when I got my 64-bit Opteron-based system. Huge performance improvements, as well as increased system stability while keeping open Photoshop, Explorer, and email applications in the background (no longer an issue). Renderings, however, have not proven to be that much quicker with the new system (quicker, but not disproportionately so).

Since an upgrade to the AMD 64-bit chips is relatively inexpensive, I recommend it. My upgrade is already busy paying for itself.




Jeff Mowry
Industrial Designhaus, LLC
 
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Andrew mentioned large assemblies of small parts vs. moderate assemblies of complex parts.. We make custom automation machinery. A typical part count is about 1000; most of these parts are simple. We have found that assembly drawings are by far slower than assembly models. Slowness in loading and modifying large assembly drawings is the primary reason why I want a new computer. Where is my bottleneck? My plan is to run the latest version of solidworks on a workstation with 64-bit AMD, Quadro FX1100, 2 GB ram, 10k rpm hard disk, Win XP Pro. Considering my usage, if I can spend an extra few hundred bucks somewhere should it be the processor, hard disk, or what? Thank you all for your help.

Chris Montgomery
Mechanical Engineer
 
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Chris,
Considering drawings are your main bottleneck, I would suggest upgrading processor and memory first. Drawings do not rely on video card very much. Drawing performance is primarily dependant on the speed of your processor and the amount of memory you have.
 
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Chris,
You mentioned the slowness of opening models. I am wondering how large these assemblies are? If those assemblies are large, 10Meg or greater, then your disk selection might be critical. If your into SCSI, then go with 15K disks, and a RAID 0 config. If your into SATA, then you could also improve performance with RAID 0. You can get some performance details with the performance monitor, things to watch, % processor time, % disk writes/reads, % Memory pages/sec read/writes. Good luck.

Andrew
 
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FYI..

Hello Andrew,

We do not yet have a version of SolidWorks that is compiled for 64 bit OSs that is ready for commercial release. The Operating Systems are also a bit rough around the edges at this point as well, truth be told.
SolidWorks posts announcements like this on out website. Check for details every so often here:



Regards,

Adam Perry
Info@solidworks.com
SolidWorks Corp.


64-Bit computing has been around for what? 10-years...don't know why it's still rough around the edges?
 
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