are Duo-Cores the way to go?

[Plifter365]

Ive been surfing the forum and I haven't seen anyone talk about weather or not the dual-core processors are better than a fast single core processor for Solidworks. From what I understand the duo-core processors are better at multi-tasking. So how well does solidworks split itself in the two cores? Has anybody went from like a 3.6ghz P4 to a core 2 duo?

 

[Theophilus]

Core 2 Duos are very fast. Check the forum again and you'll find links to reviews, etc. regarding these chips.

SolidWorks does most of the computing on a single thread, so you don't get much for using another core unless you're rendering in PhotoWorks or some sorts of rebuild calculations while modeling. However, I use a dual-core AMD chip, and it does well in handling all the other crap I always have open while working in SolidWorks. Super stable, never crashes, even with 50 processes cranking along.

Check the reviews and check the benchmarks that were posted about a week or two ago and you'll be able to make a good decision.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.

 

[Theophilus]

Benchmark thread:
thread559-186991



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.

 

[AnnaWood]

Here is a link to an small benchmark I ran on a part with a heavy amount of patterns.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pz7wTpIkC7LA28ybEyxyTPw

Regards,

Anna Wood
SW 2007 SP4.0, WinXP
Dell Precision 380, Pentium D940, 4 Gigs RAM, FX3450

http://designsmarter.typepad.com/solidmuse

http://www.phxswug.com