Dell T3600 RAM and Graphics Card Upgrade

[ChaseWichert]

Our brilliant IT department specs the minimum requirement desktops as "High-End" engineering PCs. We are having difficulty dealing with large assemblies, and I have requested we upgrade the memory and graphics card. We currently have the Quadro 4000, and I am recommending to upgrade to Quadro K5000 (wish the K6000 was out right now), and go from 16gb 1033mhz Ram to 32gb of 1600mhz RAM. Is this a decent upgrade that will help with handling large assemblies? And by handling I mean simply moving the model view around? Also I was curious as to processors and which processors are typically the fastest processors to handle NX? I7's or XEON?


NX 8.5.1.3

 

[413X4NDR3]

The processor helps but it's mainly the graphic card and the RAM that do the work when modeling. There's also a thing to keep in mind, even if you have the most powerful PC you need a good network connection if you work within a vault like Teamcenter.
To answer your question about handling big models, YES it would do well: I look at the spec you gave and I kind of envy you hehe (I have 16 gb and nvidia 2000). The big assemblies I work with are handled decently with these specs.

 

[ChaseWichert]

I am not sure why it is SOOO sluggish. We are kind of wondering if it has to do with the corporate image that is loaded and all of the "man's" spyware. Who know's. But we don't have even have 1/8 of our overall assembly together and it is choking. And I don't know where our teamcenter vault is.. Hopefully it is in the same building because our internet is terrible. But I am not currently working in TeamCenter as we are in the process of switching to TeamCenter/NX. So all of this is local on SSD.

NX 8.5.1.3

 

[looslib]

There are many factors that impact performance with any CAD system.
How many components are in your total assembly?
Do you use hardware that has modeled threads?
Are your component shapes prismatic or shaped surface styling?

Xeon's are preferred over the i-series processors, but they all work. How many cores do you have and how many CPUs? There is management of the cores that comes into play with multi-core processors. A quad-core processor is not the same power as 4 single cores of the same speed.

The corporate image and its 'spyware' can impact performance more than IT will admit to. Anti-virus software is a killer if IT is scanning the SSD where your CAD files are located.



"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[SDETERS]

try Loading Light weight in your assembly load options. Also go to view preferences and change visualization performance large model tab to Model Size to Large. There is many settings in here that may help you during lag time between buying new hardware. We are running a Quadro 4000 with 150` parts in our assemblies. It is not to bad. These options above will help with huge assemblies.

 

[ChaseWichert]

Okay, so I have an update for this thread. I am being advised to quote a Dell T5600, and I am trying to pick the spec's that would be the best for these things:
NX Assemblies with 10,000+ Components.
NX Nastran FEA
& 3DS Max Rendering

Our IT department is telling me to get the Intel Xeon Eight-Core Processor
Dual Quadro 5000 cards
32gb DDR3 1600MHz Ram (4x8gb)
and a 256GB or 500GB SSD

My main concern about this is that if I am running FEA or Rendering, and dealing with NX on the same processor wouldn't dual quad core processor's be better for that? I could assign the rendering or FEA to one processor and run NX/everything else on another processor?

Also I am not sure why they are suggesting Quadro 5000 cards over Quadro K5000 cards, but wouldn't it be better to go with the Quadro K5000 cards?

Thanks in advance.



NX 8.5.2.3