Machine configuration...

[NickE]

Hello guys, my company is considering purchasing solidworks with most of the dodads and widgets. (Cosmos/Geostar/non-linear FEA/ Fluid flow/ and solidworks) to do 3-D design and FEA analysis. My question is:

What machines configuration (memory, processor, drive, video, monitor/size, input devices, Twin monitors?) would your optimum seat have?



Nick
I love materials science!

 

[Theophilus]

Nick,

This is a tad out-dated, but provides a decent start:

http://solidmag.com/Summary/SWBM02_results.htm

Do you really have a shot at acquiring an "optimal" machine?

I'm still running a P3 667mh machine on Win2K with 3/4G of RAM using an Oxygen GVX-1 card and ViewSonic 21" monitor. Very stable machine (built locally) and it seems do do quite well so far. I plan to upgrade the mother board/chip set as soon as I have some time, but so far I'm amazed how well this system performs.




Jeff Mowry
DesignHaus Industrial Design

http://www.designhaus-i-d.com

 

[NickE]

I'm not sure but I definately dont want to try running a complex fluid flow analysis w/ the 1.xGhz Celeron thats the newest machine in the office..

Heck before I said something we were getting a 17" monitor!

And a machine w/ 256meg ram... and the onboard video.... obviously not the best choice for intensive 3-d design and FEA work....

Wow only one response....


OK new question !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



1) What configuration are you running SW3 on?

2) How much do you do? (ie just 3-d design, some FEA, intensive FEA, non-linear FEA, Really freakin complex have to wait 4-days for the numbers to stop crunching modeling, etc.)

3) Could you be more productive with a better machine?

4) What would it take? (memory, processor, video, gettin' midevil on the accountant that stuck you w/ his kids old 8086 pc)

Please respond as I consider machine selection to be second only to software selection.....



Nick
I love materials science!

 

[SBaugh]

[red] 1)What configuration are you running SW3 on?[/color]

Like what do you mean configuration?

[red] 2) How much do you do? (ie just 3-d design, some FEA, intensive FEA, non-linear FEA, Really freakin complex have to wait 4-days for the numbers to stop crunching modeling, etc.) [/color]

I have done lots of complex models and if you a junk machine, kind of like the one you described above. Then yes you will be waiting 4 days, but more likely you will a lot before waiting that long. I have a very complex assembly. Not very many parts but each part is very complex and I can open it in about 30+ secs.

[red]3) Could you be more productive with a better machine?[/color]

YES

[red] 4) What would it take? (memory, processor, video, gettin' midevil on the accountant that stuck you w/ his kids old 8086 pc)[/color]

You need to search

http://www.google.com

because this is talked about at least every other week at comp.cad.solidworks

Also run a search through this NG, that's been discussed more than once.

thread559-57542

I use a 870Mhz (Slow but works fine), Elsa Gloria II (Old but works great), 512 RAM (standard), 20Gig HDD (nothing special about it, just small). 22" monitor (My personal Monitor), 1600 x 1200 Resolution, 32 bit true color, Logitech Trackball, & Microsoft natural keyboard.

With all that I run fine, hardly any problems here.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

 

[Arlin]

Everyone's needs will be different. You can't go wrong if you do the following:
Just get the biggest, baddest, meanest machine your budget can possibly allow. Try to get a system that is top of the line today, but can be upgraded and expanded to fill future needs.
Keep think simple initially. Forget about RAID or Dual Monitor, or specialized input devices initially. Later, you can upgrade to these items if you feel it is worth it for you.
Eventually, you WILL need the power. Very few people ever wish "Gee I should have purchased a cheaper, slower box."

Here are my suggestions for system building:
Processor: Fastest Athlon or P4 you can afford. Currently, Intel is slightly ahead of AMD, but they do command a price premium. Personally, I would go for the Athlon.

Motherboard: Integrated sound and ethernet can reduce costs and really don't affect performace on todays systems.

Hard drive: I would stick with IDE and steer clear of SCSI, mainly for upgradeability reasons. IDE is just more common, cheaper, and performance is not much different in a workstation envirionment. IDE RAID can also improve performance some, but that means another hard drive to purchase and double the chance of failure.

Video Card: Biggest baddest you can afford. I like nVidia Quadros, personally due to their good all around performance (professional and personal, e.g. games). 3DLabs and ATI make some worthy competitors. JUST STAY AWAY FROM CONSUMER LEVEL GAMING VIDEO for your cad needs.

Memory: Again, biggest and baddest. For "light to medium" I consider 512MB MINIMUM for SWX. Personally, I would not want less than 1GB of RAM.

Monitor: You guessed it, biggest and baddest. Right now, I still prefer CRTs because they can handle different resolutions better instead of being tied to an lcd's native resolution. Plus, a CRT is still much cheaper than an LCD of the same size, especially the larger models. IMO, 19" is a minimum today. I would not worry too much about dual monitors, at least not right away. Many top video cards support dual displays, but I would wait. If I later decide a second display would be useful, I would get one then.

Input Devices: Just start out with a simple mouse/keyboard. You can decide later if a space ball or the like would benefit you.

 

[MechEng13]

1) What configuration are you running SW3 on?


I am running on a 1.5 GHz AMD Atholon Processor, ATA HDD, 1 Gig DDR Ram, Matrox Millenium G550 Video Card


2) How much do you do? (ie just 3-d design, some FEA, intensive FEA, non-linear FEA, Really freakin complex have to wait 4-days for the numbers to stop crunching modeling, etc.)


I do mostly In-Context and Top Down Assmebly work with smaller Assemblies, less than 50 components, Gage and Fixture Design.


3) Could you be more productive with a better machine?


Absolutely...who wouldn't be. Any time you are waiting for rebuild more than a few seconds you could use a faster box.


4) What would it take? (memory, processor, video, gettin' midevil on the accountant that stuck you w/ his kids old 8086 pc)


Memory, processor, video, and setting up the hot keys and macros to help with repetitive tasks.

That's my $.10...inflation

Alan M. Etzkorn
Manufacturing Engineer
Hoffco/Comet Industries Inc.

http://www.hoffcocomet.com

 

[MadMango]

[red]1) What configuration are you running SW3 on?[/red]
Dual P4 1.7ghz, Elsa Gloria III 128mb, Win2k sp3, 1gb memory, 20gb ATA Ultra HDD.

[red]2) How much do you do?[/red]
Top-down design of products ranging between 900-1800 components, mostly sheet metal and CNC machined parts, some rotationally molded covers, nothing requiring swoopy design using surfaces. Linear FEA (COMOSworks) on componets, FEA on assemblies (sometimes taking 6-8hrs to complete), COSMOSmotion.

[red]3) Could you be more productive with a better machine?[/red]
My machine is close to 2 years old now. In the world of computers, things begin to get outdated every 6 months and speeds begin to double every 18 months. So yes, ther are faster processors, faster memory, faster motherboard FSB speeds that would definitely make my wait times shorter, but I'm happy with what I have.

[red]4) What would it take?[/red]
Not sure what this question refers to. If yo are looking for an answer about your computer, I can't answer that because I don't know the type of work you do. If you are talking about getting finance to loosen their purse strings to get you a computer that will improve your output, I can help here.

Start making simple time studies on the things you do every day; how long to open top level assemblies, how long you wait for rebuilds in assemblies and parts, how many times a day you crash, how long does it take for your computer to recover from a crash... I think you get my point. Average these times for the week or month, then multiply that by your pay to get a feeling on how much time and money is being wasted working with a substandard computer system. Print this up nicely, email it to your boss, your computer guys and finance.

This reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon I have tacked to my cubicle wall...
Frame 1, Dog: The finance department has analyzed your computing needs and decided to give you a [red]286[/red] PC.
Frame 2, Dog: That should be sufficient for the 3D-rendering you need to do.
Frame 3, Dog: Besides, how many times are you going to do 3D-rendering in your career?
Dilbert: Once, if I hurry.

Wanna Tip? faq731-376
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."

 

[automationbabe]

Here's SolidWorks input on system requirements

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/Hardware.html

If your company is going with all the bells and whistles, I suggest investing in a good machine, as the others have suggested. If you can splurge, do it. Then you really wouldn't have to upgrade much of the machine later.

Work with assemblies that have on average 700 parts. Use a lot of top down, in-context techniques. CosmoWorks occasionally.

At work, I have a P4, 512RAM, 20GB HDD, nVideaQuadro Pro2, and one 21" monitor. Handles wonderfully.

When I take work home, I have a Xeon (pricey, P4 works fine), 1GB RAM, 20GB HDD, nVideaQuadro4 and 19" monitor. Its faster than the one at work.

Hope that's enough input to get you on your way.

 

[SBaugh]

Forgot to add about the HDD. Get and IDE Ultra ATA HDD with at least 7200 RPM drive.

OS - Windows 2000 or XP Pro

If you can't afford the biggest and baddest like Arlin has posted. You should look at some lower end, but still within today's standards. With today's markets it's hard to justify the best in computers. Especially since once you buy the biggest the baddest and most expensive computer on the market...it will be obsolete in a month or two, but will latest you awhile. Get what works for you and what you can afford. I wish I could afford Arlrin's suggestions myself but not today...pocket's are pretty bare anymore.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

 

[Theophilus]

Nick,

By the way, a stable machine with no hick-ups beats a hot machine with internal compatibility problems any day.

I work on three machines with a variety of configurations, OSs, etc. My primary work-horse is the Win2K machine I posted about above--three years old--and it easily keeps up with a lap-top running XP Home (gag) and a ~1.6Ghz P4. (I know that's apples and oranges, but with computers, what isn't?)

I'm independent, so I always purchase behind top-of-the-line by a few months and save up to 50% of the cost--seems to work well for a one-man band. I anticipated upgrading my Win2K machine a long time ago but don't suffer sufficient lags (yet) to warrant the time/money required to piece together a new board.

I've got SP3.1 installed. As an industrial designer, I do some wicked surface forms, but don't normally need large assemblies--nor FEA. The highest I've seen my RAM spike is ~625MB but the chip is always maxed now (of course).

If you're not into custom builds, Dell puts together some stable work-horses, but you always pay ~$4,000 by the time you're out the door.




Jeff Mowry
DesignHaus Industrial Design

http://www.designhaus-i-d.com

 

[Arlin]

Here is my dream machine: Total cost ~$2300
Most prices from newegg.com. I have inflated the prices some to account for shipping charges.

$450 - Processor - Athlon XP 3200+ Retail (2.2GHz)
$180 - 1GB PC-3200 DDR RAM (2X 512MB)
$600 - Video - PNY Quadro4 980 XGL
$100 - MotherBoard (nForce2 Ultra 400)
$700 - Monitor 21"
$70 - Hard Drive - 40GB 7200RPM EIDE
$100 - Case (350+ Watt Power Supply)
$50 - CD-R/W
$50 - Keyboard, mouse, floppy - $50
**$2300 - Total

On a budget, you could even downgrade slightly:
$180 - ATHLON XP 2800+
$380 - Video - PNY Quadro4 750 XGL
$300 - Monitor 19"
**$1410 - Total

 

[Stoker]

I just ordered a new machine. Besides the obvious things such as lots of RAM, good monitor etc the best investment you can make right now is a Quadro fx video card. SWX2004 will support real-time rendering, meaning that instead of just choosing color, transparency etc for your parts you can apply materials to the model. Check out

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/partners/Nvidia/Nvidia.html

for details. If you have the money to spend on these cards they will definitely be a wise choice and will make a big diffence in your SWX experience.

 

[EdDanzer]

For FEA a fast CPU, bus and RAM can give a fast pay back. Be cautious about the amount of RAM you purchase, too much can cause stability problems for Intel processors and Windows, too little and you will be doing disc swapping and even with a SCSI hard drive it will be slow.
For small assemblies, BOM’s, and drawing pages, anything over 500mhz will work. If the assemblies get large, the parts are complex, or creating presentation grade graphics, add a very good video card to the first machine.
We never upgrade a machine, a new machine is purchased for FEA and large assemblies, and the old one does the grunt work. We try to replace the FEA box every 18 months with the fastest machine we can buy. At one time we had a DEC alpha 433, paid $15,000.00 and had a 1 year payback, the last Dell was about $6,000.00 and may not give an 18 month payback due to work load and type of work.
If you decide to go with lots of RAM be sure to test the machine as soon as you get it to make sure it will run large FEA problems, we have had problems with 3 different machines and too much RAM, the last was a Dell machine with 2gb of RAM. Do not wait for tech support to fix the problem after the return date, just send it back! With Dell after 30 days they do not want to take it back even if their tech support people cannot make it work, I had to threaten to go to Texas and personally return it even if it meant going to jail. One of the other machines was a clone and we just ate the cost of the RAM excess, and the Dec Alpha was cut back to 1gb.

 

[bobsheets]

We operate like EdDanzer, FEA is our top app. We rebuy a system every 12 months with everything we can get. I'm 2 weeks into a new Gateway P4 3Ghz with 2Gb of ram running XP Pro 2002 SP1. Video is a 3d Labs Wildcat VP880 Pro. Runs SW clean so far, we run Algor FEMPRO with Incad for SW. Had 3 days worth of tech supt with Algor due to the XP SP1 changes. We run large machine structures linear static and steady state heat on plastic injection manifolds. Compared to my "old" system, about 20 to 30% faster. No ram glut issues so far. System was very$$$$, don't have the actual $, thats a closely held secret in the IS Department. But rumors place it above $5K. It also has DVD RW and CD RW with 1394 and blah blah ...

Good luck

 

[fersw]

Hi,
Is very important do ouy acess these site to make a system requirement in OS and hardware.

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/SystemRequirements.html

Regards

FerSW

 

[Mindnumb]

Dream machine on a budget ?

Depends on many things. My company have a small eng. dept. that I am in, and we tend to do computer upgrades often, and not buy top of the line comps. we then phase down the "old" comps to the ones with less need for power. So our dept. is feeding t rest of the company with computers that are more than good enough for office needs. and are mostly up to date with new computers ourself.

I think you get more power over all by upgrading more often and not buying the top dollar stuff.

I see some recommend not going with typical gaming cards, like the ones from nvidia or ATI. Personally I have mostly good experiencec with them espesially when "upgrading" them to professional versions via driver hacks. We tried professional grade cards once, but they turned out to be crap at premium price. The proffesional cards on the market nowadays are undoubtedly better, but most of them have cores based on their gaming counterparts. the differens is usually on the driver side.

I have personally tried the geforce 2 series, geforce 4 and radeon 9500, upgraded to Quadro and firegl type cards.

So here goes recommendation:

Mainboard: Nforce 2 type, Their all pretty good, but I
prefer ABIT. these cards have network and sound
on them, and it uses less cpu cycles than any of
the competition.

CPU : Athlon something. dont go for the top model,
the price is a bit stiff. Save the mony for a
quicker next upgrade. these cpus are strong on
cad related stuff, and also wery good on office
stuff, but the pentiums are better at games at
the time.

Craphics: Radeon 9500 or 9700 non pro models. Upgrade
them with RIVATUNER to firegl compatible cards.
These cards come with dual screen capabilities,
wich is wery useful. Performance is wery,
wery ,wery good.

Additional : You could buy ourself a liftime of cpu
overhead by going for a phase change cooling
solution for your cpu. asetech Wapochill have
some nice ones. You can put i on the
next upgrade aswell , giving you 30 to 50 %
extra cpu power on every cpu you buy.

Ram: : Between 512 and 1024.
With the mainboard mentioned above you should
use pair of sticks for better memory
performance.

Good luck !