Recommended Motherboard

[SBaugh]

What is a good recommended motherbaord to be used just with SW. A friend of mine is building his own and asked me if I knew and other than getting an ASUS i7 with and Intel chip (Not Celeron) I don't know much more than that.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in Advance.

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Take a look at Anna Woods benchmark spreadsheets at

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

Many people have listed their mobos in the last (Notes) column.

 

[KirbyWan]

A great resource for selecting individual components is tom's hardware at:

http://www.tomshardware.com

It is used to be focused on gaming PC's but has gotten more general over time. The only other way to go instead of an i7 processor is a server processor, i.e. Xeon. But that's big bucks. They also have for fora similar to eng-tips, some focused on hardware for CAD, where you can get more advice.

-Kirby

Kirby Wilkerson

Remember, first define the problem, then solve it.

 

[SBaugh]

The motherboard that was suggested by a local company was "Giga-byte Gama785GT-UD3H(A)" I found that to be more for Gaming than CAD.

My friend is of course trying to stay on a low budget... and this might be his best choice.


Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

If low budget is key, consider the Intel i5.

 

[gwubs]

We are in the process of planning for new SW machines, and we will probably go i5. This is mainly because SW in not a threaded app, and you get more clock speed per $ in i5.

 

[DiegoLGraves]

For what it's worth, I had our IT guy price a build from Tiger Direct, and then sent him to XI Computer for comparative prices. XI beat what he could get from Tiger or Newegg by a considerable margin. These were both i7 based.

Of course I'm still walking the old dog - new workstation promised by the end of the year.

Regards, Diego

 

[StefanHamminga]

From the top of my head: The boards I've had in my hands / know of the last couple of years:

* About half of the Asus boards I've ever used have been replaced at least once
* 4 Gigabyte boards, 0 problems so far (24/7 office pc's)
* 3 DFI boards, one dead & replaced (2 used as CAD workstation)
* MSI boards, used to be a mixed bag, last year 1 running and it has already been replaced
* 1 zotac board (mitx htpc), 24/7 still going fine
* 3 Tyan server boards, all 3 fine running 24/7 (one as my own mailserver)
* 1 Abit board, replaced once
Probably some more that I don't remember / want to remember...

I used to like DFI, but last couple of boards seem somewhat fragile... Gigabyte could be my new favorite (only weak link being the sometimes crappy components like the Realtek LAN they seem so fond of).

That local shop won't get an Intel chip working on that AMD Gigabyte MB tough...

Get a nice Socket 1156 H57 board and an I5/I7 CPU.

Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

gwubs ... Of the top 30 fastest machines in Annas spreadsheet, 27 had hyper-threading enabled. Apparently the new HP is different from the old, and actually benefits SW.

 

[StefanHamminga]

Don't think it has much to do with hyperthreading, but more to do with the turbo mode on the i5/i7 cpu's. Having 4 times the amount of treads and 25-30% more clockspeed not even doubles the performance of the good core2 dual cores in that spreadsheet...
The same old 2 things still rule Solidworks perfomance: clockspeed and ipc (instructions per clockcycle). That being said, the extra turbo boost levels of the i7 quad cores make them a much better choice than their predecessors if you can spare the cash.


Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

OK, but the former HP used to actually impede SW performance, sometimes even causing it to crash. The new HP does not seem to harm SW performance.

 

[StefanHamminga]

Yes, sorry, i did not mean to correct you, you are totally correct that the current HT implementation is actually very good. In my opinion Intel should have named it differently to the Pentium 4 version, which was a complete mess.

Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Stefan ... Please, never be sorry about correcting me. You are far more knowledgeable than I about these things. I would much rather be corrected in public than to continue on with incorrect knowledge.

BTW, it's good to see you posting here again.

A year or more ago, you posted a series of "dream machine" and "best value for money" specs. Are you planning on posting updated versions?

 

[StefanHamminga]

Hmm, been quite busy lately, but I'll try to post here a bit more often.
About the 'dream system': nothing comes to mind, but if you name your budget and preferably a shop (like Newegg) with components to choose from I could make you a starting point for a decent system?

Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums