Solidworks 2007 and 2011 and new CAD workstation questions

[biff2bart]

Hi All:

This is kind of a multi-part question, so please bare with me!

First off: I'm currently using Solidworks 2007, SP2.2: this is the last release that I used before our license ran out. It has worked great for the past few years, but I'm looking to upgrade to a "current" version of Solidworks, mainly for compatibility with other users (i.e. vendors of ours) and surfacing ability.

Secondly, I'm looking at building a new workstation as well. My current setup has been pretty good over the past four years, but it's starting to get slow as the models get bigger. Also, I just bought a new large monitor (2560 x 1440) and while it's AWESOME to work in (you can have the feature manager open wide so you can actually read it and still have tons of room in the view port at super high detail) the system is definitely slower having to push all those pixels. My current system also uses a gaming card (7900 GTX) and I would like to move to a Quadro card for the new system (stability primarily and to end some weird zoom in issues, slow drawing updates, etc...). My current system also uses Win XP 32 and the new one probably will be win7 64. However, one more catch is that I like to play games occasionally on the computer (FPS like L4D2 and maybe RPG such as DA-O) as well (I know - it's a work station!)!

So, first question is if I buy a new box and install Win 7 64 bit, am I going to be able to run Solidworks 2007 still? I am planning to upgrade to a newer version of SW in the spring of 2011 but obviously if I buy a new computer now, I still need to be able to run SW2007 until I decide to upgrade SW. Secondly, I'm thinking about either a PNY Quadro 2000 or 4000 video card. I'm well aware that Solidworks is very CPU and RAM dependent and not very GPU dependent. I think even the 2000 would be adequate enough for what I'm doing but really though, I honestly don't want it to suck at games because I'm using a workstation card for work!

Here are my tentative system specs:

Intel i7 - 950
12GB DDR3 Ram
Intel 160GB SSD
WD 1TB SATA3 HDD
MB - probably Asus PT6 or similar (decent choice?)
PSU - something high quality and plenty powerful enough from Seasonic or similar

So, really the question is which Graphics card? I guess I'm looking at it as should I spend $300 - $400 more for a Quardo 4000 instead of the 2000 so gaming will be better? Will this even make a difference? I know for Solidworks it won't make a huge difference I'm assuming?

Thanks in advance - any insight would be very helpful on both topics (Win XP & Win 7 64 for Solidworks 2007, and GPU for both Solidworks and games).

 

[SnowCrash]

Pretty sure you would need to NOT run W7 64, but maybe there is some mode that works for you. SW07 will probably work best with XP. Maybe you could dual boot?
With the great monitor I suggest you move your Windows tool bars to the side - left or right vertical edge and do the same with the SW toolbars. That will open up a lot of screen real estate in the vertical direction; you already have plenty of horizontal view, right?
As you can see in my sig I have a pretty cheap card and it works fine for me; YMMV.

--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2010 SP 4.0
HP Pavillion Elite HPE
W7 Pro, Nvidia Quaddro FX580

 

[JMirisola]

There's a very good chance that 2007 won't even load up on a Win7 machine, so a dual boot may be the way to go. After that, you're mistaken about SolidWorks' graphics usage. SW is heavily dependent on the graphics cards which is why they test cards first, and strongly recommend against gaming cards.
The way I see it, you're going to take a hit graphically. Either for games by going with a CAD card, or with SW by going with a gaming card. This is one time where you probably can't have your cake and eat it too.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

 

[gwubs]

biff2bart, I wonder if your licence really ran out or did the activation requirement on SW2007 sp.3.0 kind of stop you from upgrading? Hope you paid for your software, and if you did please ignore this. I'm just not a big fan of pirated software.

 

[biff2bart]

gwubs:

Well, that's kind of a question that is outside the scope of my original post and my license situation is frankly none of your business. But just to be clear, yes we purchased the software (including other Dassault software) and saw no reason to pay yearly licensing fees at the time once the initial year's support expired (and I'm glad that I didn't). SW2007 has provided everything that we have required so far and I don't have to deal with a lot of the stability issues that are popping up in SW2010. The main reasons that I'm looking to switch to SW2010 or 2011 are simply compatibility with other vendors (because we all know how nicely SW DOES NOT play well with older versions) and frankly I need a new a computer to start working on more sophisticated models (hence, my question about SW2007 and Win 7) as my current one is getting bogged down.

Besides, if you want to talk about pirated software, SW releases from 2008 through 2010 are easily available online, yet we're using lowly 2007. Maybe I should take up your insinuation and go down load SW2010 - then my new Win 7 machine would be good to go! The only problem (outside of it being illegal) is that we manufacture products and that would be a liability nightmare...

Now, if you can add something useful to this thread (such as the highly informative replies above yours), it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[gwubs]

biff2bart, like I said in my post, if you paid for your copy of SolidWorks, then please ignore my question.
Our VAR remarked to me shortly after SW2007 sp.3.0 came out how there was a big spike in the number of people who had "misplaced" their serial numbers...

 

[biff2bart]

Hi Snowcrash and JMirisola:

Thank you for your replies - they are very helpful for sure!

One quick question: what about loading XP 64 on the new computer for the time being (to run SW2007) and then updating to Win 7 once we purchase the current version of SW? I was planning to whitebox the computer, but I think with companies like Dell, you can actually order the computer with both an XP64 license and also a Win 7 license (I'm not 100% sure about this, but an IT friend of mine says that they have done this recently).

What do you think?

Thanks!

 

[JMirisola]

If you can get XP to run 2007, that's the safest bet. You might be hard pressed to get it where it's been retired by Microsoft. If the option is there, jump on it.
If worse comes to worse, you can always try loading 2007 on a Win7 machine, but be prepared for some aggravation.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Apparently this can be done using the Microsoft ORCA utility.

thread559-207877

thread559-200737

The link supplies by Stefan no longer works.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa370557(VS.85).aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255905