What is a "RELIABLE" video card you've used with SOLIDWORKS

[dcmoore]

Question 1) Is your card supported by solid works?
Question 2) How much did/does your card cost?
Question 3) Does your Solidworks crash regularly?

We have 5 designers at my work, running SolidWorks 2005, SP2.0 windows xp pro, with AMD Sempron 3000 chips, 1gb ram, ATI Radeon 128mb 9200 SE video cards (and yes i know they suck)

We have probalby 2-5 crashes of solidworks per user per day. This obviously sounds like more then it should be. We are looking into buying new video cards (we are thinking its the vids that are giving us conflict) Unfortunately we dont have a ton of $$$ to spend on cards now. only want to spend between 200-250$ per card.

Anyone an expert in this area?

What cards should we get? Im having trouble finding any cards that are SW compatible under 500$


Thanks.

Derek

 

[Heckler]

Derek,

Check the FAQ link under this forum

http://www.eng-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=936

This will give you the 411 on video cards. This topic has been talked about at least twice a month.

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 2.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

Do you trust your intuition or go with the flow?

 

[ctopher]

Same as Heckler. Also look in the SolidWorks site.

http://www.solidworks.com

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP2.0 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site
FAQ371-376
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-1091
FAQ559-716

 

[rporter]

Question 1) Is your card supported by solid works? Yes

Question 2) How much did/does your card cost? $220 US

Question 3) Does your Solidworks crash regularly? NO

We use the Nvidia Quadro FX500 here. For the most part we do not work with exceptionaly large assemblies.

I am assuming that you have AGP slots for the vidio cards.

Check out zipzoomfly.com they offer that fx500 for 209 us

 

[SolidsMaster]

stay away from the Quadro NVS cards, if going with Nvidia stick with the FX cards, if ATI, stick with Fire GL ones. It's always a gamble....good luck.

John

 

[aamoroso]

ATI Fire GL T2

No problems almost 2 years running. I cannot remember a video problem since using this card.

Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches.

 

[SBaugh]

1) Yes
2) I have 2 computers so I have 2 cards
a)

http://www.digitallyunique.com/vcqfx500-pb.html

b)

http://www.digitallyunique.com/c99719.html

3) No - they both Run SW extremely well an fast.

FYI - video card is n't the only thing to be concerned with. Drivers, daily computer Mantainence, HDD speed, Network, CPU speed, etc...

See FAQ's on more information.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users

 

[crjones]

We would agree with SBaugh that other issues have as much effect on crashes. Under defined assemblies and sketches tripped us up more often than not. There have been musings that under defined elements take as much as 30% more processing time. When we exercised more discilpine rather than that's close enough approach (locating a part in an assembly with only two constraints rather than three), clearing out backups, and doing the Windows XP maintenance our crashes went to nil. That's with no hardware changes in two year's.

 

[Beggar]

1) Yes - Certified
2) Retails for ~$580 but came with refurbished Dell Precision 370 that cost $1700
3) Crashes are very rare

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Bring back the HP-15

http://www.hp15c.org

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