The unltimate computer for SWX?

For SolidWorks, I would invest in a quality graphics card. This has been my limiting factor in the performance of the software. The SolidWorks website has a list of supported graphics cards. Second, I would lose the Zip drive and pick up a CDRW. The CDs hold plenty of information and can be read in any PC with a CD ROM. It just seems more versitile than a Zip drive. Everything else looks fine. DimensionalSolutions@Core.com
While I welcome e-mail messages, please post all thread activity in these forums for the benefit of all members.

MadMango, (I didn't say orange this time)

What area of the world are you located in?

I know that we have PC Club stores here in the Phoenix area ( and I believe they do build and ship custom machines. We've even told them that we wanted to pick up a refurbished Oxygen GVX1 card from 3DLabs in order to save $300, and they did it.

If your going with the AMD Thunderbird, I recommend the ASUS motherboard. I think they make an ATA/133 hard drive, too, in order to pick up that little extra speed when saving and opening those large assemblies. I assume the FireGL is an AGP card, not PCI.

Win2K SP2 (M$ fixed a few performance issues).

Don't forget the Spaceball and a kickin sound card to play a little network Doom.

FYI: Through PC Club, we are picking up components (our tech guy will be assembling the computer):
AMD T-Bird 1.3 MHz
MSI motherboard (prefer ASUS, but hey, what ya gonna do?)
512M Ram (trying to go for 1G)
Refurb Oxygen GVX1
30G ATA/100 IDE hard drive (7200RPM)
All for about $1000 (yet management still complains)

We are scavaging the remaining components (CD-Rom, Floppy, etc) from our existing machines.

Do you get to keep the difference? If so, could you pick up another computer and ship it to me. You know, for giving you such a good recommendation? ;-)

--Scott

Hey Scott.

Thanks for the suggestion on PC Club. They don't seem to have the system that I'm looking for, though their prices are very reasonable.

The company I am going to (Los Angeles, CA) wants to buy Name Brand (Compaq, IBM, Dell, etc) and I was just seeing if there was anything out there that was lower in price but the same quality. Unfortunately, I do not get to keep any money I might be able to save, so you'll just have to settle for my thanks on your great advice and recommendations. :-D "Happy the Hare at morning for she is ignorant to the Hunter's waking thoughts."

My recommendation:

Get a dual processor machine. While not multithreading, performance stays max'd while running other stuff: i.e. office, email, etc. 1 gig ram is nice. get a raid disk controller and stripe them (raid 0 I think) for performance. CD-R or CD-RW... CD-R's are cheap - toss them when you are done... Analyze the assemblies you'll be working with...I have worked with high, mid and low-end video cards and am currently using a Matrox G-400 dual head on Win 2k. I would be kicking and screaming if you tried to take my dual monitor set-up away. I think I get more productivity out two monitors than I have gotten from the fastest video card. While my assemblies are not large by any means, I've never had any graphics issues. My box is a Gateway dual 800 PIII, 256 MB ram (corp polotics...what can ya do?)and striped hard drives, 21" primary display, 17" aux display. Forget the spaceball...a waste of funds...I put mine in a box and am happy to have the desk surface back. My home system is a single 700 athlon, 512 MB ram ata 66 HDs, ATI Radeon video and a 19" monitor. OK, but needs updating...

Don

Get a flat screen my friend. Spend the money and get 19" or 21" Sony. The difference is worth it and since you spend enough time looking at it, don't scrimp on it.

For me the most important thing is compatibility. So what I do is search for the best compatibility. Sometimes the best products simply crash down when they attached together. So, that is where the motherboard quality joins in. My advice to you is contact the motherboard manufacturer and tell them your exact needs they will probably offer you products of companies that they have kinda endorsement but if you ask for the specific products you will have the proximity to the best hardware...