Professional PC use of AutoCAD

[Franziskaner]

hello everyone, the question I have is as follows (or the following ;D)
a coworker uses the PC (at work) solely to run AutoCAD 2013 (four simultaneously, because if the PC crashes while using tabs, you lose everything. This way, if one AutoCAD crashes, you can continue working with the other three without losing all the info)
Mastercam X6 for CNC is rarely used, 3DMax for rendering is almost never used, and Excel for parts lists. In summary, PC usage:
90% AutoCAD
9% Mastercam X6
1% porn and other stuff :troll:
The PC is a DELL Inspiron (or something like that) dual Xeon at 2.3 I think, with four GB of RAM
The issue is that the coworker says the PC is like a tractor "it can handle everything but it's very slow" and that it lacks RAM, but he's been told it's more cost-effective to change the PC than to upgrade the RAM :wall: I suggest he look into an I5 / I7, but the company's IT guy says he can build a clone with two Xeons for 1200 euros (I was stunned) what do you think?
because my numbers are about 250 each micro plus a hundred and a half of the motherboard plus the less and other stuff :facepalm:
greetings and thanks for your opinions

[Yorus]

I won't be able to help you much because there are things I don't control regarding Autocad, 3DS and similar, but maybe between several of us we can figure things out and it will also be useful for me, because every now and then I've been asked for CAD equipment recommendations.

Breaking it down a bit by components:

- Micro: Well, I'm not very clear about what Xeons can bring compared to the latest i5/i7, but I think it's not going to be the most critical component.
- Memory: With several Autocad open and at the price they are… I would put 16Gb without breaking a sweat.
- Graphics: Here is where I have the most doubts. They usually use mainly Nvidia Quadro or AMD's professional equivalent, but I don't know what they bring compared to normal graphics. I understand that as hardware they are not very different, but the issue lies more in the drivers to accelerate certain functions of CAD programs through CUDA or similar. The thing is that I think it's not possible to use those drivers on the equivalent "home" graphics. The price of the Quadro is exaggerated, that's for sure, it breaks any budget.
Disk: I think an SSD for the system and programs would remove a big bottleneck, and the projects to a normal one with large capacity (or two in mirror if there is no clear backup system).

[Franziskaner]

thanks for responding Yorus. The graphics are a mid-range Nvidia Quadro (I think about 600 bucks)
the problem I see is that the hard drives are a PM (60Gb sata) and the doubt is that the motherboard has 8 memory ports. Do they have dual chanel? because all the modules (four of a Giga) are in the sockets 1,2,3,4, the PC is slow as hell when starting the system and working with autocad it is not much faster than my phenom 9950 (in relation to the price difference)
regards and thanks

[Yorus]

Sometimes at my job I have taken advantage of doing tests on hard drives and the difference between one of 60/80Gb and a Seagate 7200.11 like mine is abysmal, with mine performing twice as fast. It seems that the 7200.14 are the best and are at least 50% faster than mine.

As for the motherboard, I don't know if it has dual channel, but we can look into it if you post the'service tag' of the computer, which, when put on the Dell page, identifies exactly which computer it is.

[Franziskaner]

so we left it for tuesday, I'm busy dismantling the GSM :eoh:
regards and thanks

[ferelxyx]

An i7 will be fine for AutoCAD, put a lot of memory and a decent graphics card and you're ready
Of course, SATA3 disks and a solid disk for the operating system and you have more than enough

Intel Core i7-3820 3.60Ghz - 250 euros
Asrock X79 Extreme4 - 185 euros
Kingston HyperX Beast DDR3 1600 PC3-12800 16GB 2X8GB CL9 - 120 euros
Crucial M4 128GB SSD SATA3 or a similar one for the operating system - 90 euros
Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB SATA3 64MB - 80 euros
If the graphics card you have is sufficient, that's fine, if not, a nVIDIA Quadro 600 1GB GDDR3 card is worth 190 euros
If you don't render, a Radeon 7750 with 2Gb DDR3 will be fine - approx. 85 euros
A power supply like the CORSAIR TX650W and a decent case

Total between 900 and 1000 euros

Regards

[Franziskaner]

Hello.
I, from my ignorance, also think that with an I7/I5 + the quadronvidia it is enough, that is, with quality disks or a RAID0, but the computer scientist says that the Xeon performs better
Regards

[ferelxyx]

an i5 is fine but it's weak for autocad, an i7 from the 2011 socket is better, for raw power
because the micro is the one that does 99% of the work in autocad and if you render you need
good graphics and the more memory the graphics have the better

if you have to lower the price then something similar in the 1155 socket
if not an AMD FX Series FX-8350 4.0Ghz 8X is a very good option

but if it's for professional and for work the i7 from the 2011 socket is the best option
because it saves you a lot of time

regards

[Bm4n]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the low-end Xeon range in terms of features are identical to their "i" siblings, they are just supposed to be mounted on work stations/servers with registered memory etc. to provide reliability but with the same features and performance. And beware because if they mount a cheap old Xeon on you it will perform worse, that's when you look for the model on the wiki and see what generation it is, but by price it usually doesn't pay off for a CAD PC. Dedicated graphics cards for CAD do improve performance but it's useful to look at comparisons because they are not cheap and do not always pay off with much improvement and it varies depending on the program, version, etc. And I would not recommend RAID0 more than for the OS in any case but it has more risk of data loss, and even so today I would prefer an SSD. Using the 2011 platform more than anything else because of the width in RAM with quad-channel, of the rest it will not provide any extra performance.

[Sylver]

And while we're on the subject, a crossfire or SLI of previous generation graphics would probably provide some raw performance for CAD if dedicated graphics were ruled out. It's an idea I've always had about these matters of working with CAD, design, etc.

Best regards

[ferelxyx]

@Sylver:

And while we're on the subject, a crossfire or SLI of previous generation graphics would probably provide some raw performance for CAD if dedicated graphics were ruled out. It's an idea I've always had regarding these work issues with CAD, design, etc.

Regards

that would only be useful for rendering and I don't know if AutoCAD works with SLi or CROSSFIRE

regards

[Bm4n]

I swear that not so long ago we talked about this type of graphics and I'm not sure if some models of graphics for CAD and 3D were compared, I think ATI in particular that rendered more or less, but I wouldn't put an SLI to spend money on something of my own and if not then with one that kicks... I mean. If you look you'll see that there are several topics in the forum that will probably sound familiar to you, but be careful not to travel to the past, if you find yourself don't interact and go to create a parallel future eh Franziskaner ;D

[Franziskaner]

damn, what a week :llorar:
well the machine is this:
http://www1.la.dell.com/la/es/corp/Workstations/precn_t7400/pd.aspx?refid=precn_t7400&s=corp
as a novelty, I must say that the "IT guy" has changed the hard drive for a more current one and the performance has improved quite a bit. It would probably improve more if the "IT guy" did a CLEAN installation instead of making a backup :facepalm: and keeping the OS on one drive and AutoCAD on another :mad:.
I'll tell my colleague to run a couple of tests to see the capabilities of the "tractor"
greetings and thanks to everyone
P.D about SLI ….. I don't think AutoCAD or Master Cam will take advantage of it, maybe 3DMax will, but in my job and in many others, that's a damned program ;D
P.D 2
I'm really glad to see that you've come back with more energy than ever Bm4n ;D

[vacante]

Quadro graphics or Ati Crossfire do not improve performance much when working in 2D, it does not justify the price of a Quadro, a decent domestic graphics card is preferable.
Where it is noticeable is when working in 3D, when moving models or working with models with all their textures.

Graphics cards also do not help when calculating final renders. 3Ds Max or similar programs use the processor to calculate images, in fact, several computers on a network are usually used for the calculations of a large animation or image.

Autodesk - Certified Hardware - Find Recommended Hardware
autodesk says which driver it has tested with each graphics card and which it recommends with each program and version.