IT Picked WHAT Computer? Anna Wood RenderBay.com Charles Culp SWtuts.com

Comparison of Three Systems Cheap, Expensive and Poorly Specified, and the Suggested System Dell Optiplex Dell T7600 Dell T3610 Core i5-4570 (4 cores), 8 GB RAM Dual Xeon E5-2650 (16 cores total), 32 GB RAM Xeon E5-1620v2 (4 cores), 16GB RAM Intel Integrated Video NVIDIA Quadro K5000 AMD FirePro W5000 500GB HDD 2TB HDD 256MB SSD $699 $6,246.40 $1799 (without SSD)

About Anna and Charles Anna Wood Charles Culp Design Engineer/CAD Admin for Auer Precision in Mesa, AZ RenderBay.com Product Development Engineer/CAD Admin at Essex Industries in St Louis, MO Designs ergonomic pilot controls SWtuts.com

Goals for Today Understand which components are important for a CAD Workstation Understand the enhancements in recent technology Understand which components provide the best value Compare a poorly built workstation with a good workstation Provide a list of good available systems, and a custom system Feel free to ask questions at any time

Thank You

Thank You Thank you also to Bill McEachern for providing the flow simulation benchmark, and Russ Johnston for providing the V3 Simulation benchmark

CPU It is all about Intel Tom’s Hardware compares single core operations Passmark now has a single thread benchmark: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html Both show blowouts in favor of Intel

Intel Today’s systems have Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, or Haswell CPUs. These also known as 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation Core i5 or Core i7 processors. These are the E3 or E5 series in the Xeon line, with v2, v3, or v4 at the end of the name.

How Many Cores? Two is enough for modeling, but four doesn’t hurt Four is enough for occasional FEA, there is a new solver in SolidWorks 2014 (Large Problem Direct Sparse Solver) that uses more than four cores For rendering, the more the merrier

CPU Benchmarks Modeling Benchmark: http://www.solidmuse.com/benchmarks/ solidworks-benchmark-punch-holder/ FEA Benchmark (V3): https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/63 854 Simulation Benchmark: http://www.swtuts.com/?p=700

Best CPU for Modeling

Best CPU Value for Modeling This graph does not represent true value

Best CPU for SolidWorks Simulation

Best CPU for Flow Simulation

Best CPU for Rendering

Video Cards How much is enough Frame rates and user experience What requires expensive video cards Changes to SolidWorks 2014 Benchmarks: Die Assembly Press Assembly Engine Assembly Cinebench R15

Video Cards AMD FirePro NVIDIA Quadro Intel Integrated V3900 V4900 W5000 W7000 W8000 W9000 Quadro 600 Quadro 2000 Quadro 4000 Quadro 5000 Quadro 6000 Quadro K600 Quadro K2000 Quadro K4000 Quadro K5000 Quadro K6000 HD P4700 (E3-1285v3) HD P4600 (E3-1275v3, E3-1245v3) HD P4000 (E3-1245v2, 1275v2) V4900 $155 W5000 $440 W7000 $800 Q K600 $161 Q K2000 $430 Q K4000 $800 Q K5000 $1800 And this doesn’t even include mobile options

Video Card Testing Video Card Testing on a Boxx 4150XT, Core i7-4770K @ 4.3 Ghz 16 Gigs RAM, Intel 530 SSD Quadro Driver 320.78 AMD Driver 13.15.2.4 And this doesn’t even include mobile options

Video Cards, SolidWorks 2013

Video Cards, SolidWorks 2014 SP2

Video Cards, SolidWorks 2014 SP2

Video Cards, SolidWorks 2014 SP2

Video Cards, Cinebench R15

SSD & HDD Overview SSDs create a significant improvement over HDD, 85% depending on usage Which brand SSDs are the best? Don’t worry about it too much, that is only a 25% gain Intel is used by pro’s for high reliability “SSD’s fail early” is a myth. As a whole they are as reliable, and maybe more reliable, than HDD when used in desktop machines http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923.html

SSD & HDD Overview

Comparison of Three Systems Cheap, Expensive and Poorly Specified, and the Suggested System Dell Optiplex Dell T7600 Dell T3610 Core i5-4570 (4 cores), 8 GB RAM Dual Xeon E5-2650 (16 cores total), 32 GB RAM Xeon E5-1620v2 (4 cores), 16GB RAM Intel Integrated Video NVIDIA Quadro K5000 AMD FirePro W5000 500GB HDD 2TB HDD 256MB SSD $699 $6,246.40 $1799 (without SSD)

DIY vs Prebuilt vs Premium DIY – General Modeling Prebuilt Premium $907.65 $1799-2271 $2196-3208 and up Parts Warranty (varies) 3 year warranty No guarantee on component compatibility No compatibility concerns No compatibility risk Perfectly tuned to your performance needs Limited offerings for components Overclocking means ~35% speed increase

DIY System CPU Core i7-4770 3.4-3.9 GHz Microcenter $249.99 Link Motherboard Gigabyte GA-B85-HD3 Amazon $84.99 Memory 2x8GB Crucial Ballistix $134.95 Primary Disk SanDisk Ultra Plus 256 GB $164.62 Video Card AMD FirePro V4900 $155.98 DVD LG 24X $22.14 Power Supply Seasonic G-Series 360W $54.99 Case CFI - USB 3.0 on front $39.99 $907.65

Prebuilt Options What happened to the Dell T1700? Dell T3610/T3600 HP Z230 SFF Lenovo E32 $1799 $2271 $2249 Xeon E5-1620v2 3.7 GHz Xeon E3-1240v3 3.4GHz 16 GB ECC 16 GB Non-ECC 1TB 7,200 HDD (eek) 128 GB SSD 256 GB SSD AMD FirePro W5000 NVIDIA K600

Prebuilt Disclaimer Page Everything was priced on January 20th, 2014. I included all discounts and sales at that time. Prices for all prebuilt systems include Windows 7 Professional. This is approximately a $140 for purchasing the OEM version of Windows 7 on the open market. The price difference between the Dell and the HP and Lenovo is likely due to the lack of an SSD drive.

Premium Option - Boxx Boxx 4150 Xtreme Boxx 4920 Xtreme $3208 $4815 Core i7-4770K @ 4.3 GHz 6-Core; Core i7-3970X @ 4.5 GHz 16 GB RAM 180 GB SSD NVIDIA Quadro K600

Premium Options - @Xi Computer Mtower – Custom Build $2196.18 http://www.xicomputer.com/products/quote/printQuote.asp?configid=306707 Intel® Core™ i7-4770K @ 4.3GHz Hi-Perf. Sealed Water Cooling 3 Years System HW Warranty w/Express Advance Parts Replacement 16GB DDR3 1866MHz Xi® MTower™ CM-HAF 922 Case AMD® FirePro™ W5000 ASUS® Z87-C Motherboard 250GB Solid State Drive Samsung® 840 EVO Windows 7 Professional

Conclusions CPU is King. More cores do not decrease rebuild times That means processor design & speed are important RAM is a matter of how much is enough SSD prices have plummeted, buy one Homebuilt systems add versatility Overclocked systems mean faster SolidWorks modeling

More Questions? http://www.swtuts.com/?p=700 https://forum.solidworks.com/community/administration?view=discussions Tom’s Hardware, AnandTech, c|net http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)