3D Modeling/CAD Computer Components

[artdutra04]

Make sure you get a professional graphics card - either an AMD FirePro or nVidia Quadro. The hardware and drivers are tailored for CAD/modeling performance instead of gaming performance, and are thus the only officially supported graphics cards for most CAD software.

[Jared]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Make sure you get a professional graphics card - either an AMD FirePro or nVidia Quadro. The hardware and drivers are tailored for CAD/modeling performance instead of gaming performance, and are thus the only officially supported graphics cards for most CAD software.

Agreed. See this (https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/64436) for some details.

If you want to save money and are willing to take a chance, you can pick up some used workstations (typically dell or hp) off of ebay for cheap ($200) with a quadro card.

I would stay away from gaming cards if possible just because of driver issues. You'll get great performance with way more stability on a cheaper workstation gfx card.

As others have said 8 Gb of RAM is enough, though I wouldn't go much less, especially if you like to have an internet browser, excel, an email client, and a music player running at the same time. It doesn't use 8 Gb of RAM to open the robonauts 2013 or 2014 assemblies in SolidWorks or Inventor.

As for CPU, higher clock speed is better. This is why laptops aren't always the greatest for CAD. Getting a CPU with a million cores doesn't help that much with SolidWorks. Most tasks, like importing, or general modeling don't take much advantage of having a bunch of cores. Importing the robonauts 2014 model only maxed out 1 core on my computer. I would prefer a higher clock speed over a just released quad core CPU, but that's me.

Don't get an SSD unless you like spending money.

[Chris_Ely]

Originally Posted by Jared

Don't get an SSD unless you like spending money.

A 120 GB SSD is only about $90. Using it as the boot drive and installing the CAD package to it will drastically increase boot and load times, both new and over the long term. Get a cheap hard drive for everything else.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Make sure you get a professional graphics card - either an AMD FirePro or nVidia Quadro. The hardware and drivers are tailored for CAD/modeling performance instead of gaming performance, and are thus the only officially supported graphics cards for most CAD software.

Though some companies only certify full systems, not individual components (for example, PTC only certifies workstations, not sure about Solidworks, and I haven't heard of Inventor outside of educational anyways...)

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

Though some companies only certify full systems, not individual components (for example, PTC only certifies workstations, not sure about Solidworks, and I haven't heard of Inventor outside of educational anyways...)

http://www.solidworks.com/sw/support...rdtesting.html

If you happen to be running a gaming card generally AMD cards have less driver issues than Nividia cards when running solidworks.

[pmangels17]

For Solidworks, I love my Lenovo in every way. Specs:
Model: Y510p
8 GB RAM
1 TB 7200 RPM hard drive
Quad Core i5 2.4 ghz (i think, my memory fails me at the moment on the exact speed)
Dual Nvidia GT 750M graphics cards (2 GB memory each)

Obviously you could get by with a bit less but you can never have enough power, and if you want a laptop you will be hard pressed to find one with a professional graphics card instead of a gaming card. For every FRC application I've needed, including full robot modeling and rendering, gaming cards do just fine, even the mobile ones I have.

If you can, definitely go with a laptop, it'll be easier to move around the shop and take to competition if you wanted to show a judge or another team.

[mman1506]

If your putting together a inexpensive computer and you are ok with something a bit adventurous might want to look at the newly released Intel Pentium G3258 Anniversary Edition, it's a 68$ processor that can be easily overclocked to 4.5-4.8 GHz. When overclocked the processor is comparable to a 379$ i7-4790K in single threaded applications like Solidworks and Inventor.

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Make sure you get a professional graphics card - either an AMD FirePro or nVidia Quadro. The hardware and drivers are tailored for CAD/modeling performance instead of gaming performance, and are thus the only officially supported graphics cards for most CAD software.

YES. Workstation cards can be pretty expensive, but they are absolutely worth the money. My machine runs a FirePro v4800, and the performance is absolutely flawless. Also, 6+ core processors and 8gb+ of RAM. This combination will allow you to work with multiple files at the same time, and allow you to use raytracing while working.

Edit: This doesn't mean normal video cards won't work. I used an AMD HD5450 for CAD for quite a while, and although I couldn't keep raytracing and shadows on all the time like I can with my v4800, it was sufficient.

[headlight]

+1 for the SSD. Best choice I made for my computer.

I use this site when I'm putting together a computer.

http://pcpartpicker.com/

It makes it pretty simple and I've never had incompatible parts.

[AdamHeard]

If you can get your hands on a decent gaming card for free, it's certainly okay to use that for a budget build.

That being said, if you can afford it the workstation card is a better option.