Let's Talk About Your Team's Computers

[FarmerJohn]

Originally Posted by CMBrandon

What kind of computers does your team use? Did the school buy them or did someone make them? Laptop, desktop? Pics of your lab would be great! I am just really curious to see what all of you have to work with.

Who thinks they have the BEST setup?
Who thinks they have the WORST? (Bonus points for anything earlier than Win2K)

I know very little about computers - what would you recommend as a good CAD desktop from your personal CoolerMaster point of view?

[ASD20]

I don't know the specs off the top of my head, but we have gotten our CAD workstations off of the Dell auction site.

[CMBrandon]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn

I know very little about computers - what would you recommend as a good CAD desktop from your personal CoolerMaster point of view?

As you have probably read here, you have many options varying from complete overkill to barely getting by.

I know AutoDesk has a list of approved graphics cards that will work. I would start there and build around that. The GPU is going to matter more than the processor. Depending on your school's budget I think your best bet is going to be looking for parts that have just been replaced by something newer. i.e. get the Widget 2500 when the 2600 comes out.

Speaking strictly of our products, I would go with the following:

MasterCase 5 Series- Best
MasterCase Pro 3- Better
MasterBox- Good

MasterAir Maker 8- Best
V8- Better
212 Evo- Good

V1000- Best
V750- Better
GM Series- Good

MasterKeys Keyboard Series
Sentinel III or MasterMouse

[GeeTwo]

The school has never provided us a computer that was a viable platform for web development, much less CAD or software development. I believe all of our desktops (4?) were privately donated. Our current CAD computer (and best SW development computer) was donated by someone who has no connection with the team other than he and I work in the same place; he updated his game computer, and was more interested in inspiring high school students than getting a fraction of his money back. When Bob and Riley installed CAD software this weekend, I think they found one other desktop that could run the CAD software they had selected. We have three classmates and two fairly decent laptops, one bought by the booster club, another donated. Most of our history we have depended on laptops owned by the programmers to get the programming done, and about half of the time we have used personally owned laptops as the driver station.

[Sperkowsky]

Currently in our robotics lab we only have 3 computers. Although this is deceiving as 3/4 grades in our school have chrome books.

The first pc is one of my extra workstations with a Quadro k4000 we got out of first choice.

Processor: amd 6300
Ram: 8gbs corsair vengeance ddr3
Ssd: 60gb Patriot Pyro ($200 when I bought it many years ago)
Case: antec p70

The other pc is our lead mentors spare and it has
Intel i5 2500k
8gbs of offbrand memory
1tb hdd
And a 8880 gts that I had laying around (bonus points for such a revolutionary video card?)

What is nice is both of those workstations have 3 monitors. A God send for cad work.

The last pc is our driver station/programming pc.
Its a Lenovo t430 we got for $250 refurbished
We then added an 128gb 850 evo

We are working with a large corporation currently. We asked for 7 of their flagship pc/tablet thingys along with more programming pcs and a few cad stations. We especially lack in programming computers at the moment.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by CMBrandon

I know AutoDesk has a list of approved graphics cards that will work. I would start there and build around that. The GPU is going to matter more than the processor.

This is not correct. CPU is far more important. Any Solidworks certified GPU will get the job done. Best CPU you can afford is by far the number one key to performance in Solidworks.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Cory

This is not correct. CPU is far more important. Any Solidworks certified GPU will get the job done. Best CPU you can afford is by far the number one key to performance in Solidworks.

I agree, to an extent. I find this document to be really useful in determining how to optimize my SW performance:
http://files.solidworks.com/partners...ance_ ENG.pdf
That being said, it's not perfect. Upgrading to an SSD did not net me massive performance increases, although more RAM and graphics cards seem to help a ton (for my friend's computers).
RAM is a big one too. I run on 8gb RAM, an i7, and no graphics card. In order of priority, I want at least 8gb more RAM, then a graphics card (preferably something good), then a better processor, then another 16gb RAM. I already have an i7, so upgrading my cpu would be far more expensive than changing something else first.

[Zac]

Originally Posted by Cory

This is not correct. CPU is far more important. Any Solidworks certified GPU will get the job done. Best CPU you can afford is by far the number one key to performance in Solidworks.

To piggy back off of this, it is my understanding that "best" in the case of CAD refers to single core performance, as CAD is in most cases a linear process. This means that the software can't take full advantage of having several cores. This is important to keep in mind as the market becomes filled with highly rated CPUs that offer up lots of cores, with low clock speeds. These CPUs are more desirable for things like rendering where the workload can be distributed across the cores.

~Zac

[frcguy]

Originally Posted by FlamingSpork

Does it count if I install an ancient version of Windows on a somewhat modern piece of hardware? If so, I can tell you about a Classmate running Windows NT 4.0 SP6, an OS so old that Internet Explorer 6 is an available update.

Wait - did you actually do this? If so, that's super awesome. Please post story and photos!

[dirtbikerxz]

Our School has rigs with some gen quad core i7s, and some crappy old AMD GPUs. While they are okay for basic level CAD, most of our CADers use their own rigs/laptops.

Personal RIG: That I do most of my CADing on:

CPU: Intel Core i7 5930K
MotherBoard: ROG STRIX X99 GAMING
CPU Cooler: Corsair H110i GTX AIO Water Cooler
RAM: 32 GB of Corsair Dominator Platinums
GPUs: 2x ASUS STRIX GTX 1080
1x Nvidia Titan X
PowerSupply: EVGA SuperNova 1200
Storage: 2x 500gb 850 EVO SSDs
10 gigabit connection to 12tb network NAS
CASE: Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Tempered Glass
Monitors: 3x Dell P2415Q

Accessories:
Mouse: Logitech MX Master
Keyboard: Logitech G710+
Headphones: Sennheiser HD 6 MIX
3DMouse: 3Dconnexion Space Mouse Pro

Yes, I know this is way overkill, especially having 2 1080s and another titan x on top of it, but I got really lucky with sales and gifts soo ya

Total retail cost (according to pcpartpicker): about $5827.34
What I spent on it: about $2500

[Zac]

Originally Posted by dirtbikerxz

3DMouse: 3Dconnexion Space Mouse Pro

YES! This is a big one in improving productivity with a CAD workstation. I have typically recommended the SpaceNavigator for people looking to see what a 3D mouse is all about. However, the SpacePilot Pro brings the 3D mouse to a whole new level with the programmable buttons. It really is incredible how much quicker modeling can become when your most commonly used tools are right there at your fingertips.

SpaceNavigator

SpacePilot Pro

And it looks like 3D Connexion is out with something new called the SpaceMouse Enterprise which makes it even easier to access your most commonly used tools.

SpaceMouse Enterprise

If you get past the learning curve for these 3D mice, the benefits of having one become clear so quickly. Being able to easily move the model on the screen seems like such an obvious necessity in CAD however it really isn't clear how difficult it is to do with a mouse and scroll wheel until you experience how easy it is to do with a device specifically designed for the task.

~Zac

[frcguy]

Originally Posted by dirtbikerxz

Yes, I know this is way overkill, especially having 2 1080s and another titan x on top of it, but I got really lucky with sales and gifts soo ya

Lucky! I'm just pluggin along with my Strix Radeon R9 380X.

[sanddrag]

Our lab contains 22 workstations outfitted with the following:

HP Z230 SFF Workstations
Xeon E3-1241v3 3.5GHz Quad Core Hyperthreading
16GB DDR3
256GB HP Z-Turbo Drive PCIe SSD
nVidia Quadro K600 Graphics
HP Z27i 2560x1440 displays
Sennheiser HD201 headphones

They run Autodesk Inventor, HSM, and pretty much everything else quite well, even at the higher resolution. Only the most advanced CAM simulations in HSM could use a tad more graphics "oomph." They're really a joy to use, but I wish we had a few more of them. I'm just out of square footage to put them in.

HP Z-series products are really the "right" thing (enterprise-class product) for this application, and we've been very happy with them so far. The only thing we're lacking is a glass screen on the monitors, which is concerning in the educational environment, but we're extra careful, and the students know that they won't be coming back tomorrow if anyone or anything touches one of those monitors.

[CMBrandon]

Originally Posted by Cory

This is not correct. CPU is far more important. Any Solidworks certified GPU will get the job done. Best CPU you can afford is by far the number one key to performance in Solidworks.

I think a really helpful article for everyone would be this one by Nvidia that explains most of this in detail.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/best-cad-components.html

[asid61]

Originally Posted by CMBrandon

I think a really helpful article for everyone would be this one by Nvidia that explains most of this in detail.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/best-cad-components.html

Nvidia is a company that specializes in graphics cards, so I would take that article with a grain of salt.