Let's Talk About Your Team's Computers

[Christopher149]

We have

• a Lenovo Thinkpad for programming
• a Classmate for driver station
• another Classmate as pristine 2014 cRIO dev environment (we've got our 2013 and 2014 robots still)
• a donated HP? laptop running XP for showing videos on, say in the pits
• a couple desktops on loan for CAD
• access to the school CAD computers (but AutoCAD on them doesn't seem as effective at 3D as SolidWorks, so we mostly use the one in a classroom for videos and meeting start notes)
• a 2009 Classmate and an old Dell laptop that aren't worth much mention (haven't used them in a while, both severely lacking in hardware and with maybe damaged OS installs)

PS: everything is running Windows 7 but 1 on XP (the HP) and 1 on some linux flavor (the Dell laptop). Also, one of our Classmates entirely lost its right-click key after being dropped too many times.

The Thinkpad was bought for the team by the lead mentor. The Classmates came from the KOP, FIRST Choice, and a local team that folded. The HP came from an office upgrade by a Wisconsin company where a former mentor was working. The desktops came from a local engineering company. I think the origin of the Dell laptop predates me.

In terms of computers, the biggest aids right now would be consistent (any?) WiFi access, and CAD desktops of our own that we could seal away from sawdust (storage right now is in the wood shop, and our non-wood shop storage same days requires a trip outside in a snowy winter [interior gate we don't have keys to]).

[Max Boord]

Most of the Cadding and video editing I do for FRC is done on my personal rig:

I5 3570k @4.66ghz
2x 7970s @1125mhz
16gb corsair ram at 1600mhz
256gb SSD boot drive
1tb WD caviar black for cad stuff
3tb of video edditing storage
1100W PSU
Coolermaster Storm Trooper case

Works ok for running Autodesk Inventor and Sony Vegas but idd recommend a better CPU to anyone building a computer for cad and a single GPU for anyone doing heavy video editing. Also my overclocks are a tad aggressive unless you enjoy your room feeling like a bakery and a computer that sounds like a jet engine.

[Cory]

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

Nothing in that article refutes my statement that high clock speed CPU is more important than choice of GPU, so long as your GPU is Solidworks certified.

You'll get a vastly bigger performance boost by upgrading to a ssd (if you're somehow still using a mechanical drive) than you would by upgrading from a base model quadro to a mid tier one.

The one big thing to take note of is that testing has shown the cheapest $200 quadro card will outperform the Titan in Solidworks performance.

[CMBrandon]

Originally Posted by Cory

Nothing in that article refutes my statement that high clock speed CPU is more important than choice of GPU, so long as your GPU is Solidworks certified.

It wasn't meant to refute your statement, only further the topic by introducing more information.

I would love to know more about CAD computing. If you get time, send me a PM. We are currently working on CAD machines for some of our teams and would love the extra input.

[dirtbikerxz]

Guys Guys... Come on.... We all know that rgb led lighting inside the case is the most important for CAD... Come on now 😀😀😀😀

[bcampbell]

[quote=CMBrandon;1600147]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.

We custom build all of our workstations to try and stretch our dollars as far as we can. We try to add at least 2-3 CAD computers each year and repurpose older computers to other areas of the team (business, programming, outreach, etc). All of our computers are owned by the team and not supplied by the school. In order to get the eduction license of SW provided through FIRST you aren't supposed to install it on school owned computers.

Our newest builds that we just completed include:

Case - CoolerMaster Elite 431 ($50)
CPU - Intel Skylake i5-6600k ($250)
Mobo - ASUS Z170-P LGA 1151 ($100)
Ram - 16gb DDR4 2400 ($50 but we got this for free with a processor/mobo combo)
PSU - Thermaltake TR2 500 Watts ($30 on amazon prime day!!!)
Graphics - AMD Firepro W4300 ($250)
HD - 120gb SSD ($60)
Windows 10 pro (we bought OEM windows 7 pro and upgraded to 10 for free)

Originally Posted by dirtbikerxz

Guys Guys... Come on.... We all know that rgb led lighting inside the case is the most important for CAD... Come on now ��������

We like our CoolerMaster cases as they come with a blue LED fan which is one of our team colors.

We are fortunate to be near an electronics swap meet and were able to get 24" monitors, keyboards, mice and speakers second hand for cheap. Here are some photos of our current CAD setup. The pictures are a little dated as we have added more computers and removed the old box monitors and use only 1080p monitors.

We also have a network server that we run that shares files between all of the computers. However, with GrabCAD being free now it has reduced our dependency on our server and it really only shares our media now a days.

We have also built budget computers that can also run SW great. Now that we have more than 10 CAD computers we invest in more moderate builds that are used more for higher level assembly manipulation.

[CMBrandon]

Bryan,

We need to talk about those cases... I think we can help you . Give me a call tomorrow at the office.

[bcampbell]

Originally Posted by CMBrandon

Bryan,

We need to talk about those cases... I think we can help you . Give me a call tomorrow at the office.

Will do!!!

[fargus111111111]

We have quite the assortment of laptops that the team owns and a lab of about 20 desktops at the school which are used during school hours for mechanical and architectural classes, thus they have all the Autodesk products on them and we use them for all our CADing, these computers also have access to a network drive which our lead educator, whose classroom we are working in, can also access, so if we want something 3d printed we can just put it in there and ask him to start the printer. The laptops include one ancient thing running Win XP that had been our programming laptop, we stopped using that after the 2013 season when we were donated 3 newer Dells. Those Dells also pushed our struggling Classmate out of service, needless to say no one was sad to see it go, but it still sits in the cabinet. The Dells were donated by one of our sponsors as they were upgrading many of their office computers. We use them for drive stations primarily, but also we keep one fully up to date with Labview for programming and the most powerful of the 3 has the Autodesk suite loaded on it so we have a portable CAD computer. They are all running Windows 7. We don't usually use personal computers at meetings, mostly because we have the lab. We do also have 1 Windows 8 Toshiba, but that has had its share of problems, the primary one being that we blew up the ethernet port on it because one of our long cords shocked it with static electricity while we were doing some testing on a carpet floor, fortunately the WiFi still works fine so we can use it as a demonstration driver station, that's about all it is. As far as computers are concerned I would say we are in the middle of the pack and we are happy right there.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Cory

You'll get a vastly bigger performance boost by upgrading to a ssd (if you're somehow still using a mechanical drive) than you would by upgrading from a base model quadro to a mid tier one.

This. So much this. No one seems to understand this in the educational world. So many systems purchased without SSDs these days.

The one big thing to take note of is that testing has shown the cheapest $200 quadro card will outperform the Titan in Solidworks performance.

It pains me to agree to this but it is completely true and has everything to do with driver optimizations: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/ar...orks-2016-751/

Honestly the Titan cards work best for training neural networks and CUDA intensive tasks given the number of cores available and the memory size. We definitely use ours for this.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by marshall

This. So much this. No one seems to understand this in the educational world. So many systems purchased without SSDs these days.

For our school district, SSD's, 8GB RAM, and Skylake i5 is the minimum standard for all new desktop purchases going forward, as of June, 2016. But I agree, most of education has no clue what they're buying beyond "computers" and quite frequently those dollars go to Apple computers because "Macs are better."

[Koko Ed]

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)

We use the ones provided by the school but because we share our build site with two other teams and it's a working classroom we have to be very mindful of what we do on the computer and how well we keep the area neat and orderly.

[evanperryg]

Ours are all donated. Caterpillar is generous enough to give us ~6 pretty new, mid-grade workstation laptops, which are powerful enough to manage CAD assemblies. We then have a pile of ~10 laptops of various brands, ages and states of repair, which have all been donated by team members, parents, and mentors. Most of them can't handle CAD, so they are used for programming. A lot of students bring in their own laptops to use (our driver's station laptop the last two years was actually the programming team leader's MacBook). We have one desktop, an older system donated by our school district, which is used as a file server. We probably could not exist if we had to purchase our own computers; the cost of a usable CAD laptop is unbelievable.

By the way, having worked in IT off-and-on over the years, I'd strongly suggest to anyone who is seriously considering building their own CAD workstation, get an AMD FirePro. They will last you a lifetime, and the older ones provide outstanding performance for the money. My workstation uses a FirePro v4800, which is a (supposedly) mid-to-low end workstation card. That sucker still handles Inventor on my two 1920x1200 monitors much better than any desktop card I've ever owned. Even after a power supply failure permanently damaged the rest of my old system, I was able to drop my v4800 into my new machine, and it still runs beautifully.

EDIT: btw, since I see people posting their builds, I'll post mine. Pls don't flame, it's almost 5 years old now:
AMD FX-6100, over clocked lightly to 4GHz. Stock cooler.
ASUS Crosshair-V Formula motherboard
16gb Crucial RAM, 1333mhz iirc
ATI FirePro v4800. Yes, it says ATI on it.
Some really cheap Cooler Master 500W supply.
Kingston 120Gb SSD + 1TB WD Green HDD.
Corsair Carbide 500R white case.

[Anthony Galea]

Our team has used a 2013 Alienware 14 since the 2014 season to conduct all our team functions (CAD, programming, driver station), however, we need to find a new laptop as ours appears to have been stolen . We highly recommend the laptop, the only problem was the trackpad would act up from time to time, and Dell offers educational discounts.

[Munchskull]

My team uses both my personal and team computers to get done.
Team computers:-Old personal: - New Personal:
CPU- Some Xeon - i5-2400 - i5-6600k
Mobo-? - ? - MSI z-a170 pro carbon
RAM- 4GB DDR2 - 16GB DDR3. - 16GB DDR4
GPU- GTX 480 - GTX 660. - MSI GTX 1060

Current looking to rebuild the old personal in a new case to be an improvement over my teams cad set up. Sadly the CM CPU cooler I have had its back plate lost when I was rebuilding and I am out of money to buy a case.

Ps sorry for the bad format doing this from phone while camping.