Com-pu-ter?

[Gremlin]

A couple of warnings... buy from the cheapest on pricespy, and you will generally receive shit service and/or real problems trying to return goods. I've had enough mates get run through that mill to enjoy countless hours of laughing. Yes, I'm biased, I'm sorta in the business (but not consumers, and don't bother trying to beat some cheap shit retailer), but paying a bit more should get you better service.

Fact is, there have been some sellers selling at basically cost, to force out other sellers, over the years, and earning their revenue through other avenues...

A lot of trademe resellers are simply buying from the bigger distributors/sellers, chucking on a small margin, aiming to sell in volume, and either know nothing of their products and/or sell for more than what consumers could buy for in the shop...

At the same time tho, some sellers are also going to the wall in this recession, as selling parts is something almost any monkey can do, barriers to entry are relatively low etc.

[The Stranger:Me]

A couple of warnings... buy from the cheapest on pricespy, and you will generally receive shit service and/or real problems trying to return goods.

What you smoking? Cheapest is always best silly.

[ital916]

GPU processing is being used more and more in 3D software/rendering so if nothing else I'd max out on motherboard, ram and graphics card(s),Not sure what the situation is in CAD. Intel is a good brand but I can't remember the last time top of the range vs cheap mid range CPU made that much of a noticeable difference in average tasks. What kind of CAD are you looking at?

Interesting point, windows 7 64/32 installs are more stable than the linux in the lounge and the imacs at uni, although we have tortured those pretty badly.

Well running solidworks will be one of the CAD programs...and solidworks if freaking massive...not nearly as massive as proE which I would hopefully be running too *if I can find a cheap version lol or possible swapping tthat for ansys if I gett soldiworks*, on top of that I need to find a framework package and a proper drafting package as proE's drafting one is lacking. AutoCAD/AutoDESK might fit the bill.

I also intend to run a grpahics intensive airfoil simulator software.

As well as the obligatory photoshop etc.

The price difference between an intel dual core and quad core is quite a bit, where does the mhz rating come into play. I was told be a mate that it is the cache that is important?? Like if a chip has a 3mb cache or 8mb cache

[Squiggles]

The price difference between an intel dual core and quad core is quite a bit, where does the mhz rating come into play. I was told be a mate that it is the cache that is important?? Like if a chip has a 3mb cache or 8mb cache

Get an 8-core. Big is good.

[Slyer]

Do not underestimate OCTOCORE.
RAWWWRRR!
*Octocore SMASH*


It's funny the clients all of our software clients that are running 4-8 cores and they haven't even bought the multi-core version.
Gee I wonder why the server is running at 12.5% hmmmmm.

[Reckless]

GPU processing is being used more and more in 3D software/rendering so if nothing else I'd max out on motherboard, ram and graphics card(s),Not sure what the situation is in CAD.

In my case its a two pronged sword. 3d rendering is graphics intensive and ray-tracing is processor intensive. Hence the reason for the overclocked i7 and the 2 x GTX270's. I concluded after looking at lots of reviews that the 270 was the best bang for buck at the moment, not to much under the 285 and 295 in speed but quite a bit cheaper.

The price difference between an intel dual core and quad core is quite a bit, where does the mhz rating come into play. I was told be a mate that it is the cache that is important?? Like if a chip has a 3mb cache or 8mb cache

Our guys are saying the core speed of the i7 is an advantage over the older chips.
This sticky about hardware from our user site might be helpful to you!
http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread.php?t=41153

Thank goodness our guys program for gaming cards as Nvidia quatro's pricing is off the plant here! LOL!!

[ital916]

Okay I did a little bit of research and picked a few components, they are probably all shit but like I said I am not computer genius. Feel free to remedy any component problems you see. Note that this computer is still imaginary at this point in time, Im just planning for after graduation.

CPU - Intel i5 750 8MB cache 95 W 2.66 ghz - 400.00

Asustek P7P55D Intel P55 socket 1156 ATX motherboard - $250.00

ATI radeon HD 4870 1GB graphics card - $300

6GB DDR3 SDRAM - $190.00

Samsung 1TB SATA 7200rpm hard drive - $130.00

LG GH-22 22x DVD writer - $85.00

Some case + power supply (there are soooo many) - $200.00

= $1555 total + money for other bits and pieces i.e. cables and stuff.

I have a brand new monitor and keyboard and mouse.

Forgive me if the components I selected are poo, there is just a huge range of stuff out there it is freaking ridiculous.

[Reckless]

If you haven't got one don't forget to get the OEM pricing for a new operating system when you buy all the bits. Thats a big discount from retail.

[jono035]

Forgive me if the components I selected are poo, there is just a huge range of stuff out there it is freaking ridiculous.

The RAM you selected is shit and you've bought a triple channel RAM kit with a processor that has a dual-channel controller on it...

The i5 is a processor without hyperthreading as well, which would be a nice feature for anything that will run multi-threaded.

Also a 1TB 7200rpm hard drive will be pretty crap for anything that has to access the hard drive, they're slow as hell...

There are a few easy changes there for a workstation PC, but it depends on whether you're planning to game on it as well...

Let me know if you want a hand choosing components.

[motorbyclist]

What are you doing for redundancy/backups? CAD I assume means work, so you will want to ensure it isn't lost....

AutoCAD/AutoDESK might fit the bill.

AutoCAD is great, once you've learnt how to use it.

my ancient rig runs solidworks fine, even with reasonably complex models, and solidworks can be picked up almost entirely by intuition too. It ran fine even back when I was using a 6600gt so rendering isn't going to be a biggie lol

Pro-E also runs fine.... well as fine as Pro-E can be said to be be running (gawd I hate the guys who made that and forced upon our university)

Autocad, well depends on the packages, but they also run well and offer free versions to all students. they also have endless teaching aids etc etc.

Obviously moar power is all good, but you'd be surprised how little you actually need.

UofA is the only place I know that teaches ProE to the exclusion of all else - PTC offers nil support nor even reasonable licening for students. Everywhere else teaches Autocad, Solidworks, and anything else worth using, yet for some reason not ProE - gee i wonder why


EDIT: might qualify what i mean by ancient; AMD athlon64 X2 4600+ (clocked at 2.4GHz but I've gotten her to 3GHz no sweat) and associated technology from 2007

EDITEDIT: and set up a separate install if you intend on installing visual studio. It's just easier that way.

[ital916]

What are you doing for redundancy/backups? CAD I assume means work, so you will want to ensure it isn't lost....



AutoCAD is great, once you've learnt how to use it.

my ancient rig runs solidworks fine, even with reasonably complex models, and solidworks can be picked up almost entirely by intuition too. It ran fine even back when I was using a 6600gt so rendering isn't going to be a biggie lol

Pro-E also runs fine.... well as fine as Pro-E can be said to be be running (gawd I hate the guys who made that and forced upon our university)

Autocad, well depends on the packages, but they also run well and offer free versions to all students. they also have endless teaching aids etc etc.

Obviously moar power is all good, but you'd be surprised how little you actually need.

UofA is the only place I know that teaches ProE to the exclusion of all else - PTC offers nil support nor even reasonable licening for students. Everywhere else teaches Autocad, Solidworks, and anything else worth using, yet for some reason not ProE - gee i wonder why


EDIT: might qualify what i mean by ancient; AMD athlon64 X2 4600+ (clocked at 2.4GHz but I've gotten her to 3GHz no sweat) and associated technology from 2007

EDITEDIT: and set up a separate install if you intend on installing visual studio. It's just easier that way.

proE is great...once you know how to use it, it is a long and frustrating journey though to get to any level of competence. When it comes to writing machine code for manufacturing and compatibilty with finite element analysis programs it is ace.

[jono035]

Ansys, however, will be happy with as much grunt as you can throw at it.

And backups can be simple or complicated depending on what size models you are working with and how manual you can handle it being. The best way is to just save all your working files in a specific location and copy what you were working on to a dated folder on a USB key on your keyring. E-mailing them to a g-mail account works well too.

Redundancy isn't worth it in your case I would guess, backups are more appropriate, and the biggest thing being get them away from your PC/house.

Edit: Pro-E is pretty decent once you're used to it, but Solidworks is more of a de-facto standard. This is the same reason that anyone designing PCBs in eagle-cad should be shot when they could be familiarising themselves with Protel.

[The Stranger:Me]

And backups can be simple or complicated depending on what size models you are working with and how manual you can handle it being. The best way is to just save all your working files in a specific location and copy what you were working on to a dated folder on a USB key on your keyring. E-mailing them to a g-mail account works well too.

With the cost of hard drives these days why not consider 4 disks in a RAID 10 at least. It's obviously no substitute for backup, but it keeps you working for one of the more common computer problems, plus the additional speed won't go amiss.

[Real_Wolf]

Oh, also, I think you might wanna chuck in more than $200 into powersupply+case, assuming case includes a fan or two, and the powersupply is ACTUALLY decent. Its one of those places you don't want to skimp out on money. Sure, you don't need overkill (if your going over 800W your probably overkill), but at the same time if you ave too little power your entire PC will suffer.

Roughly, from the stuff you've chosen I'd say at least a 600W, maybe a 500W but that could be pushing it. Wish I could find that useful calculator which had most major components, you'd put them in and it'd tell you minimum and recommended power supply

[jono035]

With the cost of hard drives these days why not consider 4 disks in a RAID 10 at least. It's obviously no substitute for backup, but it keeps you working for one of the more common computer problems, plus the additional speed won't go amiss.

Yeah, these days you're definitely right there if you want a massive whack of disk space, that's what I'll be doing with 4x1.5TB drives when I finally get around to building up a NAS box.

In terms of speed I'd go for a single 10k rpm drive solely for the OS from my figuring unless you want max sequential transfer speed rather than max random IO, you need a decent hardware card to realise the speed benefits to that arrangement anyway.

I'd say single 74GB or so 10krpm drive for OS and scratch space then another 1TB or whatever for media.

I wouldn't bother with hard drive redundancy, just make sure you keep a backup of your work and you'll be sweet. Keep any install disks handy and it is easy enough to pick up from a hard drive death. I haven't had a dead hard drive in any of my PCs in quite a while now, same with all the workstations at work.