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New system recommendations

cadgod

New member
I just started a new position this week with a small company that has had solidworks for 5 years but no one that can run it. They unsuccessfully tried to self teach but found that to be innefficient.


Anyway,In the near future I hope to have justified to them the need for a better PC as right now I am running a 3 year old dell with a 2.8 P4, 256 mb ram andintegrated intel video. If I can get enough to justify it here is what I am thinking of getting. We are running SW2006


AMD Athlon 64 Processor, 2-3 GB ram, a Nvidia Quadro FX3450 with 256-512 mb ram, 160 Gb 10000 rpm HD.


Those are the basics of the system. I have a feeling $3k will be my cap. I can get this setup for $2500 right now. Anybody see any problems with this setup or a better recommendation?

thanks.
 
Sounds pretty good. I'd recommend getting more RAMm; either with the computer or upgrading afterward since it is so cheap. Extra RAM is especially useful with large assemblies. Also get the fastest processor you can afford. I know from watching Windows Task Manager that time spent waiting for commands to solve corresponds directly to the CPU maxing out.
 
Hi,
The Opteron 185 (dual-core) processor would be a better choice. The FX 3450 is a perfect choice until the new FX 3500 becomes readily available. You should have no less and no more than 2GB RAM and make sure it is CAS2 - you'll want the fastest ram you can get. The 160GB is overkill if you're on a server network. Get the 36GB or 74GB WD Raptor 10k RPM for SCSI-like speed.

Stay far away from Dell. My company just bought a couple of workstations from Electra Computer www.electracomp.com and they absolutely smoke for NX and Catia V5.

Best workstation I've ever worked on and I'm a very impatient modeler :)

Hope this helps.
 
built my own...

using quad core intel, 4 gigs of ram, 8800GTS 320MB, SATA 3.0GB/s

runs solidworks 5 times without bogging haha.
 

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