Which configuration for big assemblies?

Dear all,



We want to buy new computers for proE 2001 (and Wildfire 2 later). If
possible price under 2500 Euros. We have currently big assemblies (more
than 100 pieces with 100 to 1000 functions by piece).



What is really important to have a powerfull machine :

- single or dual core?

Is proE programmed for dual core?

- graphic card?

- big RAM?

- others?





Our trademark is Fujitsu-Siemens. Do you have one configuration to recommend?

Thanks a lot for answers.



Lionel

For really big assemblies 64 bit and lots of ram are the most important factors. A fast CPU and a high end graphics card also with lots of RAM are second. Pro/E is not multi threaded yet so dual core won't help if you are only running one program. If you tend to run multiple tasks at once then dual core can help.

Edited by: dr_gallup

Just adding to the previous,<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />
You have to know, that WF2 will use a bit more your hardware power. So don

Get yourself a Celsius V, but buy the memory in the local shop. I checked their prices just now .... 390 Euro for a lousy 1 GB DDR 400 ???? (Even worse : that's TVA excluded, adding up to 470) Kingstons equivalent lifetime warranty modules go out of the door at 125 Euro. You could also check the rest of the workstation. It might come out that you can build the same machine for half the price.


Alex
Edited by: AHA-D

If I would be one who decide then I will gladly have this hardware in my machine for big assemblies:


CPU: 2x Opteron 246 (CPU is important for reducing regeneration time)
Memory: 4x 1Gb DDR 2 533 MHz Kingmax
Graphic: Nvidia Quadro FX 3400 or 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 200
Hard disk: 74 Gb Western difital Raptor SATA, 8Mb cache 10 000 (system disk) and 300 Gb Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATA 16 Mb cache 7200 (working disk)
Chassis: Big tower with watter cooling

Isair,


You only need water cooling if you're in one of 2 possible situations :


1. You have seriously overclocked your processor


2. You have one of those "heat stove" processors (lately probably Intel)


I'm working on an Athlon-64/3200 for the moment and this beast is cool (10-15

AHA-D
Yes I agree with you but then water cooling is really good, itsonly issue is price.


Instead of water cooling system I would recommend decent air cooling system along with passive coolers on graphic card, hard disk and even memory, all packed in big tower chassis to have enough room and air flow.
Heating is seriously issue for hardware performance and it shouldn't be take easily.

Isair,


Yes, heating can be a problem. I had a removable disk stacked in between two fixed ones. One summer I suddenlysaw only half of my directories in explorer on this disk. When I looked into the problem the disk was so hot that I couldn't hold it. Bought a new removable disk enclosure which is all aluminium and has 2 small integrated fans and now the problem is gone. (Directories reappeared also when the disk had cooled down.) Air flow is a key factor, but components as well. As I said earlier, I now have a relatively cool CPU. The Athlon 1400 in the old computer reaches 70

Cost effectiveness all depends on your budget and how hard you push the hardware. Spending a lot of money for 15% speed improvement and decreased
reliability is very hard to justify in any kind of work setting. If there is something you can not do, like open a huge assembly, then upgrading to 64 bits and 8 GB of RAM is justifiable. My rule of thumb is that there has to be a 2:1 improvement before I am interested in upgrading.

Thanks for the answers.


As I wrote, my budget is less than 2500euros...


Is it possible to have a good solution for this price? Or do have I to bargain a little bit more money?


Don't forget that we want to keep proE2001 for a few times, because WF2 is also expensive.

Ikiener,


Check the prices for different configurations regarding memory, type and size of harddisk and other peripherals that you can add easily yourself. As I mentioned here before it seems that Fujitsu-Siemens is asking a lot more than it's worth. If you come to the same conclusion you could buy a barebone workstation and upgrade it yourself. Plugging in another disk or more memory is about as difficult as changing the toner in a copier and should not reversely affect any guarantee on the original equipment you bought.


By the way, there used to be a time that you needed to go specialized for a CAD workstation and you actually got custom-built motherboards, memory boards etc. AFAIK the need for special builds is now limited to a very limited set of applications such as large servers, clusters for parallel computing, ... I do know (and experience) that companies have standards and dedicated suppliers. If you have to take that course you have to, but IMHO it is often not the best "bang for the buck".


Alex

dr_gallup said:

For really big assemblies 64 bit and lots of ram are the most important factors.

Click to expand...

dr_gallup


Will 64 bit offer improvement if running 2001?


hwech

Will 64 bit offer improvement if running 2001?


I don't think ProE 2001 is available in 64-bit version.


Only Wildfire 2.0 M120 onwards is 64-bit ProE availabe.


Israr

Thanks Israr



hwech

I build workstations now and then, and I'd advice you to this for less than