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New Workstation vs. Upgrading Old

cklem

New member
Hi all,


I am looking at getting a new workstation or upgrading my old one and wanted to get some input from everyone on what might be the best option.


My current machine is a Dell Precision 690:


2 - Dual core Xeon 3.73 GHz Processors that are Hyper-threaded


8 GB Ram


148 GB SCSI Hard Drive


Nvidia Quadro FX4500 graphics card


With Creo 1.0 out now, I was wondering if it would be better to get a new computer with the newer technology in it. If I don't do that I was thinking about just upgrading my graphics card to a Nvidia Quadro 4000 and maybe adding some ram.


I use the machine for surfacing and for assemblies as large as a Yamaha Rhino type vehicle.


Any suggestions are much appreciated.


Thanks,


Chris
 
What you have seems pretty sufficient to me. I don't believe you will see an appreciable improvement with a new machine vs. the cost.


More RAM is always nice and you would probably see the most improvement by doing that. Hyperthreading isn't really used by Pro/Engineer very well. Although, it may improve performance when multiple applications are running.
 
You should be good to go as-is. I wouldn't even bother with the graphics card unless you have a problem down the road.
 
Chris,


Scott is right. Flat out turn off Hyper-threading in the BIOS and update your CPUS_TO_USE variable. Pro/E uses all of the CPU and doesn't run on any Hyper-threaded CPU at top performance.


Upgrade your RAM if when you have your largest assembly running the amount of RAM used for XTOP is near your 8GB.


Upgrade to Windows 7 and I assume you are running 64 bit.


If you want even more speed without a big investment then move your OS and Applications to a SSD card (PCIe card based, not SATA) like OCZ RevoDrive X2.


That should get you humming along.


David
 
Anyone get ahold of one of those dell 6600 machines loaded with 16 gigs of ram yet? WOW it it fast. loads Pro/E in 5 seconds. Boots up in 7 seconds.... I see the future.
 
design-engine,


Would you mind posting the all specs on the M6600 machine you mentioned?


Thanks,


Chris
 
Chris,


That is the Dell Professional Mobile workstation(Laptop). You can find it on Dell.com but the reason that Bart says it loads so fast is entirely because of the SSD drive in it. The M660 uses SATA 3 but if you want better then that and stay with the PCIe SSD you will see the same performance in your existing workstation.


David
 
David and Bart,


Thank you for the information. I will look into putting a SSD in my existing machine. The time it takes to boot up is rather irritating right now and the SSD sounds like it would fix the problem. It often takes my machine 15-25 minutes before it is really up and running smooth.


Thanks again,


Chris
 
Considering the current machine you are on, I don't think the additional cost of getting an entirely new system will be probably to contend with. I mean, it is already a good system to begin with so probably upgrading to a new system would only be an option if it starts to falter down.

You can go as high as a 24gb ram setup, but you have to take note of the limits your components can take in so you do not waste on unused ones.
 
Hi Bart,
(several posts back).
M6600 with SSD :) This is the machine I am specifying for our next round.

M6600 with:
<ul>[*]i7 2820QM 2.30GHz (Turbo max 3.4GHz)
[*]Win7 Professional with XP mode
[*]

16GB DDR3 1600MHz[*]NVIDIA Quadro 3000M 2GB Video RAM
[*]17.3" 1920x1080 LCD[*]256GB SSD Primary drive
[*]500GB HDD Secondary drive[*]etc. for lower level stuff.
[/list]How does this compare with what you have seen? We are hoping to see a good increase in perfromance from our existing nearly 3 year old M6300s.

Regards, Brent Drysdale
 
I'm pretty sure 15-25min is really bad for any Windows-based system, specially with these specs. Might wanna look at your OS to check if it's defective.
 

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