AMD Options......

[rossf]

Hello... I have some questions I wish to ask here. Firstly I will give you a bit of a run down of our current typical systems. Now I have long been a supporter of AMD and their price /performance ratio so ALL the system I have here are AMD based. About a year ago or so I built 8 new systems for our engineers who at that time were running Acad10 with Eagle Point engineering software. These were all built with Vista 64 Business then upgraded to Win7 64 Pro. The enginneers have now moved to Civil 3d 2012. These were/are the system specs...

Class – AMD 64 AM2 7750BE Dual Core, 3.0Ghz (OC) Operating System – Windows 7Pro 64 bit System Ram – 8GB DDR2 PC6400 (4 –2Gb) G.Skill Motherboard – Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-US2H mATX Video Card – Power Color 4670HD 512mb PCI-E Sound Card – Onboard Realtek HD Hard Drive – 250 Gig WD Blue SATA2 CD-Rom Drive – Samsung DVD/RW Network Card – Onboard Broadcomm 10/100/1000

Now the video cards have mostly been replaced with ATI HD5670 1gb and a couple have FirePro v4800's. The mobos here are AM2+ so they will take any new AMD CPU including the 6core Thubans...but not the new Bulldozer cpu's. Now we have added a structural/architechtural dept.and I have built another 8 or so systems using this typical spec.....

Class – AMD AM2 445 3.1Ghz Triple Core Operating System – Windows 7 Pro System Ram – 8Gb DDR3 PC10666 (2 –4Gb) Motherboard – Gigabyte MA-880GMA-USB3 mATX Video Card – ATI FireGL V4800 1Gb PCI-E Sound Card – Onboard Realtek HD Hard Drive – 250 Gig WD Blue SATA2 CD-Rom Drive – Samsung DVD/RW Network Card – Onboard 10/100/1000

Now these new mobo's are AM3 with SATA 3..so they are a very capable platfom. They also will take any of the new AMD cpu's excepting the new Bulldozer lineup....but that may change with a bios update. Video cards are still mostly HD5670's with a couple of GTS 450's thrown in the mix. These guys haul their files to and fro over a 10/100 network (soon to be gigabit)with the servers being on a gigabit backbone.

Now I have seem multiple threads about people spec'ing i5's and i7's and saying that is were you need to be for price/performance but I am having a hard time with that as you can see it would cost me a TON of cash to roll the 15-20 some systems over to Intel. Now...here comes my first question....looking at these systems I see that there is a lack of video power on a lot of the systems and I was thinking moving to GTX 560's for that.....but the cpu's are my concern. I would think that anything over 3ghz should be able to handle Civil 3D and Revit??? and if necessary I am thinking that I could put AMD 985BE on all of them. These cpu's run at 3.7ghz and are quad cores, The price point on them is pretty good...around the $180 CDN mark and should be able to sretch the life of these systems for at least a year or 2. Am I crazy thinking this???....is AMD really not an option for AutoDesk products???

[dgorsman]

If you can keep things running on AMD for another couple of years, go ahead.  For the majority of casual users they couldn't tell the difference.

Most of the advice here has been for new, from scratch systems which is what most companies do.  After 3-4 years upgrading a couple of components just isn't worth it or simply can't be done.  You can't really compare costs on swapping out a few components with building a new system from scratch. 

I can't comment too much on the performance difference between offerings from AMD and Intel, beyond what I've run into elsewhere.  Cost-for-performance has favored Intel after the first-generation i7 systems, maybe AMD will do something radically unique for their next generation and then they'll have the lead.  All I know is that by the time our current generation of computers is past their prime upgrading won't be an option.  At that point if AMD has the better product, thats what will be used.

[rossf]

Thanks for the response. I would classify 90% of these users as non "casual" users...as in they need to get the job done on the hardware they are given. What I am trying to gleen from this post is whether or not a 3.7ghz quad cpu with 8gb (or 16gb) of ram (DDR2/DDR3) and a Nvidia 560 be able to use Civil 3D and Revit effectively. The newer DDR3 systems are easily upgradeable to 32gb of ram so that would tell me they should be good for at least 2 years....but the DDR2 systems are kind of trapped into the 8gb realm simply due to the fact that DDR2 is basically EOL. All this has come about when users complain about how slowly projects are handled in Civil 3D as compared to the previous combo of Acad10 and Eagle Point....and all I hear is "maybe we need  faster systems"...but I do not get to see how the projects are prepared...or whether or not there is poor drawing/project setup...or just plain bad drawing composition. It always seem to come back to the hardware and that all we need to do is buy $2500 workstations and all will be fine and good in the world. Can you tell I am a wee bit frustrated...lol.... 🙂

[OMCUSNR]

Sorry to say, but right now it looks like AMD is loosing the race to  Intel.  The new Intel I7, I5 & I3 are hard to beat for price/performance.  The new architecture is just that much better.

Look at my sig - that system (with a case, 650w PS, DVD lightscribe burner & card reader) came in at just under $1400 with parts from Newegg.  It is for me the best I could put together fro under $1500 and perform VERY WELL with C3d & Revit.  With Revit, I'd add 2gig Vram, but that's about it.  I figure my system is good for the next three years & then due for replacement.

All ADSK products are single core, so the fastest single/dual core is better than any quad core system.  A good "gamer" card is a good value now, better than a "workstation" Quadro in price/performance.  Another thing to look at is the new(ish) SATA 6 data throughput & hard drives.  With C3d, I'd try to max my ram & HD speed.

One other area that has nothing to do with hardware is a mental difference in the software.  C3d (& Revit) is a COMPLETELY different way of designing, and needs (re)training to really use them effectively.  This will have some bearing on "how fast" things get done, not just how fast the hardware is.

Reid

[rossf]

Ok...fine ...so AMD is losing the race.....in certain markets...but I still do not have a real answer to my questions. All I seem to get is from just about every turn is"buy Intel". So from what I get out of this is a...correct me if I am wrong please...a 3.7ghz quad core AMD is not going to cut it for C3D or Revit...no matter what the video card or how much ram is on the system...correct? I was under the impression that if I can game well on the system I can run  these Autodesk products without too many issues...but...only if I run Intel?. I know I can game well on a AMD 980BE with 8gb of ram and a Nvidia 560...or 560ti...so how is it that this combo is not up to the task with Autodesk products? I do undertsand that the i5/i7 cpu's are great performers but right now I am not in a position to build 15 new systems plain and simple. I think the real problem is that since no one seems to be running AMD.... there is nothing to compare to. I guess I may have to build a test system to see for myself the performance difference.... :(...Thanks for your reply though... 🙂

[OMCUSNR]

I think the thing is, is that you will see pretty marginal increases in performance with what you have discussed.  The quad core AMD will do the job, you jsut aren't using it to capacity, and it's throughput is a tad bit slower than the Intel.  That's basically why the newer Intels are a better buy right now.

With Revit, a gamer card with 2 g Vram will improve it's rendering speed (not really needed so much in C3d).  With both programs, 12 to 32 gigs of ram tied with a faster hard drive on a SATA 6 system will  show more improvements.  A SSD is not a bad idea, but needs to be over 128 gig to really do any good.

The choke point right now, is the data throughput architecture.  The SATA 3 is dated and new systems are using SATA 6.

So - more ram (more than 8 gigs), maybe a 500 gb Western Digital Vellociraptor (or a 256 g SSD), and a Nvidia GTX card with 2 gigs.

Reid

[rossf]

I do understand that the quad core is overkill for Civil 3D due to the way it handles threading.....but really...there is nothing out there in a dual core any more that is worth it's weight in salt. I have built a test bench with a AMD 980BE x4 with a 128gb SSD for the OS and AutoDesk, a hard drive for the other apps and data and I will say the speed is truly impressive. My rough estimates are that both the OS and Civil 3D load twice as fast as from the WD blue HD. There is more than enough room after the install  that I do not think a 256gb SSD is really needed. There are definately are some setup concerns with an SSD but I really think that is where the raw speed is right now. Hard drives are almost impossible to source (for a reasonable price) right now due to the flodding in Thailand so SSD's are going to start to make inroads. Thanks again for your thoughts.

[pendean]

Over 3ghz processor speed is key for day-in and day-out drafting in AutoCAD: and while it's not multi-threaded yet, having more than dual-cores allows other apps to stay away from AutoCAD's processing (and IMHO video only matters if you render even the slightest bit, but you want it to never use any system RAM as a minimum specification). And lots of system RAM for Win7 64bit and the apps that run in it.

We have a mix of AMD and Intel processors on otherwise identical systems and no one around here notices one being faster/better than the other in daily constant 2D drafting use.

[rossf]

Thanks Dean. We were not having any issues either until Civil 3D arrived and was installed. In this economy squeezing all you can out of existing systems is top priority....but at the same time...having work slow downs from hardware issues is not a winning situation either.

[pendean]

Are these "PCs" or "Workstations": your specs appear to be store-front consumer PCs.

If you have not done so, post and seek specific Civil3D end-user help in that forum while you wait here: we run ACA2012 and we don't see any issues with AMD or Intel processors.

If you are also having trouble with REVIT, I would post there instead as that's a whole different animal and it's hardware needs as best served with Workstations and not PCs.

[Sinc]

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@rossf wrote:

There are definately are some setup concerns with an SSD

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What concerns?  I definitely recommend SSD for laptops, and as you say, it's possible that the flooding in Thailand has made it the best choice for desktops, too, at least for now.  But SSD vs. mechanical hard drive, you should have absolutely no difference in "setup concerns"...  Although to tell you the truth, I have no idea what you mean by that.

I find that a 120GB SSD primary drive is definitely enough for a typcial C3D user.  If you do a lot of other things, you may need more, but the typical C3D user does not.

[Sinc]

BTW, I disagree with many of Reid's details, although I agree with the gist.

j

There are AMD chips that deliver quite good price/performance ratios.  However, the high-end Intel chips (by that, I mean the 2nd Gen iX series, and not the Xeon series) deliver the best price/performance.  Xeons are a complete waste of money for pretty nmuch all Autodesk products except for 3DS Max and maybe Revit.  And even then, you only see a benefit for mutli-CPU units geared toward rendering.  The only benefit to Xeons is that they can be combined into multi-CPU systems, and that they can address more than 32GB RAM (something that doesn't really help right now for most C3D users, since even the most elaborate C3D model rarely benefits from more than 16GB RAM).

And even with Revit, the rendering is still primariy CPU-based, so your video card has limited impact.

And even Velociraptors are slower than the 6GB/s transfer rate...  You have to go up to SSDs to notice any difference betwen raw performance between 3GB//s and 6GB/  (...OK, I admit that's also qualified by buffer size, but that's typically not as important as other factors, at least once you start caring about larger data sets...)

[rossf]

Thanks Sinc......the concerns I was speaking of are not of any major concequence.....more over it is simply the way you have to rethink your OS and App installs. By that I mean making sure you move user folders off the SSD and making sure you are not allowing Windows to "pollute" the SSD with junk files and editing the registry to not allow users to install "junk" software onto the SSD. Small issues really...but it is a little more time consuming than a typical install to HDD's. The other thing is the re-education of users to take responsibility over their machine and use it for what it was built for..... 😉