New Dells with XP Pro x64 for CAD

[Anonymous]

I'm looking for a new CAD workstation, which will do a lot of math intensive
engineering simulations as well as AutoCAD drafting. It will be in a
Windows domain. I don't know at this time exactly what apps will be used,
but they will be specialized for things like concrete stress analysis.

I'm trepidacious about compatibility with XP Pro x64, and not sure how great
the advantage is going to be. Most of what I've read is about driver
issues, but this will be bundled with a Dell, so application compatibility
is probably the only issue. What's your perspective, if you've used this OS
for engineering apps?

(Sorry for the multi-post but Autodesk seems to reject cross-posts.)


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[Anonymous]

We have XP x64 on one workstation (Athlon 64 3200+) running LT2004. I'm
not convinced that there's a speed advantage, but it certainly is no
slower than the same computer running Windows 2000. The only problem on
this system has been printer drivers. Brother didn't have a 64 bit
driver for our color laser when we started, although one is available
now. We also had a problem with the HDI driver for our Oce TDS400 -- to
plot 24x36 on this computer we have to select 36x24 paper, while on the
other computers here we select 24x36 paper. No 64 bit Windows driver is
available for the Oce, so we have no way to print pdf files from that
computer.

The other programs we run on that system have run without problems,
although it's a short list of programs.

Martin

Tom Del Rosso wrote:
> I'm looking for a new CAD workstation, which will do a lot of math intensive
> engineering simulations as well as AutoCAD drafting. It will be in a
> Windows domain. I don't know at this time exactly what apps will be used,
> but they will be specialized for things like concrete stress analysis.
>
> I'm trepidacious about compatibility with XP Pro x64, and not sure how great
> the advantage is going to be. Most of what I've read is about driver
> issues, but this will be bundled with a Dell, so application compatibility
> is probably the only issue. What's your perspective, if you've used this OS
> for engineering apps?
>
> (Sorry for the multi-post but Autodesk seems to reject cross-posts.)
>
>

[Anonymous]

Thanks Martin. It's looking like a net negative on going with x64 at this
time. I think I'll get a fast, expandable system where x64 is an option so
I can upgrade later and not worry about drivers for the built-in devices.


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