New System

[gookeeper]

Im looking to get a new system for autocad MEP 2013/Revit MEP 2013, I've narrowed it down to 3 systems

we will be working on projects around approx the 75mb range and above. so im looking for some advice please, ive read loads of forums etc.. but never find a helpful answer 🙂

also whats the £800 difference between the Z820 and Z620

looking on the cpubenchmark site the E5-1620 runs quicker, though ill take that with a pinch of salt.

other option would be wait for hp to use ivy bridge in their workstations

thanks for you time

Guy

(Links to websites via computer name)

HP Z820

Intel® Xeon® E5-2643 (3.30 GHz, 10 MB cache, 4 cores)

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 ECC Registered RAM 16 DIMM

1 TB 7200 rpm SATA NCQ

1125W 90% efficient, wide ranging, active PFC

£2,330

HP Z620

Intel® Xeon® E5-1620 (3.60 GHz, 10 MB cache, 4 cores)

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 ECC Registered RAM

Up to 12 DIMMs (8 DIMMs on system board, 4 DIMMs on 2nd CPU & Memory Module)

1 TB 7200 rpm SATA NCQ

800W 90% efficient wide ranging, active PFC

£1,562

Dell T7600

Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2643 (Quad Core, 3.30GHz Turbo, 10MB, 8.0 GT/s)

16GB (4x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 ECC RDIMM

1TB 3.5inch Serial ATA (7.200 Rpm)

Standard 1300W Base

2 GB NVIDIA Quadro 4000 (2DP & 1DVI-I) (1DP-DVI & 1DVI-VGA adapter)

£2,580

[gookeeper]

thanks for all the help and response haha! I ended up going with a completely different computer, due to the cost we went for the a cheaper option.

Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770K (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache

16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz

4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 (for 3 monitors)

180GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s

1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
(7200rpm)

win 7 pro / office 2010

£1498.33

I'll let you all know if this works ok

cheers

Guy

[jimblim]

How is this system workingout for you??

I like the others you have listed,... but maybe your new system works better/faster for you?

[gookeeper]

well! Ive not got any of them yet. Ive been told santa is ready to pick one up.

though im waiting to see if the management will give me some more cash, Id love the HP820, after finding out revit does actually use more cores in some instances, and more are maybe getting added.

I tried orginally seeing if they would get me a 3DBOXX 4050 XTREME, but they laughed at me:)

I will! post what i get and run some test as soon as i get one.

[gookeeper]

so after a months waiting i ended up with this machine

HP Z620

Intel® Xeon® E5-1620 (3.60 GHz, 10 MB cache, 4 cores)

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 ECC Registered RAM

Up to 12 DIMMs (8 DIMMs on system board, 4 DIMMs on 2nd CPU & Memory Module)

1 TB 7200 rpm SATA NCQ

800W 90% efficient wide ranging, active PFC

asus nvidia GTX680 2gb

Corsair Neutron GTX Series SSD 120GB

I've not tested it fully yet, but so far im pleased with its performance

when i first used it, AutocadMEP was crashing a couple times a day, it has seemed to have settled down now, not sure if its the GTX680 not being certified. Revit MEP runs nicely.

[jimblim]

I was interested in either the 670/680 GTX or a a Quadro 4000,... (w/ xeon 1660/32gig memory) I think it would be a great idea to have a sticky with links to download generic files/projects for each software with some simple benchmarks in a Autodesk base and a recommended system. Then we can see for ourselves how our system should be performing.

[gookeeper]

I wouldnt feel comfortable enough yet to recommend a Geforce as a solution for CAD, though the gtx 680 does seems good and our other CAD engineer has an older GeForce 8800 GTX and never had any big issues.

im just concerned will it last being on 8hours a day/5 days a week or will the drivers ever stop working.

Also i dont really understand the precision thing that the quadros give, so im struggling to understand there purpose.

ive been using quadros for 8years but not noticed any benefit over the geforce.

theres the cadalyst benchmark, though some people are saying that it doesn't test the full capacity of the GFX card.

http://www.cadalyst.com/benchmark-test

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/AutoDesk-AutoCAD-2013-GPU-Acceleration-164

also is the revit bench mark test.

http://www.revitforum.org/hardware-infrastructure/1063-rfobenchmark.html

i may do both these and post them up

[sam_m]

I've always felt the argument about "gaming cards aren't reliable and probably won't last 8am - 5pm 5 days a week" is a little weak to justify a workstation card.  Just think of all the teenage/student/whatever gamers out there, with their computers running pretty much equivalent number of hours/week (if not a lot longer) playing throughout the daytime, evening and night - if there was a massive inherent issue with gaming gpu longevity then there would be a LOT of people complaining about them...  (not to mention any home servers people have built with a cheap gaming card which are left on 24/7).  Sure, cards do die (along with any other component) but the cost saving of a gaming card v workstation could almost justify 2 or 3 gaming cards for an equivalent workstation in ROI calculations (or even purposely factor in a yearly gpu update to keep up with the times).

As for GeForce being a "bad" solution for cad (what "CAD" are you talking about???) - I come from an Inventor background and thus not touched AutoCAD in vengeance for years (since MDT), but Inventor moved to DirectX from OpenGL about 6 or so years ago, with that the benefits/need of a workstation card pretty much went out the window.  I believe AutoCAD also made its transition to DirectX at the same time, and thus would personally question the need for workstation cards there too.  If you're interested, here's a collection of comments from Autodesk regarding the change from OpenGL to DirectX (collected at the time):

http://forums.autodesk.com/autodesk/attachments/autodesk/78/442801/1/autodesk_inventor_opengl_to_dir...

Sure, it's primarily to do with Inventor, but if the byproduct of the move is to remove the need for gpu certification then arguably the same applies for AutoCAD (depending it conforming to DirectX standards).

as for CAD gpu benchmarks - make sure any/all benchmarks are using the same mode as your software...  Inventor (and I think AutoCAD) is DirectX and thus any SpecPerf benchmark (the usual "cad benchmark" tool) is moot as it's OpenGL.  Personally, I just refer to Passmark's list as a starting point whenever I look at hardware:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

saying this - the benchmarks you've posted look to be via the software and thus you can't do anything better than to get data from the application directly.

[dgorsman]

+1 about the gamer comments.  Those guys can "work" harder and longer than most of us (we just get paid better 😄 )

I believe Navisworks still makes good use of OpenGL (possibly a requirement for the 3D option), as does Cyclone.  With the rapid pace of development of point clouds tools inside AutoCAD, I'm not sure if the CloudWorx product is still reliant on OpenGL or not.

[ConfusiousOnceSaid]

Quadros use ecc memory.

if your building a stadium and the architect wants 3 million bolts that must be precise and errors lead towards time money and lives then quadro it is.

But if your building a bridge or car with no accurate parts within measurements but exceptable view for the human eye

 then gtx cards will do perfectly.

as one said: each card to their own job.

[tidgy]

I dont get this whole accuracy thing msyelf?

I work to tollerance of 1-2mm (yes that tight), and I rely on snaps and exact dimensions, so prob closer than the tollerance. So the idea of how accurate the graphics card is seems rather pointless to me, I don't use how it looks to draw it.

Unless im missing something?

[gookeeper]

what im finding with accuracy with this gtx680, it struggles to display selection grips when im working lower than 0.002 of a millimeter (in autocad)

so i guess if your cadding micro chips or something, then this should never have an issue:)

[braudpat]

Hello

If you are going to manage/create "big" projects, please consider a PC with 24/32 Gb Ram !

Bye, Pat