Best performance solution Inventor 2012

[merijnvaw]

Hello,

I am currently putting together a new system for inventor / Autodesk and I try to find some feedback.

Our workstations now are Z-800 systems from hp with the following configuration:

- processor: 1 xeon X5677 (quad core, 3.47 GHz)

- RAM: 24 GB

- Graphic: Nvidia Geforce FX4800

- HDD: 3*146 GB 15k , striped

Im looking at a system from Dell, the r5500 with the following configuration:

- processor: 1 xeon X5687 (quad core, 4.60 GHz)

- RAM: 24 GB (6*4Gb) option to go to 48 Gb

- Graphic: Nvidia Quadro 4000

- HDD: 2*146 GB 15k , striped

I have a few questions on the above 4 configurations.

Currently the engineers at our company are having trouble with their designs. Somewhere we are at a limit, we don't know in witch component that limit is situated.

- It takes a long time to generate views from our models (up to 30 minutes).

- It takes a long time to update models (up to 1 hour)

Viewing in 3D rotating, zooming etc doesn't seem to be a problem. we work with one screen only in VDI quality.

Renderings are not important, nor are visual enhancements, like lightning, surface textures etc. Our company draws large machinery assemblies (500 m *500 m *100 m)

I've been told that the only bottleneck for us is the processor, and we should look for the least cores, and the highest clock speed. Does this still hold for inventor 2012, 2013?

Is a better graphic card of any importance? like dual (sli) solutions? currently we do not see a performance difference between a Z-800 that is configured with a Geforce 4800 or a Geforce 3750, but it has been a while since we tested does this still hold for the new generation of NVidia quadro cards?

Some feedback from this forum would be very helpfull.

[imcjoek]

As far as I can tell, the bulk of Inventor functionality remains single-threaded, so more cores won't help significantly.  So the advice to get the most clock you can on core0 is still sound, in my opinion. 

As far as I can see the only advantage of Xeon over i5/i7 is ECC memory availability, with the Xeon cost being ridiculous on top of that.  I would go with i7 if it were my build... and probably overclock when no one was looking...  They run happily at ~4.5ghz with a $50 fan stuck on top.

Do you really use all that 24gb?  How many parts are we talking here?  Can you shrink-wrap your way to fewer?

Inventor is DIRECTX not OpenGL like many other cad packages.  As a result, the premiums charged for workstation graphics cards are not worth it here.  You can run 2x SLI  top-of-the-line GeForce series for less than the cost of a Quadro.  Somebody will be along to give you a sales schpiel about "certified drivers", but in my experience I've had less issues with gamer cards!

I would probably run SSD's over the 15k raptors as well.

Having said all that, generating and updating I'd say IS primarily CPU bound, and without a good way to parallelize for more cores, GPU assist, etc, then we're all at a sort of roadblock. 

[mcgyvr]

You don't need a new computer... From looking at the computers you have now.. I would suggest better large assembly training/techniques versus just throwing more hardware at it.. You would be just wasting money.

This is how the conversations would go at your company... "WOW we are getting new computers..this will be great"....then the new computers show up and "umm its not any faster.what a waste of money..that sucks"

Inventor does NOT support SLI or Crossfire at all. No point in doing that either.

I assume you are still on 2011 or less and will be going to 2012 soon.. so you need to know this...

In 2012, the drawing environment now supports multicores.. That environment seems MUCH faster now. I just loaded 2012 a week ago and am amazed at how much faster drawings are.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=12107410&linkID=9242018

oh and I would like 10% of the money I just saved your company. I'll be rich.

[merijnvaw]

hello,

First of all, thanks for the comments.

We use inventor for planning of large machinery chain constructions. This means we start from a basic layout in CAD, convert it to Inventor sketch and place axis on the centre points of the machines, then we ad 3D models of diverse machines (mostly from contractors -> Solid work models, step files, etc) to our model and generate drawings of that.

We tried shrink wrap our subassemblies, but as it does not reduce the amount of edges one has, it does not make our models any lighter, also, our engineers draw in the complete assembly to adjust small components to make the machines fit on eachother.

This is why we see drawings going up to 24 GB ram, specially when generating navisworks models to look for collisions with buildings where these machines must fit in.

so to the point:

SSD has better performance then striped 15k disks? Are there actual figures from someone that has tried this with inventor?

I know 2012 supports multi core ( means, when generating sections, the computation is processed on a second core). this means quad core is still better then 6 core, even for 2012 version?

Is it worth the time to look into gaming pc solutions rather then computing workstations?

pe:

- processor: xeon X5687

- RAM: 24 GB

- Graphic: Nvidia Geforce GTX590 (sli?)

- Solid state harddisk

thank you

[richiesuk · Accepted solution]

hi,

you do not need xeon, i7 will do the job...

inventor is multithreading in idw and picture rendering environment not in the modelling tho...

and a gtx 580 is maybe even faster than the quadro 4000...

ric