Inventor 2012 PC spec?

[Anonymous]

We are trying to spec some machines for use with Inventor 2012.
They will be Dell Precision desktops.
So far we have go to this spec:

Xeon E5-1620
8Gb DDR3 Non-ECC
1Gb ATi Firepro V4900

We have also looked at the options of 16Gb DDR3 ECC or a 2Gb ATi Firepro V5900.

Which would we gain more from? The extra memory or the more powerful graphics card?
I am not really a CAD person so only have limited knowledge of the packages.  

[ComputerGuru666]

I would say build your own but if thats not an option I WOULD NOT go with a dell precision If you are only using Inventor and not solidworks or catia on this machine I'd go with an

Alienware Aurora R4 with these upgrades

256gig Solid State Drive (SSD) 

No less then 16 gig of RAM

Nvidia Geforce GTX 560Ti (I would never buy an ATI card) and for inventor quadro/firepro workstation based card are not needed and cost alot more then there gaming card counter parts 

Intel i7-3820 (Quad Core that Alienware overclocks to 4.1Ghz) 

[Anonymous]

Thank you, there are some interesting comments there.

I am surprised at the recommendation of a 'gaming' card. I had used the hardware identifier here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?id=18844534&siteID=123112

Which returned all Firepro and Quadro cards for Inventor 2012.

Ignoring price, how does the performance vary?

Even if we went with 16Gb and a 1Gb Firepro/Quadro the machines would cost less than the Alienware so if there isn't a performance hit the Firepro or equivelant Quadro potentially makes sense for us.

Need 10 machines so own build are not really practical from a build and support perspective.

[mcgyvr]

You haven't mentioned anything about the size/complexity of your models nor if you do anything else on these machines.

A good gaming card is all that is needed now.. You used to need a Fire/Quadro when Inventor was OpenGL based but now with the move to direct X that requirement is gone. Autodesk just leaves that there because they work with the graphics card vendors and they want to "upsell" you on the expensive crap.

I too recommend an NVIDIA card.. They have been proven to perform better than ATI cards with Inventor.

In general a 3.0+ Ghz processor, 8 gig min of RAM and a 1G or more decent gaming card should suffice for most small to mid sized models (under 1000 parts/little complexity)

Xeon is really nice but a good i7 will do just as good.. Just go off the price..which ever is cheaper should be fine.