Finding minimum VGA for autocad 2014

[abdsithira]

Hello,

We are planning to purchase about 12 new PCs for draftsmen who are primarily doing 2D drafting and 3D modelling (not often). The current hardware configuration to be purchased as following

PC type :         HP ProDesk 600PD or ACER Veriton M2631

CPU:               i7- 4770 3.4GHz

RAM:              DDR3 1600MHz 16GB

HDD:              1TB

OS:                 Windows 7 64 bit

AutoCAD 2014

I am stuck with selecting a suitable graphic card for two PCs mentioned above. All the non-professional graphic cards given in the autodesk website (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?id=18844534&siteID=123112) are out date (cannot be found in our local Sri Lankan market) .

I am thinking on going for ASUS 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT740 graphic card. Will this be a suitable choice for my application?

We are having workstation with Quadro K2000 graphics for people who are frequently engaged in 3D modelling.

We can even go for the Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 but there might be an issue with the power supply with the PCs which are planning to use.

Can someone give any suggestion? I really need your expertise.

Thank you

Dilshan

[stevev0983 · Accepted solution]

Hello. The current PC configurations look exceptional, so I have to wonder why you would want to throw an inexpensive gaming card in them. For only a small amount more, you could get a Quadro K600 or an AMD FirePro V4900 and be sure you will not have any incompatibility issues. You also did not mention what you are using for a hard drive. If you are not using an SSD, I would trade out some of the ram (8gb would be fine) and use an SSD drive and a better video card. 2D Autocad with occasional 3D will not need more than 8gb ram, but will definitely benefit from the SSD and a decent workstation card.

[abdsithira]

Thank you stevev0983 for your quick reply. I really appreciate it. You have directed me to the correct path. I went through the specs, they are ideal for my application.

For the SSD issue you have highlighted, I have looked in to that option earlier, but we are dealing with cost sensitive selections. There is a fixed budget which I need to meet. By reducing the RAM it we will not able to compensate cost per SSD. Your are correct, if I am buying this for my personal use, I will use a SSD.

And one point I forgot to mention, we are in shipbuilding industry, usually our 3D model will be around 100mb in size therefore even for a occasional 3D user, having more RAM will be a real benefit.

Thank you again for help you have given

Dilshan

[Moshe-A]

Hi,

We recently tested nVidia GeForce 750 GTX Ti 2GB and it works perfectly

(although it is still not recomended by autodesk only because they didn't took the time to test it)

it is faster and cheaper then Quadro K600 1GB (also works smoothly with Revit)

Moshe