Civil 3D 2010 minimum system requirements

[lissaucad]

Does anyone out there know what the minimum system requirements are for Civil 3D 2010? If so, could that someone do a screen print and post them. We have a subsubscription for 2 stand alone seats and are being considered for two new computers. I need to justify why my current computers are not adequate to hande the newest versions. We currently went back to Civil 3D 2008 from Civil 3D 2009 to get work done with road corridor modeling projects. Everything worked great for 16 months with Civil 3D 2008. 3 months with C3D 09 didn't work well for us with files crashing and general slowness.

Please see attached screen prints of our system stats. We currently have 3 gigs of RAM with the 3 gig switch in place.

Dave Lissau
CAD Technician III
Boulder County
Transportation Department
P.O. Box 471
2525 13th Street, Suite 203
Boulder, CO 80304
(720)564-2657 / Fax:(303)441-4594
dlissau@bouldercounty.org

[Matt.Anderson]

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=8915326



You appear to be near the limits/bottom of the hardware requirements. If you do alot of corridor modeling, search out the AU Paper about Secret Life of Code Set Styles. The difference in performance just based on changing the code set styles - amazing.



As for the minimum standards, there:

Windows XP - Intel^® Pentium^® 4 or AMD Athlon^TM Dual Core processor, 1.6 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology

Windows Vista - Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon Dual Core processor, 3.0 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology

Additional requirment for 3d Modeling - Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor, 3.0 GHz or higher; or Intel or AMD Dual Core processor, 2.0 GHz or higher



I would suggest moving into a 64bit OS with more memory. See the Being Civil blog entry about the performance difference.

[lissaucad]

Where do I find this "Being Civil" blog you mentioned?

[Civil3DReminders]

There is the Blogs link at the top of the page in the web version of the discussion group. Oops, I forgot Autodesk wants to make the Civil Engineering Community really useful by not updating any of the content.

Here's the link:
http://beingcivil.typepad.com/

[dana.probert]

The site architecture of the community site is dated and in its current form has proven difficult to keep updated. We are looking for a solution, but I don't want to just slap something together that isn't a real improvement.

[keithknifer]

Matt,

Do you know where to find that paper? I heard about it a long time ago and have yet to find it.

Keith

[dana.probert]

http://au.autodesk.com/?nd=class&session_id=2924



requires registration, but I am pretty sure it is now free for everyone.

[PR_23]

We are also looking at 2 new workstations.... can anyone shed some light on whether or not the jump from a Xeon dual core to Xeon quad core is worth the $400 +/-???

Thanks,

PR

[davevoith]

Or spend $280 and just go with an Intel i7 Quad Core. Right now it's not worth it, but it may be in the future. It also might be worth it if you do a lot of multitasking. But Autocad still only uses 1 core.

[PR_23]

Which mfrs are offering the i7 processors. I know Xi does. Our "power that be" are fairly loyal to HP so.....

[davevoith]

Ahh yes that would depend on your board and HP prob only offers the core2quad. But if you build your own computers you can save a ton of money. Check out tiger-directs barebone asaurus, Intel i7 board and processor, 12 gigs DDR3 ram, 1.5TB drive and case all for $1,000.

[Sinc]

> {quote:title=davevoith wrote:}{quote}
> Or spend $280 and just go with an Intel i7 Quad Core. Right now it's not worth it

I would disagree with that statement.

If you are getting an i7, I hope you are installing Vista x64 or Windows 7 on the machine. And both of those OS's operate better on quad-cores. And when the OS runs better, EVERYTHING on your machine runs better.

Also with the i7's, the MOBO architecture has changed, and there is no longer the FSB. This decreases the amount of conflicts between multiple cores when it comes to access to bus resources.

Finally, there are some low-level portions of Autocad that take advantage of the quad-cores, and while that doesn't help with things like volume calculations or corridor rebuilds, it helps make the general performance of the program smoother.

Personally, I would not get anything other than an i7 at this point for a CAD workstation. The i7's are cheap enough that it's possible to build a real monster CAD machine for $2000, and that includes a 22" widescreen LCD monitor.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com

[davevoith]

Well in his case he was wondering if its worth it paying $400 to upgrade to a quad core. So I was saying its probably not worth it because he would have to get a new board, new operating system, and more ram to take full advantage of the processor.

But if you are buying a new machine then it would be another story. Definitely go with all the above listed upgrades.

[bscott]

I have an HP Pavilion a6650f- AMD Phenom X4 64bit Vista machine running 6 gigs of ram and Nvidia Gforce 9600 GT, overclocked.

Other than the graphics card, this was an off the shelf unit at Frys.com. I have no complaints about this unit except it too me forever to find a freakin' driver for our Hp 450c plotter (the Hp 500c works for Vista, Vista 64 bit).

I hope to one day be able to test out the new I7 systems.