Undergrad CEE Student_Basic Q/A for Civil3D

[mvpham2]

Hello,

I am a undergraduate student studying civil engineering who wants to get a grip on Civil3D over winter break.

I just installed the student version of Civil3D into my computer.

My computer is desktop/gaming computer rather than a workstation.

My computer specs is as follows:

AMD FX-8320 Vishera 3.5GHz

ASRock 970 EXTREME3 AMD 970

8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

ATI Radeon HD 5770

Civil3D takes while to boot up.  I assume it is because my computer has insufficient memory.

I understand that workstations perform better and are more reliable for Civil 3D whereas desktop are more error-prone.

I also enjoy working with blender, photoshop, and 3ds max in my free time.

As student, workstation components are quite pricey for my budget.

Should I invest in a workstation video card or even a workstation altogether for present and future use or is a desktop enough for invidividual educational use?

In a career standpoint, is an understanding Civil 3D a major plus for future interviewers?  

Is there a Microstation student version?

I notice that Microstation/GeoPAK are far more prevalent in the industry ranging from IDOT to consulting firms. 

Which is Civil3D a product replica of Microstation?

Many thanks in advance!

[KirkNoonan]

From the Civi 3D perspective, I would invest in more memory instead of a different video card. Blender and 3ds Max might require a better video card. At our company at least, career-wise, you would have a big advantage over non-3D using applicants. Lots of DOT projects are done as design-build. They don't really care what software you use because your deliverable is a road. Many of the DOT "partner" firms do use Microstation out of familiarity. That's my 2 cents - Good luck. I wouldn't be surprised if you heard from the forum Microstation Troll. He will answer all of your Microstation questions.

[mvpham2]

Many thanks for your advice.

I had a good laugh on the microstation troll, and you assumed correctly.

Just curious.  What are the advantages that Civil3D has over Microstation? (I have heard several in the Microstation side)

In the hardware arena, what is the difference between workstation cpus and desktop cpus? (Opteron/Athlon),(Xeon/i7)

Also going along with the rivalry like microstation and Civil3D, what tech company is better suited for Civil 3D in your honest opinion, AMD/ATI versus Intel/nVidia?

Is it power consumption, stability/performance, marketing audience...?

Thanks in advance!

[KirkNoonan]

You'll hear all kinds of discussion about Bently vs.C3D. What is the C3D advantage? For me that's an easy one - I know how to use Civil 3D and not Microstation. They are both good tools, and neither one is ideally suited for what we do.

Unless you are really maxing out your utilization of the hardware doing a lot of rendereings and such, I don't think you'll really notice a difference while performing your normal daily work. I have a multi-core XEON "workstation" at work, and a multi-core i7 at home. Both are equally suited for the daily grind. You did forget one hardware combination - Intel/ATI we run a lot of those setups and have had a lot of success with it.

Is it power consumption, stability/performance, marketing audience...?

Around here, it is bang for the buck. Hope that helps with your planning. Good luck.

[michael.robertson]

Xeon & i7 are very similar except that if your motherboard supports it, you can run multiple Xeon processors together (i7 can only run in single mode). Most Adobe products like Premiere will use every core you can throw at it, where C3D & MicroStation will not.

C3D & MicroStation pretty much are not aware of multiple processors, the faster the processor the better (there are some functions like rendering that will take advantage of multi-processors).

I agree with others, for C3D/Microstation ram is more important than video.

Historically, for transportation work in the US, MicroStation & Geopak (and InRoads) has been the predominant platform. With improvements to C3D, it is starting to become a viable alternative.

We support both Geopak & Civil3D here at FDOT, all I can say is there are strengths and weaknesses for both platforms.