Getting a new PC

[sps_cad_guy]

I'm not sure if I'm in the correct forum, but I use Inventor daily, so thought I'd come here first.

The company is getting me a new computer since my last computer would crash hourly. I am sure it's a video card issue, but the IT department hates being told what a user thinks is wrong.

In all their wisdom, and completely ignoring any input from me, they have ordered this computer.

http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=15389645

Does this machine look like it will be a useable computer, or am I still going to be prone to crashing?

Thank you so much for your help and input.

[BarryZA]

You haven't said what type of work you use it for.

At least you can bump up the RAM, but that processor is woefully underpowered. Show then the minimum system requirements for Inv. I think it's a 3.8GHZ now?

I haven't tried Inv on Win 8, but I would rather hang back a bit, let everyone else jump in and find the bugs.

Are they throwing in a decent screen?

[sps_cad_guy]

They are getting an additional 4gb of ram. What about the video?

With the Lenovo I have now, I am regularly getting the error...."the video driver has stopped and restarted"

Then, Inventor goes away. Recently, I've lost more work than I've created.

Where are the system requirements on the web site?

I looked the site over for a bit, and never really found much.

[cwhetten]

The adequacy or inadequacy of hardware depends heavily on the types of models you plan to work with regularly.  Overall, however, I think the machine you spec'd looks decent enough, except for maybe the graphics hardware.

The link you gave specifies a Quadro K1000M dedicated graphics card.  It depends on the kinds of models you plan to work with, but this card seems a little inadequate to me.  According to Passmark's GPU benchmarks, the Quadro K1000M scores a 781.  I have a Quadro 2000, which scores a 1293, and in my opinion it seems to just barely be adequate for use with Inventor 2014 and the kind of models we work with (it does a decent enough job for small - medium assemblies, and parts of simple - average complexity, but for some of our medium - large assemblies / moderate - complex parts it struggles).  However, that said, it's good enough at the moment that I don't feel an urgent need to upgrade yet; although I don't think they will be good enough for our next upgrade cycle to 2015 or 2016.  Again, this all depends on the type of models you plan to work with.

Also, most laptops have an integrated graphics system, even if they also have a dedicated graphics card.  Yours is no exception.  Running Inventor on the integrated graphics is not recommended (I have no personal experience in this matter as I don't use a laptop, but this is my general impression from complaints that other users have submitted to this forum).  I guess this doesn't have much to do with which system you go with, but it just serves as a heads up that you will want to see if you can disable the integrated graphics system and run solely on the dedicated card.  Search this forum for posts about laptop integrated graphics for more information.

By the way, I disagree with Barry about the CPU being underpowered.  It's not the fastest car in the garage, but it'll get the job done just fine.  I've been running a 2.4 GHz Xeon (dual core) for years and it is adequate.  But Barry makes a good point about Windows 8.  There have been several posts about Inventor on Windows 8 over the last several months.  It would be worth it to search the forum to learn other users' experiences with that OS.  You will certainly want to see if your version of Inventor is supported on Win 8.

Edit:  Also, here is the link to Inventor's system requirements:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15402497&linkID=9242018#section6

Cameron Whetten
Inventor 2014

[sps_cad_guy]

Thanks so much.

I have found the system requirements, and yeah, this new computer is going to bite.

I am running Inventor 2014.

[LT.Rusty]

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@sps_cad_guy wrote:

Thanks so much.

I have found the system requirements, and yeah, this new computer is going to bite.

I am running Inventor 2014.

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It won't be that bad as far as performance goes - I run Inventor 2014 just fine on my laptop (see sig line), which is a little lower in specs.  Where you'll run into trouble mostly with a laptop is if you're doing a lot of simulations or rendering.  When you're getting all the cores screaming, you'll jack the temperatures up insanely high, and that will eventually kill your machine.  I don't mind doing the modelling on my laptop, or the drawings ... but any rendering or simulation work I bring over to the desktop.