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Business Class PC?

19 REPLIES 19
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Message 1 of 20
cmiller
684 Views, 19 Replies

Business Class PC?

Our IT  guy is trying to convince our engineering dept. to go with HPs. However the one he found is a "Business Class" PC , HP Compaq Elite 8200 Minitower. It's a fairly good price and that's why he's pushing for it.

Specs are:

Windows 7 64bit

Core i7 2600 3.4GHz

4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM(will bump up to 8-12GB)

1TB HDD

Radeon HD 6350(512MB) Video Card

 

Is this being a "Business Class" PC any good for INV 2012? If so this could be a steal of a deal.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

19 REPLIES 19
Message 2 of 20
Vlad.Makarov
in reply to: cmiller

How big are your assemblies? What are you using currently?

______________
Inventor Pro 2012
Vault Pro 2012
Message 3 of 20
cmiller
in reply to: Vlad.Makarov

Our assemblies are starting to get bigger the more we use INV. I have gotten some assemblies from clients that have had 300-400 parts and have had INV crash.

 

Right now we are still using PCS we bought back in '06. So we are in need of upgrading badly.

Right now were have:

Win XP Pro SP2

Dual Xeon 3.20

2GB Ram(I know it's not enough but we are running 32bit OS)

NVidia Quadro FX 3450/4000 SDI

 

I'm still confused as to why the "Business Class" PC is so cheap. Less than 1K. What make it so cheap?

Message 4 of 20
Vlad.Makarov
in reply to: cmiller

They are better than what you have but your IT guy seems to be just looking at price. I would spend the most you can afford if you will be using these for 5+ years. Who picked out your current systems? Dual Xeon on 2GB of memory is the equiv of buying a Ferrari with a 1 gallon gas tank.

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Inventor Pro 2012
Vault Pro 2012
Message 5 of 20
cmiller
in reply to: Vlad.Makarov

Our old IT guy figured if XP 32-bit only sees 3.1GB, then why have more. I know what you are saying.

 

Our current IT guy is on this HP kick.

 

Me personally I want to build out systems.

Here is what I want and I could build this system for about the same price.

Win 7 64-Bit

Intel i7 960 @ 3.4(overclocked @ 4GHZ)

12GB Corsair 1600MHz RAM

1TB HDD

Dual 2GD DDR5 Radeon HD6950 video cards

Lite-On Blu-Ray Drive

Sabrent internal card reader

 

Message 6 of 20
Vlad.Makarov
in reply to: cmiller

Custom built is the way to go as long as your IT guy can handle the support. Going with HP allows him to pass the buck when there is a problem. How many computers will be purchased? The system you've come up with seems fine. I would add a couple SSDs.

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Inventor Pro 2012
Vault Pro 2012
Message 7 of 20
cmiller
in reply to: Vlad.Makarov

We have a small Eng dept for a Drilling and exploration company. All we would need is 3 PCs.

 

So, the PC the IT guy is looking at, what makes it a "Business PC". Would that be compatible for 5-6 years? Or should I tell him to stay away from "Business PCs"?

 

Message 8 of 20
rdyson
in reply to: cmiller

I'm into my 4 th year on an HP work station (WX9400) with no problems. I've not had even one BSD.

I did re-format once, don't remember why.

XP-64 by the way.



PDSU 2016
Message 9 of 20
Vlad.Makarov
in reply to: cmiller


@cmiller wrote:

So, the PC the IT guy is looking at, what makes it a "Business PC". Would that be compatible for 5-6 years? Or should I tell him to stay away from "Business PCs"?

 


It's a label based on the hardware it uses & what it's intended for. If you are using these for 5+ years I would spend at least $2k each & order them from a custom builder.

 

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Inventor Pro 2012
Vault Pro 2012
Message 10 of 20
CadUser46
in reply to: Vlad.Makarov

We have have several generations of HP workstations and i would happily recommend them.  Solid build and performance.  Im currently on Z400, W7 64, SSD, Nvidia 3800, 8Gb ram.  Will happily plow through our biggest 14000 part assembly.

 

I do know we dont buy them direct from HP but from another builder in the UK.  Sorry but i forget the name.


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Message 11 of 20
sam_m
in reply to: cmiller

I wouldn't go near that Radeon 6350 with a barge pole for Inventor use (let alone for professional use where a slow pc can directly impact productivity).  It looks like a cheapo entry-level graphics card that's probably fine for Windows and Excel, but will be willing to bet it will struggle with any 3d - I can't even find a benchmark for it (only comment I can find at the moment suggests it's about 30% quicker than the 5450 - which is v v low on benchmarks)....

 

Personally would stick with Nvidia over ATI/AMD, but have no real evidence to support it.  Historically we used to joke about ATI standing for Always Trashes Inventor due to the frequency of problems with their cards and/or drivers with Inventor...  I know it's only a jokey comment, but as they say, may a true thing is said in jest.  Plus...  Nvidia have CUDA which is already supported within Moldflow and Ansys, so if you use FEA or mould-analyis then it will use the Nvidia graphics card to speed any calculations.  Whether this CUDA support will increase in future, who knows, but just in case it's almost another reason to go with Nvidia...

 

With it in mind that the HP system is obviously a cheap build - are you sure the memory can be upgraded to what you want/need in future?  i.e. have you already checked the motherboard will accept more than the given 4gb ram.  Know it's unlikely but know some laptops have this problem.

 

As for your "desired" spec:

 

Dual gpu - Inventor doesn't support SLI or Crossfire so a waste of cash.  Personally would look at a GeForce 560Ti, 570 or 580 depending on budget.  After a lot of in-house Inventor 2010 and 2011 benchmarking last year, I've since always suggested to go for at least a GeForce GTX 260 with Iv2011 and use a DirectX benchmark table like http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html to compare what you're after to the 260.  With the new bells/whistles of 2012 (and anything in future) and the introduction of the newer GeForce 5## cards then I would really look at a 560Ti as a starting point.  And don't waste cash on a Quadro or Fire workstation card (unless you use anything that runs in OpenGL like other cad SW).

 

Hard disk - do you need 1TB local storage?  Personally would bin it and get a 120GB SSD - if you need more than 120GB storage than have a traditional hard disk as a second drive alongside the SSD.  See Toms Hardware website for recent articles about SSD drives and their benchmarking.

 

Blu Ray - why???  almost dis-credits the professional nature of the pc as I can't imagine any software going to Blu-Ray (Inventor now supplied on a USB stick), so it seems like it'll only be used for films.



Sam M.
Inventor and Showcase monkey

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Message 12 of 20
richiesuk
in reply to: sam_m

Hi,

 

I asked for a quote and this was the reply for my GTX 580 query from the "workstation guys":

 

"The choice of graphics cards really depends on the level of the drawings your going to be doing on the system.

 

For General Part and Assembly Design (Typically Fewer than 1,000 Parts) a geforce card can be used.  However, if you are doing more Complex Models, Complex Mold Assemblies, and Large Assemblies (Typically More than 1,000 Parts) then the Quadro series of graphics cards are recommended over the geforce cards."

 

We use quadro 2000 at the moment but as I seen couple of people changed from quadro 2000 to Geforce and the have not noticed any performance/stability issue...so I am bl@@dy confused why these "professionals" still highly recommend Quadros for inventor...

I can't believe nobody has any benchmark or tests or anything comparing Geforce and Quadro... 🙂

 

now we have HP workstation -3.2 Xenon, Quadro 2000, 8 Gb ram, 127Gb Hdd but I am not impressed at all... and the price was way high too (£2000++)

 

I told my boss that I can get a much better "Workstation" for less money

Overclocked 4.5 GHz i7, 12Gb ram, 120 Gb SSD and 580 GTX (it is available in 3GB version too)

 

thanks,

Richard

 

 

 

Message 13 of 20
SBix26
in reply to: cmiller

We're an all-HP company (pretty large), and if we want IT support we have to go with what they offer.  I really wanted to use the 8200 because it has a nice fast processor, but it only has a 320W power supply, which won't power much of a graphics card.  We finally elected to go with the dual Xeon quad core workstation option (Z600), which is quite a bit slower, but ordered a GTX 560 Ti to go with it.  So, we'll have good graphics, but slower CPU.  The second CPU will never get used, probably, and is a total waste of money, but we're limited on our choices here.

Message 14 of 20
cmiller
in reply to: SBix26

Thanks to all for the replies. Plenty of good information.

 

I sure will be trying to convince IT that we need something a bit better than that 8200.

 

Message 15 of 20
psychsoftpc
in reply to: cmiller

you should really look into a higher perfromance machine and with 64 bit OS there is no reason to have onlly 4 gig of RAM

 

Tim

Psychsoftpc

Message 16 of 20
Rich.O.3d
in reply to: SBix26

the clock speed on the CPU doesnt neceseraly relate to PC speed

 

The 2.4 Ghz (12Mb cache 6 core) CPU in the Z600 will outperform the 3.1 Ghz (6Mb cache 4 core) CPU in the 8200.

 

they arent even in the same class the 8200 is a small formfactor pc, thats why the power sup is so small (i would get this one for admin. not for CAD)

 

8200 = sporty family sedan

z600 = porche

z800 = lamborgini

myhomemadepc = concorde

CAD Management 101:
You can do it your own way,
If its done just how I say!
[Metallica:And Justice For All:1988]
Message 17 of 20
SBix26
in reply to: Rich.O.3d

My understanding from what I read here is that for Inventor, clock speed is just about the only significant factor in its performance (though SSDs and fast RAM are helpful, too).  My 8200 choice is the convertible tower unit, not the small form factor, so there is room for a full size graphics adapter, just not enough power supply for a really good one.

Message 18 of 20
Ray_Feiler
in reply to: richiesuk

"I can't believe nobody has any benchmark or tests or anything comparing Geforce and Quadro... :smileyhappy:"

 

See,

 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/Benchmark-for-Autodesk-Inventor-2012/m-p/3213542#M41...

 

It's just Inventor users comparing their systems.


Product Design & Manufacturing Collection 2024
Sometimes you just need a good old reboot.
Message 19 of 20
stevec781
in reply to: sam_m

Clock speed IS extremely important, amount of ram not so much, graphics card not so much either - you can see real life test results here

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/Rebuild-time-comparison-volunteers-wanted-for-5-mins...

 

Have a look at message 2 in that post.  An i7 with 24Gb ram, raid, SSD, GTX 590 card and only 2 sec faster than an old overclocked E8400 dual core with 8Gb ram and an FX570 card that gets a bad rating on card reviews.

 

But, I just built a new machine and have some more interesting results for that model

Old machine at 3.0GHZ - 24 sec, overclocked to 3.4GHZ - 19sec.  Extra 0.4GHz gives 5 second improvement. (20%)

 

New machine- I7 2700k, 16Gb ram (2133Hz), SSD for data, GTX 560 (only because I had one) FX 570 is just as good

3.6 Ghz - 16.5 sec

3.8Ghz - 15.5 sec

4.0 GHz - 14.3 sec

4.2 Ghz - 13.2 sec

 

0.4GHz gives 2.2 sec improvement (13%)

 

In the same machine tests with quadro FX570 Vs GTX 560 there was no noticable difference in rebuild speed or model rotation, zoom etc.

 

IMHO get the fastest ram, and fastest clock speed, then overclock it and watch your temps. (I only bought 16Gb ram because they didnt have an 8Gb kit in that speed)

Message 20 of 20
Rich.O.3d
in reply to: stevec781

overal clock speed not so important

clock speed of individual core...some importance

fast read write from your drives (try opening 50,000 part files from a 5400 single drive) important

lotsa fast ram (see if your page file can handle 200,000 instances of 80,000 parts) important

good chipset and mobo with good buslines and no bottlenecks....IMPORTANT(this is the one that most people get wrong)

good pc setup (temp folder and page file isolated to reduce fragmentation etc) important

good pc maintenance (defrag defrag defrag) important

graphics card...looks like pretty much any half decent gaming (directx) card will do

CAD Management 101:
You can do it your own way,
If its done just how I say!
[Metallica:And Justice For All:1988]

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