Upgrading computer - System recommendations

[nmi]

I apologize if this is not in the correct message board!  I am looking to upgrade a couple of computers that do both design and programming.  We are swithcing to Fusion 360 and our experience with using Edgecam has been that it will severely slow down the computer and take at times 15 to 20 minutes to generate a tool path.  We do not want this to happen anymore and are willing to spend extra up front money to get quick toolpath generation.  We are starting to utilize the High Speed Machining method for roughing and this normally creates long tool path and is where we see the problem with slowing down.

Here is a copy paste from a quote we received.  Should we up the RAM even further to say 64 GB.  Please share your thoughts.  Chad

-6th Gen Intel Core i7-6700K (No Overclock, Quad Core 4.0GHz, 4.2Ghz Turbo, 8MB, w/HD Graphics 530)

-Tower 3620 Heatsink(95W)

-Windows 7 Pro English, French, Spanish 64bit (Includes Windows 10 Pro License)

-NVIDIA(R) Quadro(R) K420 2GB (DP,DL-DVI-I) (1 DP to SL-DVI adapter)

-32GB (2X16GB) 2400MHz DDR4 UDIMM Non-ECC

-M.2 512GB PCIe NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive

-Thermal pad for NVMe SSD

-1TB 2.5 inch SATA (7,200 Rpm) Hard Drive

-C7 M.2 SSD + 2.5 SATA 1-4 HD

[daniel_lyall]

I have what it say below fusion works ok, some cam ops take a bit of time to gen other than that it's fine.

[nmi]

Do you do much adaptive clearing.  Do you wish at times that you had a larger system because of the delays.  With large tool path generation we really don't want to be hung up at all.  Hopefully under a minute maximum even at a large path generation.  Knowing this do you have any ideas on the computer system requirements for achieving this?

Thanks for your response.

[Steinwerks]

Well the thermal pad for the M.2 is useless fluff. Don't buy into that junk. Faster RAM will help more than more of it will so I'd rather have DDR4 3200 if they'll do it. Also don't buy a K series CPU if you're not overclocking. Useless expenditure along with a higher price motherboard (but you might need that if you want faster RAM).

I just built a Ryzen 1700X system and it flies with 8 cores and 16 threads. But it's also a brand new architecture so it's not exactly mature yet.

[nmi]

@Steinwerks

I assume you are referring to 2400MHz, when you are recommending going to 3200?  When it comes to the Spec's of a computer I am not very knowledgeable.

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@Steinwerks wrote:
Well the thermal pad for the M.2 is useless fluff. Don't buy into that junk. Faster RAM will help more than more of it will so I'd rather have DDR4 3200 if they'll do it. Also don't buy a K series CPU if you're not overclocking. Useless expenditure along with a higher price motherboard (but you might need that if you want faster RAM).

I just built a Ryzen 1700X system and it flies with 8 cores and 16 threads. But it's also a brand new architecture so it's not exactly mature yet.

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[nmi]

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@Steinwerks wrote:
Well the thermal pad for the M.2 is useless fluff. Don't buy into that junk. Faster RAM will help more than more of it will so I'd rather have DDR4 3200 if they'll do it. Also don't buy a K series CPU if you're not overclocking. Useless expenditure along with a higher price motherboard (but you might need that if you want faster RAM).

I just built a Ryzen 1700X system and it flies with 8 cores and 16 threads. But it's also a brand new architecture so it's not exactly mature yet.

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Just making sure I understand the system you just built.  8 core is the same as saying 8 CPU correct?  If so wow that must fly!

[Steinwerks · Accepted solution]

Sorry just wanted to get some thoughts out last night when I was on my phone.

Building a computer for CAM isn't really all that well documented like it is for CAD, graphics rendering, video production, etc. so there is going to be a decent amount of speculation in that regard.

To a few of your concerns:

1) HSM has very efficient toolpath generation algorithms. It is significantly faster than my experiences with GibbsCAM, Mastercam and CAMWorks, but I suspect those are getting better as well.

2) Yes, 8 cores is similar to having 8 CPU's. Beyond that, SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading) on AMD or Hyperthreading on Intel splits the workload on each core into two threads, which can (but doesn't always) boost performance provided the software is optimized to utilize it properly. Most 64-bit-specific software uses this to some degree.

3) What you really want for toolpath generation is IPC (instructions per clock/cycle), CPU speed, and threads, pretty much in that order. If you regenerate multiple toolpaths on a regular basis, more threads will help immensely in Fusion. Otherwise, clock speed is probably going to be your best friend, and if you can get your builder to overclock a K-series chip like a 7700K to 4.5GHz or more it's going to be your best result right now. My workstation PC is an older Xeon and does not perform particularly well, certainly not compared to my home PC.

Check out this thread for some benchmarking numbers for HSM: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/machining-discussions/performance-is-your-pc-fast-or-slow/td-p/607243...

I've attached the PC Performance test in a .ZIP file here.

[nmi]

Thank you for all the insight on this and taking the time to explain in more detail.  I think I am understanding what you are telling me and will now discuss it with our builder.

Chad