CPU Choice

[bjartmar]

Hi,

I have Autodesk Premium account. We are currently running '19 versions but we'll soon upgrade to the newest version.

I'm using Inventor to build and assemble large factories with a lot of components.

I use Pipe&Run and Wire Frame alot.

I've been told that I'm getting a new computer and they are asking me what I want and what I need.

Should I choose:

1. CPU with many cores. Ex. 8x2.4 GHz

2. CPU with fewer and more powerful cores. Ex. 4x3.2GHz

I've always believed that Inventor can only use one?

What about the Graphic Card? What should I choose?

[pball]

Get a CPU with the highest clock speed. The 12900K is currently the king of CPUs for Inventor. The graphics card does not matter to a large extent. Any gaming or low end quadro card will be good.

https://invmark.cadac.com/#/
This is a benchmarking list for Inventor where you can see what hardware people are using.

[el_jefe_de_steak]

If cost is not an issue, definitely go with the highest CPU clock speed you can afford.

Intel's newer i9-xx900 series processors have a clock speed of up to 5.3 GHZ, which makes Inventor very quick.

Titan Computers makes a great Inventor workstation that supports some of the fastest processors on the market. The best processor they have available right now is the 10900 (on par or slightly better than the 11900). However, I have word from them that they will be offering the 12900 within the next few weeks, which gives a small but significant bump in performance over the 10900 series.

@pball said truthfully that the graphics card does not matter much, although I'd still recommend at least getting something that is certified by Autodesk. However, I will say that a better graphics card is noticed in some cases, and I am guessing that Autodesk will start supporting graphics rendering before too long.

[pball]

I had the chance recently to test an I7-7700K integrated graphics vs a 1050TI dedicated graphics card. The overall difference in the Invmark benchmark score is 1.5% more for the 1050TI in the system. The only parts that seem to benefit are the graphics score, which I believe is scored by the fps being displayed or something like that and the dynamic simulation score. I'm not saying you should run integrated graphics, but a high end graphics card will do almost nothing to improve general Inventor performance. I really wish I had a higher end card to test also.

[bjartmar]

They are offering me following Computer and asking for my opinion:

Can you help me with my feedback?

HP Z4 G4 Workstation W2125 32G

Vnr.: 1JP11AV-34527271

4-gen Z4 Workstation
ISV certified as graphical workstation for Adobe, Autodesk AutoCAD

Intel Xeon W-2125 Quad-Core

:  4.00 - 4.50GHz, 8,25-MB Intel© Smart Cache

Chip:  Intel© C422

Ram:  32GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC (2 x 16 GB), max 256 GB (8 slits)

HDD:  Z Turbo Drive 1TBGB PCIe SSD diskur

GPU:  NVIDIA Quadro P2000 5GB

[el_jefe_de_steak]

It seems they are offering you a "workstation" model, which features the Intel Xeon Processor. This is the "right thing to do" for them, since as a business you will be using these PCs a lot more heavily than the average user.

My company was using several PCs with the Xeon series processor, but we switched to the i9 series and saw a lot of improvement in overall performance in Inventor. In our experience, PCs with the i9 processor are fairly comparable in cost and perform much better with Inventor, even though they are not technically designed for work use.

The spec's they are offering you are very good for an Xeon series processor. However, you will likely see a 15% or more increase in performance with Inventor if you go with the i9-xx900 series of processor (10th, 11th, or 12th gen.). If you ask for this, your supplier might say something along the lines that those processors are less reliable (more on this below). However, I can personally say that I have been using the i9 processor in my workstation for 2 years and have had no issues with it. The only thing you need to make sure of is that you have adequate cooling for the processor and it will last you a long time. My PC has a generic liquid cooling system (these only add $60-150 to the overall cost) and that is sufficient, although I expect even a high quality air cooling system would be enough.

The Xeon series of processors is Intel's workstation line of processors, made for PCs that get used a lot more heavily than your average desktop. The problem is that although these Xeon processors are very capable of doing a lot of heavy work, they are optimized for multi-threaded use. Since most of Inventor's operations are single-threaded, they are not really well suited for Inventor. The big thing about Xeon processors is that you can purchase workstations that have more than one processor. The last I checked you can get an Xeon-based workstation with 80 cores of processing power, which is astoundingly powerful, but completely useless for Inventor.

Intel's i9 series processors run much faster on single threaded operations, which is ideal for Inventor. While they are not classified as a "workstation" processor, they function just as reliably as the Xeon series as long as your PC has adequate cooling. These processors fall more into the "gaming processor" category.

All of the other specs of the PC (memory, GPU, hard drive, etc) seem great!

[el_jefe_de_steak]

All this being said, the specs they offered you are pretty solid. They will work well even though the processor is not the optimal choice for Inventor.

[P_Korgaonkar]

Hello All

"The graphic card does not matter much."

This is the first time I have heard this comment.

I was told Graphic card does make a lot of difference, and I have always used Quadro cards with MAX mem available. All our layouts are pretty big. And with Lower cards, the performance does decrease a lot!

Going back a long time, Inventor 9 started crashing after I got a gaming card; that's when a local Inventor support GURU explained the difference between gaming cards and Quodro cards and why it was important to get expensive Quodro cards.

So is this something new?

I look forward to learning more and updating my knowledge. as I plan to buy a new laptop soon, and looking for RTX A5500 card rather than RTX A4500 card!

Regards

Parag

[pball]

For raw performance the graphics card does not do much as shown by various tests done over the years. Theoretically workstation graphic cards and their drivers should be more stable and reliable, though I personally have not noticed this. We've been running gaming graphics cards at my work place for 5 of the 10 years I've been here and the only difference is we can spend less on the graphics card and more on the cpu which does improve Inventor performance.

Here is another fun tidbit from Tech3D (formally TFI), a forum user that makes good youtube videos on Autodesk stuff. This shows the same cpu at different clock speeds and the Inventor performance. Essentially faster cpu = faster Inventor.

[Frederick_Law]

Since IV switched to Direct X, much less graphic problem.

Unless you use Realistic, do Rendering and Animation, most graphic card will do.

My graphic setting is performance with Antialiasing turned off.

Get the highest clock rate CPU, don't go crazy on cores.  The extra cores will help Windows with other programs.

If you'll do lots of simulation and FEA, check with AutoDesk.

You might want Xeon with ECC RAM to keep sim running for hours or days.

I used my laptop i7-4600U to run FEA on Solidworks.  Not much slower then the Ryzen 7 at work.

[el_jefe_de_steak]

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@P_Korgaonkar wrote:

...

Going back a long time, Inventor 9 started crashing after I got a gaming card; that's when a local Inventor support GURU explained the difference between gaming cards and Quodro cards and why it was important to get expensive Quodro cards.

...

I look forward to learning more and updating my knowledge. as I plan to buy a new laptop soon, and looking for RTX A5500 card rather than RTX A4500 card!

---

Likely the reason Inventor was crashing on gaming cards was because the drivers were not optimized for Inventor, or Inventor was not optimized for that card.

If you have the budget for a bigger graphics card, go for it! A better graphics card will always improve performance somewhere. That being said, make sure your graphics card of choice is certified by Autodesk before you buy it. Other graphics cards may work, but they are more likely to cause crashes and other errors if they are not optimized for Inventor.

[P_Korgaonkar]

Thank you  el_jefe_de_steak

Yes, that's the first thing I check. The card must have Inventor certified driver available to avoid further issues.

Furthermore, I learnt over the years not every certified driver works best with every system. Some drivers will be more stable than others. And once I know which driver works the best, I stay with it.

Thank you once again.

Regards

Parag

[SBix26]

Following what @Frederick_Law wrote, sometime not too long after Inventor release 9, Autodesk switched graphics in Inventor from OpenGL to DirectX, which allowed a much larger choice of video cards.

If I understand @Neil_Cross correctly, any card which performs well with gaming will do well with Inventor.  There is no use in spending thousands of dollars for a professional card unless you need the additional support that the makers provide for those cards.

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Sam B

Inventor Pro 2024.0.1 | Windows 10 Home 22H2

[NigelHay]

Not been mentioned yet, that 32Gb RAM I would consider a bare minimum. Go for 64Gb or more if you can.

[Frederick_Law]

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@NigelHay wrote:

Not been mentioned yet, that 32Gb RAM I would consider a bare minimum. Go for 64Gb or more if you can.

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Just upgraded from 16GB to 64GB for $200.

Total memory (IV, Windows, Chrome etc) used with 2k parts assembly is around 20GB.

[P_Korgaonkar]

Thank you all

Yes I  have 64 GB RAM