SPEC'ING WORKSTATION

[raoul]

Greetings,
I'm on the brink of diving into the world of CAD. I live in a remote area of northern Michigan where technical advice is impossible to come by, which makes getting started doubly hard. I'm trying to spec out a Dell workstation, and my mind is swimming with all the choices. I already have dual monitors, Wacom tablet and am most interested in persuing AutoCad and one of Alias' Studios. I have the financial resourses to purchase a good systsem, but I don't want to excessively overbuild if I can help it. Is there someone out there who would be kind enough to take the time to assist me with this crucial first step. Thanks.
Sincerely,
Bill

[gcp310]

Welcome to the forum,Bill

Just a Tip, CAPS is considered shouting in discussion forums. :huh:

as for your question F7 hs posted specs on his new cad machine. its worth trying the search feature of this forum.

once again, Welcome aboard.

G

[CADTutor]

This is the topic in case you're having problems finding it:

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1844

[f700es]

Hello Raoul, welcome aboard. I would get the most you are comfortable with. No need to go crazy but the more you spend now the better you will be in the long run. I regretted not spending a bit more on my home system last year. I should have spend a bit more on a little better video card and larger harddrive. AutoCAD will run fine on any modern P4 or Athlon system. Now which Alias are you talking about? Studio Tools? If so I would start at the 370 line like I have at work. It's a bit less money that say a dual Xeon system but yet you still have some of the dual cpu power with the hyper threaded P4's. I advise in the nVidia PCI-E cards over the ATi's as their 3d drivers are not as good as the nVidia ones. I would jump over the Quadro NVS card as it is a entry-level card at best. Good luck :)