P4 vs Wolfdale Core 2 Duo

[nrlanni]

Before I shell out $200 for the Wolfdale e8400 3.0 ghz, I wanted to make sure I'll see an improvement in cad.

Should I wait for a quad core?

Just built a nice evga 780i system w/ P4 3.0 ghz w/ 800 mhz FSB and 2 gb 800 mhz corsair ram. Installed superclocked geforce 8800 gt (g92) w/ 512 ddr 3 mem.

I do some 3d but 90 percent 2d. Video performance in cad and XP pro is not snappy.

It's probably obvious but I'm thinking the P4 is my bottleneck. I used it because I read some time back that a single core cpu can be better for 2d cad because cad apps aren't multi threaded.

[mrbucket]

Honestly, it depends. If your getting bad Vid performance, it may be drivers, or your settings need to be tweeked. My system is very similar to yours, except the P4 is a 3.2 @3.5, also 3 gigs of mem. My vid is also a 512.

The only time it takes a dive is when I switch from wireframe to realistic in ArchDesk.

The quad core is basically future proofing your pc, there is nothing right now that really uses all 4 cores correctly.

[nrlanni]

Thanks for the quick feedback - I was on my way out to get the wolfdale.

My system isn't taking a dump and runs good, but i'd like a bit quicker performance after shelling out for my build.

I'll check my drivers but i think i've flashed the latest nvida bios for my card and mobo, as well as loading the latest driver sets.

What version of cad are you using?

[mrbucket]

Architecture 2008

[nrlanni]

Let me ask you - when you do zoom extends do you see a sort of animated way for the various vieworts to move into place?

I sometimes have four or five viewports in a single layout sheet, w/ five to ten layout sheets in a single cad file.

When i do zoom extends there is a slight lag that i didn't see in previous versions, which i find very annoying and am thinking the dual core will help.

Overall my video card is very fast. Regens are instantaneous and flipping though large drawings with a number of layouts is very fast, too.

[Cad64]

Are you really running Autocad 2004? That animated zoom that you mentioned sounds like the new zoom feature that was added, in 2007 I believe, and it can be disabled. If that's the only problem, I certainly wouldn't throw more money into the system. It's actually normal to experience a little bit of lag in a layout with many viewports, especially if one of the viewports is active when you are panning or zooming. Try Zoom Extents with no viewports active and see if you still get the lag.

[nrlanni]

You're right, it is instantaneous in paperspace mode.

How do you turn off the animated zoom - i looked before and couldn't find it.

[nrlanni]

By the way, CAD64, could you give me a component list for your workstation?

[Cad64]

If you're running Autocad 2006 or higher, you can disable animated zooms by changing the VTENABLE variable to 0.

My System:
Intel Core2Duo E6850 3.00GHz
3GB RAM
GeForce 8600 GT
Win XP Pro SP2

[nrlanni]

Thanks for your help.