Utlmate 3D system

[redracer]

guy's
I need your help in The latest system quoted to me. I do all my work in Model space 3D for Power, Co-gen, PetroChem & Refinery industries. Everythings modeled using Cadworx. & Autocad 2008 software, please let me know if their is something i am missing.
Quote as follows:

1.) Aluminium Case w/750 Watt power supp.
2.) supermicro X7DAE+ Dual Xeon Motherbord w/ audio / gigabit nic onboard.
3.) PNY nVidia Quadro FX4600 768MB GDDR3
4.) 4 GB Kingston Ram DDR2 800Mhz.
5.) (2) 640GB SATA2 3.0G/s 7200RPM
6.) (2) Intel Xeon Quad core E5482 3.2Ghz.
7.) Samsung 24" T240 Monitor

What changes would you make for doing all work in 3D, or is this good. Thanks.:D

[redracer]

Guy's,

I can not believe that nobody will comment on this setup,..........I do really need the feedback:?

[ReMark]

Looks like a good system to me. If budget would allow I might go for two 10,000 rpm SATA drives instead of the 7,200 rpm drives. Take a look at the Western Digital Raptor drives. They have a 16MB cache.

What about a RAID system? Have you considered it?

[redracer]

I was going with a RAID 1, but is this processor "xeon" the very best for doing 3D work in autocad? or should i go with another type.

[f700es]

What was the price?

[redracer]

About $6,800

[ReMark]

Why not compare your system to the ones just reviewed in the May 2008 issue of CADalyst Magazine. Look at the article entitled, "Today's Power - Quad-Core Workstations." The article should be on line.

[f700es]

Why do you need so much storage? Won't you save all your work on a server?
I myself would drop down to a sinlge 500 GB SATA drive and go with (2) 24" LCDs. I would also look at a single quad-core cpu solution. Will you really use 8 cores? You might, I am just asking. Quadro video cards ROCK! All in all seems pretty good.

[mrbucket]

$6800 for that? ugh. No good. First off your memory is bottlenecking your cpu. If you have some links for the build I can comment more. I can i get you one cpu and more for under $2000 from Newegg if you want to build it. You really don't need 2. (as mentioned above)

The Xeon Quad core is probably pushing 1033 on Front Side Bus. You want your memory to be at least that, It's only 800.

Also if you are using a server to store your data, you only need one drive. You can get 16 mb cache on 7200 rpm drives, I have one. The 10,000 rpm drives are nice, but spendy, also you have one electrical storm that kills power while that drive is spinning (withoutUPS) you CAN snap the arm off inside the drive with a 10,000 rpm drive.

[ReMark]

I ran a 15,000 rpm SCSI II drive for 4 years and in that time we experienced several power interruptions. Never once did I "snap the arm off the inside of the drive". I currently run a 15,000 rpm main and a 10,000 rpm backup SCSI II drive in my present system without any problems. Someone fed you a bit o'malarkey.

Yes, 10,000+ rpm SATA drives are expensive. SCSI drives of the same calibre are even more expensive.

[mrbucket]

I ran a 15,000 rpm SCSI II drive for 4 years and in that time we experienced several power interruptions. Never once did I "snap the arm off the inside of the drive". I currently run a 15,000 rpm main and a 10,000 rpm backup SCSI II drive in my present system without any problems. Someone fed you a bit o'malarkey.

Yes, 10,000+ rpm SATA drives are expensive. SCSI drives of the same calibre are even more expensive.

Yes, your drive is also a 20th the size as a normal drive. It can go that fast and have no issues because it doesn't have to travel over 300+ gigs of data, just 20-30 or maybe 150 gigs for your drive.

By the way, it does happen, not often, but it does. How about I call you a liar about your drives?:shock: Not very nice is it?!

[ReMark]

The secret to my sucess is to run lean and mean. I don't see a real need for 500GB+ hard drives.

It helps too if you're archiving most of your drawings on something other than your hard drive.

Call me anything you want as long as you don't call me late for dinner.:lol:

[redracer]

Intel Xeon Quad core E5482 3.2Ghz,....I believe that this is a 1600 FSB.......No i do not have a server to run me dwgs on....just one system as of now, but the addition of another will open things up for me.

[mrbucket]

Intel Xeon Quad core E5482 3.2Ghz,....I believe that this is a 1600 FSB.......No i do not have a server to run me dwgs on....just one system as of now, but the addition of another will open things up for me.


1600 FSB, nice! Go with the fastest memory you can find that will be compatible with the motherboard. Seriously, if you try to push all that info through a smaller opening (memory), you may as well have a slower processor.

Also skip what I said about the 10,000 RPM drives, I haven't heard about any issues in a few years. But run a UPS just in case. At least you can save whatever you want and shut down safely.

[Cad64]

I just talked to the guys at XI computers today and got a quote for our new 3D workstation.

Intel® Core®2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 45nm 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache
4096MB DDR2 800MHz PC2-6400
nVidia® GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB DDR3 PCIe XXX/Superclock version
150GB 10000RPM SATA 150MB/s WD Raptor X NCQ 16MB Cache <9ms
Windows® XP Professional-64

This system will be just under $2,000. They assured me that this system will more than handle everything I will be doing with 3DS Max. And if I'm not satisfied, for any reason, I can contact them within 30 days and they will work with me on upgrading or swapping out any components at no extra charge.

[ReMark]

Check the graphics card against the AutoDe$k list of approved cards. Despite what they say about moving to DirectX and away from OpenGL, AutoDe$k is dragging their feet when it comes to approving these types of cards and the card manufacturer's aren't providing the necessary drivers to get the best performance out of AutoCAD.

I've been an Xi customer for the past 12 years. Good systems.

[redracer]

So, i have not read yet about "xeon" vs. others! will xeon be a waste of money!