YOUR ideal work environment?

What is your ideal work environment for doing CAD? I want to post this to gather a sample of what people here use to draw and edit. I have a 17" Flat-CRT Gateway monitor that I flip between 1024x768 up to 1600x1200. I don't have a good idea of what good these resolutions are since this replaced a dead 22" Flat-CRT that no one can find anymore. I have a basic keyboard and a 2-button wheel mouse for input. For analog input I have a UMPC but it's locked at 800x480 and I can't really use that for CAD work.

Here's what I want to know about my hardware vs. AutoCAD:

My main workstation is a 3.2GHz AMD Deneb. For all my rendering on this system I use onboard video. With the Sideport I get great speeds in games and AutoCAD takes a little while to load but once it's all there it's very fast. When I add UMA, I have unlimited access to my very fast system memory. I try to leave it turned off since the additional memory hammers the Northbridge into overheat. Anyway should I be looking into buying a CAD card to render all this awesome stuff or is my arrangement fine for this?

I'm looking at the FirePro V3700 series and it looks like a reasonable investment. I know I should have a better display but I want to know what you guys use first.

Why Win Server for OS?

Throw that 17" CRT out now and get an LCD.

30GB storage? That can't be correct.

Definitely upgrade the graphics card. FirePro or Quadro.

What's better, keeping the monitor and getting a second one (two monitors) or just getting one?

I know some folks prefer putting their workspace on one monitor, and their properties window plus toolbars on the other monitor. I've never tried that (I'm not a toolbar guy), but it sounds cool.

LCD monitors are still kinda' expensive by themselves, though you can get a pretty solid break if you get them with a system.

My monitor is a DELL G2410 (24.0" visible area) I think I paid like $200 to have it added to my system, but I can't find it cheaper than $300 on Ebay, and a LOT more expensive on the Dell Site as a refurbished unit.

Why Win Server for OS?

The short answer: I need the limit release.

The big wall of words: I don't compromise and I use oddball hardware. To keep those themes going, I need an OS that uses all of my devices and remains capable when introducing new equipment and software. It needs to have compatibility with my software in development and production zones. Meaning this is a development computer mirroring a networked system. The decision is locked.

Performance and security are serious issues. Windows XP can't see all of my hardware and becomes a vicious incapable development pain. Windows Server 2003 is familiar, allows me to have concurrent user connections, sees and utilizes ALL of my hardware, gives me full access to the necessary functions of my development software and so far I haven't run into any kind of compatibility issue. If there's some workstation-specific software that I cannot run due to OS detection, it's not important enough for me to use it. I can't use Server 2008 because I'm not licensed. Same case with Windows 7 but on top of that there's driver issues, it's completely unstable, there are seriously huge performance drops and I can't navigate it very well. So don't bother suggesting it. I can't justify keeping that train wreck on this computer. My future jump will be to another server OS like I've always done. Until I run into a problem that can only be fixed with a newer OS, I'm staying put.

Throw that 17" CRT out now and get an LCD.

Great, which one?

30GB storage? That can't be correct.

Ordinarily, manufacturers announce storage solutions based on decimal value rather than binary. The result is an upset geometric error that often causes this number to appear significantly less than advertised after partitioning and formatting. This is not the case here because I don't have the geometry problem. If you want the decimal value I guess you can call it a 32GB disk but I won't see it as such and no one calls it that. The value is right. I still have to fix a huge fubar that I made about 3 years ago when initializing my mass storage drives without aligning them. Outside of that, this disk is fine and storage is the least of my concerns.

Definitely upgrade the graphics card. FirePro or Quadro.

This is what concerns me. I used to have a general idea of what was good. Buying a dedicated card has always been a far-sight investment to me but since I am now locked in a formfactor that is too new, I won't have to worry about retiring the system/card when I stop using this computer. I'll just carry it over to the next platform.

I'm looking at some PCI-E X16 2.0 cards and there's a few cheap Quadro and FirePro cards that offer OpenGL 3.2 and DirectX10.1 supports all with fast speeds but none of them together. The combination revolves around the V8800. There is no middle ground and it makes this decision difficult for me. Obviously we would all use V8800 cards if we could afford them but I don't want to invest in a card that is worth more than twice the cost of my last server refresh.

I know the obvious retort here. If we use AutoCAD we have money. I only spend in sectors that appeal to me and that's not very many. The money only goes where I want and it's often against my will anyhow. I have a ridiculous income problem because of it. I switch roles because I'm always getting sucked into really bad labor jobs. Mechanic, carpenter, plumber, electrician...I can see drafting will make these jobs much easier but right now I'm avoiding all of that to sit down and learn something new. If I can make this easier in what I want to do and I don't get killed along the way, it will make my life hurt significantly less when I can finally get properly seated into a stable position that doesn't give me a bunch of runarounds. I hope at least some of you might understand that. Otherwise I'm in the wrong place.

What's better, keeping the monitor and getting a second one (two monitors) or just getting one?

To be honest I'm starting to notice this screen jump around in the wee hours. It's probably just dirty electricity but it might be a sign that this screen is about to go any week now. I need to stop working with unstable displays that hog up 50% of my table space and making my eyes tired. I don't know if I will be able to use two monitors due to spacial constraints but it's an idea and it's in the air. I'll consider it.

I know some folks prefer putting their workspace on one monitor, and their properties window plus toolbars on the other monitor. I've never tried that (I'm not a toolbar guy), but it sounds cool.

This is more than ideal for my programming environment. I have no idea what to expect with that in AutoCAD.

My monitor is a DELL G2410 (24.0" visible area) I think I paid like $200 to have it added to my system, but I can't find it cheaper than $300 on Ebay, and a LOT more expensive on the Dell Site as a refurbished unit.

That is an incredible monitor. I need to find something in similar spec.

Sounds like you have it all figured out. Thanks for the background info. Good luck.

Currently I'm working on Windows XP Professional, 32 bit version.

I have 500 Gb of storage space, 4 Gb of RAM (only 3,5 Gb usable because of 32 bit Windows ), ATI Radeon HD4650 1Gb, Intel Core Quad Q9300, and I just got Samsung SyncMaster 244T instead of Phillips 20".

Very nice change from 20" to 24"...

I'm using HP keyboard, I don'nt know wich type, and Logitech MX 400 mouse on a huge Razer mousepad...

Dell Precision T3400

Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU

Q6600 @ 2.40GHz

4.00 GB of RAM

NVIDIA Quadro FX 570

Dell 2408 WFP Monitor(love this thing)

W3A Super Station 2.0GHz 512KB L2 cache / 12MB L3 cache 8 core Dual AMD Opteron Magny-Cours workstation

Dual WD VelociRaptor 300GB SATA 2 10,000 rpm 16MB cache hard drives

PNY Quadro FX 3800 1GB GDDR3 256bit PCIe 2.0x16 graphics card

32GB ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1333MHz ram

LaCie 26" LCD wide format monitor; 1920x1200 resolution, .287mm dot pitch, contrast ratio of 800:1

Win7 Ultimate - 64-bit

Dell Precision T3400

Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU

Q6600 @ 2.40GHz

4.00 GB of RAM

NVIDIA Quadro FX 570

Dell 2408 WFP Monitor(love this thing)

Hah! aside from the monitor, we're twins. I guess I didn't do TOO bad in selecting this system then ...just can't upgrade the processor.

*oops, I misread.. I'm Core2 Duo.. but it's a Dell Precision T3400.. I wish I could upgrade to Quad, but they told me I can't.

Okay so what I gather from this sample, most of us use quad core, we're 3GHz+ and memory dances right on the 4GB mark. Common display is about ~22" wide and some are using more than one display. The cards look cheap so I won't have to worry about much.

What should I focus on? I know I can do very high Y scale resolutions with this monitor compared to everyone else but I'm the only one that still uses 4:3 displays. Should I focus on resolution sizes or have we reached that point where it no longer matters? I'm looking at a bunch of large ASUS and Samsung monitors but everyone appears to be trapped in 1920x1080 anyhow.

I don't have much to add except that I very much appreciate having a dual display. That feature by itself makes my work at the office faster than my work at home even though my home computer is technically faster. Not having to switch between programs (AutoCAD and Adobe or Excel or Outlook or whatever) or being able to see different programs or drawings side-by-side makes a really big time difference throughout the day.

My ideal work environment?

Low work, high pay.

I don't have much to add except that I very much appreciate having a dual display. That feature by itself makes my work at the office faster than my work at home even though my home computer is technically faster. Not having to switch between programs (AutoCAD and Adobe or Excel or Outlook or whatever) or being able to see different programs or drawings side-by-side makes a really big time difference throughout the day.

Realistically, dual screen is about the best bang for the buck you can get.