Recommendations for Civil 3D workstation hardware?

My customer is an Engineering and Development firm that specializes in Convenience Store design, sighting, permitting and construction.

 

They currently use Civil 3D on some fairly old computers and want to purchase newer, faster systems so they can ramp up production.

 

I am not an AutoCAD user myself, but rather support the customer's network infrastructure and computers and I need some help recommending machines to run AutoCAD Civil 3D.

 

The customer has approved the purchase of HP Z400 workstations with Xeon processors, but I'm thinking this is overkill if they successfully run the product today on machines I consider ancient junk. After all, the customer is designing convenience stores and locating fuel tanks/pumps, etc., not desigining gas turbine blades.

 

I'm looking for recommendations for processors, memory, etc. that will efficiently run Civil 3D today in a production environment, that are not bleeding-edge expensive and that will have a useful life (meaning expected to run future AutoCAD Civil 3D versions) of 4-5 years.

 

We would be deploying Windows 7 Pro 64-bit as the OS, most likely with small 10K RPM Velociraptor or small SSD disk drives. All projects are stored on the Windows 2003 Server.

 

What do others commonly use to run Civil 3D? Your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

The Z400 is a joke if it's bone stock in my opinion for the price. I worked on one for awhile and it did not hold up to the hype, and it even had the entry level Quadro NVS graphics card in it. Bottom line is: You don't need Xeon.

 

Core i5 is bare minimum on a proc. Core i7 would be ideal. Go 64bit windows to utilize RAM. Get 4GB minimum but since you can get 8GB for not much more, go ahead and stock up. Memory plays a huge factor. If there's room left in the budget, get at least a decent gaming card in the $100 range or more with plenty of dedicated RAM. Autodesk products are now utilizing Direct3D and MiniGL driver usage as well as the full OpenGL extensions the top dollar workstation level graphics cards use. For what they're doing, a workstation level graphics card would probably be overkill.

 

As an example, I run huge complex 3D mechanical design files for large buildings, and I run the following specs on my laptop without any issue:

 

• Win7 64bit
  
• Core i5
  
• 8GB RAM
  
• Quadro FX 2800M
  

This laptop was bought from Dell at $1,500. The equivalent in a desktop would have been cheaper, especially if you went with a gaming card instead.

 

Hope this helps.

We would be deploying Windows 7 Pro 64-bit as the OS, most likely with small 10K RPM Velociraptor or small SSD disk drives. All projects are stored on the Windows 2003 Server.

Even though the DWG files will reside on the server, all DWG files are stored locally while in use in the temp directory. 10k RPM and SSD drives are items of luxury, not necessity. A standard 7200 RPM drive is more than enough, since the RAM is 1st used. One file can sometimes get upward to 1GB or more in RAM (application + design file), even though the file itself is only 8MB.

Check my profile (on the side here under computer details) for the components we are running. (Summary: Win7x64, 12GB ram, FX580)

I would consider this a minimum if any real work in C3D is to be done. I used this machine for a decent sized project and it performed at an 8 on a 1 to 10 scale. The former machines we were using (XP, 2GB ram, etc) would have scored a 1.

We've been running HP Workstations for more than seven years now, starting with the XW4000 series (12x) and now Z400s (3x) and have only had good experiences with all of them. Only about the half of them are running AutoCAD Civil 3D and the older machines struggle a bit with the larger projects, but on the smaller ones they do fine. The latest Z400 is running a W7 Pro 64 bit OS with 8GB RAM, a Xeon W3530 quad processor @ 2.8 GHz, a NVIDIA Quadro 600 graphics card with 1 GB GDDR 128-bit memory, two 500 GB 7200 HDDs with RAID 1 and two 24" Samsung SycMaster 2443 monitors. All our data is on a W2003 server and nothing is saved locally, the two 500 GB HDDs and RAID 1 were a freebie from our supplier

 

All I can say is that it suits our needs, but I can well understand that other peoples needs are different and might not be as well suited with our set-up. We do surveying (including laser scanning) and civil engineering with a bit as-built surveying of buildings.

The latest Z400 is running a W7 Pro 64 bit OS with 8GB RAM, a Xeon W3530 quad processor @ 2.8 GHz, a NVIDIA Quadro 600 graphics card with 1 GB GDDR 128-bit memory and two 24" Samsung SycMaster 2443 monitors.

If the Z400 I was running had these specs I would retract my previous statement.

But, Tannar, there is always that Monday/Friday computer that never seems to function properly. I know another company who had just the one HP XW4600 and have sworn never to buy HP again.

Thanks for all of the recommendations - I appreciate it!

 

I've since learned the customer intends to run AutoCAD 2011 Revit Architectural Suite.

 

The HP z400 workstation I'm proposing is:

 

HPK FM106UT#ABA

HP z400 with single Xeon W3565 Processor (3.2Ghz / Quad Core / 8MB L2 Cache / 1066Mhz FSB), 3GB RAM, NVidia Quadro 2000 w/1GB Video Memory, 7200RPM 250GB SATA Disk, Win 7 Pro 64-Bit, Mini-Tower.

 

I would pull and replace the 3GB RAM and 250GB Disk with 12GB DDR3-1333 PC3-10600 ECC Memory (3 x 4GB DIMMS) and (1) 300GB 10K RPM Velociraptor SATA disk drive.

 

I almost always use Small Form Factor (SFF) computers for all desktop applications, but that limits choices of video cards since they all have to be low profile to fit SFF. That's the only reason I chose the Mini-Tower configuration here.

 

With a 24" ViewSonic Monitor, UPS and a copy of MS Office 2010, the total cost is about $2,600.

 

Is this a reasonable combination to run AutoCAD 2011 Revit Architectural Suite? Should it be able to serve that purpose reasonably well over a 4-5 year useful life?

 

Thanks again for the enlightenment!

That setup should be more than sufficient for running the intended software. The only way I could see you making a change is if you wanted to save a few $$$ and swap out the Xeon for an i7 CPU.

 

SFF computers are good for secretaries, administrative aides and bean counters. Serious boys demand serious toys.

ReMark:

 

Thanks for the input.

 

HP doesn't offer the Core i7 in the z400 workstations - the pre-configured models all ship with Xeon W35XX-series processors. You *might* be able to order a custom z400 with a Core i7, but I suspect the savings would be more than offset by the "touch" fee associated with custom configurations. Looking at Intel's site, I see that both the Xeon W3565 and the Core i7-950 sell for the same $294 each in 1K/unit quantities.

 

Also, my experience is that it's a bigger crime to undersell than oversell. The customer will quickly forget about the $100 you saved and hound you forever if the system doesn't perform well. Similarly, they will quickly get over the extra $100 spent if the system performs well or spectacularly. So, I always view recommendations through the lens of what would I choose if it was MY money being spent. In this application, I personally would part with the additional $100 difference if it meant the system would be more productive over it's useful life and/or had a longer useful life.

 

The $100 is chicken feed when you consider the labor cost of the personnel using the system over it's life. I say give folks the tools they need without going crazy and that's my general goal here. I think that represents the sweet spot for this customer...

 

Thanks again!

Come back six months after you started using the machine and tell us how it performs.

 

If you are dissatisfied, I would always be willing to take it off your hands :wink:

Those specs are good. Revit is more taxing on a system's performance in other ways so your configuration would be a minimum in my opinion. In all, good choice of specs though.

Tannar:

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

I'm not an AutoCAD user, so I apologize if these seem like dumb questions, but I'm learning.

 

If Revit contains both AutoCAD 2D and 3D components, it seems like I should scale for whichever of those is most demanding - that's 3D. You make the point that Revit stresses the workstations in other ways - could you please elaborate?

 

Also, if the configuration presented is minimal, what would you change to make it more appropriate for Revit?

 

We expect these systems to have a useful life of at least 4 years and I've already planned on expansion over that time frame. For example, the 12GB spec'ed uses 1 channel (3 slots per channel) on the CPU with interleaving for best performance. But we can easily double that to 24GB and use the second channel later on without discarding the 12GB.

 

While the CPU is currently about $300 in large quantities, the price will decline as it becomes more obsolete. So, we may be able to replace it with a 50% faster processor for an additional $100 or so a year or two down the road.

 

Adopting that same processor now (when we don't yet need it) would add over $1,000 today.

 

I'm figuring on both of these strategies to get at least a 4 year life out of these systems at a reasonable cost.

 

Again, I appreciate everyone's thoughts and suggestions.

I'm not an AutoCAD user, so I apologize if these seem like dumb questions, but I'm learning.

No worries. That's what this site is for.

 

If Revit contains both AutoCAD 2D and 3D components, it seems like I should scale for whichever of those is most demanding - that's 3D. You make the point that Revit stresses the workstations in other ways - could you please elaborate?

Revit is not AutoCAD. They don't operate at all the same. The main different is Revit works off a single file. The single file has all the components housed within the file which is database driven. All sheets, views, models, etc - all one file. AutoCAD works like any other normal application. It's file driven - not database driven. Each file houses entities but work much different than Revit. Think if you were editing 100 jpg images in Photoshop. Imagine using AutoCAD, you could edit each jpg image one at a time. With Revit, you HAVE to open up all 100 images to edit one, since they're all grouped together into one file. Make sense? Probably not the best analogy but.... someone else could better clear it up on here... lol.

 

Also, if the configuration presented is minimal, what would you change to make it more appropriate for Revit?

The configuration is technically good. Bottom line is this, you could build a $10k system and Revit/AutoCAD will still buckle the performance somehow. Processor, RAM, Video Card, and Bus Speeds are all important.

 

We expect these systems to have a useful life of at least 4 years and I've already planned on expansion over that time frame.

Four might be pushing it. Two and a half is more realistic as an absolute limit. This is true to my area of area of work, so I only speak of my personal assessments.

 

You are definitely on the right track. The true genius in custom fitting a PC's specs to the needs of a special need is finding that exact sweet spot where you're getting the most performance to cost ratio. You've gotten pretty close I would say, for $2,600 each unit. Anything more hardware wise would be increasing too much price for too little performance.

I might bump up the graphics card another notch but the system specs look fine in my opinion. Now if you really want to blow the budget you could install a top-of-the-line solid state hard drive (or a pair of them) but the beancounters would howl in protest!