what is the best CPU

[ReMark]

If you are thinking about an ATI graphics card look at the FireGL series.

[gary1]

I have seen a lot of comments about RAM and its speed. I would bet that many of the system building vets would know that DDR3 1066 is not necessarily slower or faster than DDR3 1333 or 1600. The Cas Latency is best indicator of speed. When you have RAM at the "speed" of DDR1600 will overclock a CPU higher than DDR1333. If you are not into overclocking use the 1066 stuff. Look for Cas Latency of less than 9. You can find DDR1600 with latency of 6 and makes it rather fast. Many people complain there RAM is DDR1600 but in BIOS shows as 1333, that is because 1333 is base clock, you either change your CPU Freq or memory multiplier to get RAM at advertised speeds.

[tzframpton]

Good point, although most of us are employed and IT doesn't care at all about speed of RAM. I'm on 800MHz @ work.

[ReMark]

Cas Latency. Start talking about that subject and if their eyes don't roll back into their heads then most people tend to fall asleep instead. Such a conversation killer. You have to be a real geekoid to be able to talk that smack! LOL

[tzframpton]

Cas Latency. Start talking about that subject and if their eyes don't roll back into their heads then most people tend to fall asleep instead. Such a conversation killer. You have to be a real geekoid to be able to talk that smack! LOL

He does make a point. RAM latency and bus speeds really do make a difference. But, when you're talking on this level, the difference isn't as noticeable as RAM amount/Proc/Video. We're not talking FPS here in the latest game, we're talking CAD and we all know that RAM Latency or not, CAD will buckle anything if you're doing serious 3D modeling.

[gary1]

I saw a post yesterday saying AutoCAD sees only 1 cpu core. I have AMD Pheonom II x6 because I was told AutoCAD 2012 was CPU intensive. I installed Speed Fan and CPU usage rarely exceeds 7%. I have one drawing like Stykface said buckled my system. Increasing Ram Did help a lot. I would like to know if I disable 3 cores of my 6 and OC past 4.0 would that help much? I believe the best thing to do is install 16 Gigs of RAM but wouldn't that just would set a new perimeter?

[jmerch]

I'm not expert by any means, but just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. My work computer has a measly Intel Xeon Dual Core (@3.33GHz) with 24 GB RAM and a NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 video card. My other 2 CAD stations have the same only with 16MB RAM. I always find it's hard to tell someone how fast/slow my computer is b/c if you're like me (or any other CAD user I know), it's always too slow . We do 3D every day whether it be Navis, ACAD using realistic views, recently Revit, etc. We have since switched to just using 2D wireframe for our working 3D views just to increase speed but there is still a lag in my opinion. Navis works fine most of the time but to me is still slow. I've also seen guys use laptops with only 2 or 4 GB RAM and they seem to perform the same as mine, which has always been discouraging to me.

 

Anyways, like I said, I'm not expert...I don't follow and buy the latest processor or this or that. I work with what we have and in another couple years, I'll see what's around then and upgrade. Always interested in these discussions though.

[ReMark]

The only time AutoCAD may take advantage of more than one core is during the rendering process and I think during regens (not 100% sure at the moment - I'd have to check).

 

Companies that do a lot of rendering should probably consider buying and setting up a machine dedicated solely to that task (a render box).

 

Does Navis take advantage of the extra cores?

[tzframpton]

Does Navis take advantage of the extra cores?

I'm not sure, but Navisworks has its own tricks up its sleeve. Navisworks compresses the geometry when you import any CAD file into the program (or use the Navis Export tools provided online to export to native *.NWC files). In other words, Navisworks acts like a 3D computer game. Since its highly compressed, you can fly around and manipulate a massive model with ease compared to the native file open inside your CAD application. It's very intuitive how the do it and on all my BIM jobs I usually have the file appended in Navisworks and I refresh when I save from AutoCAD MEP/Revit MEP.

[Dadgad]

Whipthread controls that, right?