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And the Xeon-Quadro for AutoCAD myth continues...


f700es

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Getting ready to buy 2 new CAD stations at the office. We use a rep since we buy a LOT of computers (higher ed) and I send them specs for what I wanted from on-line (Dell). 1st thing back from them was that we needed to look at the Precision line for CAD machines. Oh sure let me pay the upgrade for Xeon, Quadro and ECC ram. Nope, I told them that I, in my 20+ years of experience, can see no reason to buy those when a new hexa-core i7, GTX 1080 and 32gb ddr4 would be just fine for our needs.

:rolleyes: Just quote what I asked for.

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We have a couple of high end pc's here for 3d animation, flood modelling etc. The animation guy wrote down what he wanted IT delivered a pc 1st thing that happened was that his animation software was having a race with the turtle not the hare, he has another one now closer to his specs, they could not work out what was wrong with the 1st one.

 

We run plain jane I7's 16Gb ssd with a AMD card and have no problems/speed. A std unit out of the box. We ordered NVidia which was the option spec for the Dell box interesting that AMD turned up.

 

I need to buy a new laptop and will look at a I7 and at least 16Gb and nvidia and ssd and best price combo screen size etc rather than a $3500 HP. I do not work at megaflop speed. My I3 is starting to show its age.

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Just bought my son a laptop for college this August, he is taking mechanical engineering. Paid $800 USD for a Dell core i7-7th gen quad, 8 gb ram (needs 8 more) GTX 1050 and 512 M.2 ssd.

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I buy my office HP Zbooks with i7's, 32GB RAM, Quadro card, and NVMe drives. Great machine, a bit pricey but have a good Port Replicator function and works good with a vertical laptop stand on the desk. Compact and powerful. I always buy with warranties and the warranty team has always been great in the times I've needed it.

 

Definitely do not need Xeon's, and the ZBook's do not have a gaming card option. If it did I'd take it over the Quadro's in a heartbeat. Navisworks and Revizto have much greater performance than Quadro's.

 

-TZ

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f700es can you advise of part number we just get so ripped off here in AUS even with the $US v's Aus @ 75c Often thought buy out of US then just get a 240v charger its the warranty though that becomes an issue. Something similar no ssd AUS $1298.

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Is this a topic to ramble about our system specs and how a 5000$ supercomputer is way overkill for drawing 2D lines in AutoCAD Lt?

 

Systembuilders like HP and Dell just use a range of hardware.

If you want cheap, you get cheap. And if you want expensive you get expensive. If you want good, you have to customize!

 

Work with 2D Autocad only? Buy the fastest singlecore CPU you can find (that is, a CPU with the highest base clock speed and a good turbo on a single core). A multicore CPU is only good for rendering, most CAD products don't use any of the other cores in the normal working mode.

 

And unless you're some game developer you don't need a 3000$ quadro card where a 1080 TI would do the job just as good. It even has a better resale value to have a consumer/gamercard in the system.

 

But think like this: Company don't want any warrenty issues so they buy dell/hp. When you jerry-rig your own workstation it's gonna cost money when issues occur. IT-guys also like standards, buying the same base model for a group of employees makes it better to manage when things go wrong.

 

When it's your own money: Customize, when it's company money : Standarize.

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Please show me this "fastest single core CPU" that is available. I can't think of even an ARM based CPU that is NOT multi-core. Even base model 8th gen i3 cpus are now quad-cores. Why buy just the minimum when you need to play for at least 4+ years. Yes most CAD systems don't use multi-cores except in screen redraws but your modern OS will use multi cores in many aspects as well as multitasking. I totally agree that a user does not need a Quadro for AutoCAD, Revit and Inventor.

4+ years on my current Dell Optiplex at work. No issues at all. 7 years on my Dell at home, no issues. "Your mileage may vary" as they say.

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f700es can you advise of part number we just get so ripped off here in AUS even with the $US v's Aus @ 75c Often thought buy out of US then just get a 240v charger its the warranty though that becomes an issue. Something similar no ssd AUS $1298.

 

What brand or do you want a parts list?

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f700es can you advise of part number we just get so ripped off here in AUS even with the $US v's Aus @ 75c Often thought buy out of US then just get a 240v charger its the warranty though that becomes an issue. Something similar no ssd AUS $1298.

 

Dell G3 15" Gaming: $779.99 USD

Intel 8th gen Core i5-8300H quad

Win10 Home

8 GB DDR4

256 GB SSD

GTX 1050

15.6" 1920x1080

 

I'd drop in another 8 GB ram and be good to go!

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But think like this: Company don't want any warranty issues so they buy dell/hp. When you jerry-rig your own workstation it's gonna cost money when issues occur. IT-guys also like standards, buying the same base model for a group of employees makes it better to manage when things go wrong.

 

When it's your own money: Customize, when it's company money : Standardize.

My company is my own money. So either way it's my money.

 

But you are correct - businesses need as little hassle as possible. Consistency is a good thing, but a brand named unit such as HP also provides great service too. Laptop dropped on site? One phone call and another unit is on its way.

 

:)

 

-TZ

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When I 1st got here, 8 years ago, they bought me a new Xeon and Quadro cad machine. It was well over $3k USD. At the same time I bought a new AMD based Dell for home. My Dell at home was faster at AutoCAD than the Xeon machine at work. I used some AutoCAD benchmark test and compared the results. This opened my eyes to the Xeon, Quadro and ECC ram myth. My $$ or Work's $$, I'll not waste it on that again. Saving $$ ALWAYS looks good to the boss!

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Last three PC upgrades at work had more cores, but were slower than the ones before. The Xeon E5-2620 v4 CPU's have 8 cores, but AutoCAD can only use one. There's 14 i5 CPU's faster than that, I'd recommend an i5 or i7 with a K on the end. I have one of each at home which does nothing but frustrate me at work. Haven't tried the AMD route.

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Well the "K" on the end means that the CPU is unlocked for over-clocking. If that's what you want then by all means get it. For work I could not see the advantage in paying for the unlocked CPU option. Now for home....... I am on the fence over the new Ryzen line AMD cpus. I need a new PC at home and building a budget Ryzen based unit has intrigued me ;)

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Without over-clocking the i5 or i7 with a K on the end have the fastest GHz Clock Speeds Intel makes. I'm not saying to over-clock them just pointing out for AutoCAD they have the speed to out-perform the rest of Intel's CPU's unless you have deep enough pockets to afford an i9. Best part is the i7-7700K is less than half the cost of some other i7's.

 

Other letter suffixes denote they are designed for low power or graphics. If you're more interested in saving electricity or using the CPU for your graphics card than the speed AutoCAD thrives on then the K suffix would not be for you.

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Yeah on the Dell site for the business XPS it was $100 for a 100 mhz difference to the 8700k. If you're not going to over-clock then why bother. At least to me.

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Depends on what you're using it for as well. System requirements for Autodesk Civil 3D 2019 Recommended: 3+ GHz or faster processor, faster it is the more you can do. https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-civil-3d/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/System-requirements-for-Autodesk-Civil-3D-2019.html

With what we're paying Autodesk each year for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Collection $100 for something that makes a significant difference in the work we could get done for years is chump change.

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