Another PC Upgrade Thread

[TFarrell9]

The last thread I found on this topic is a couple years old, so I figured I'd start another in my search for an upgrade. 

I'll start by saying that I'm familiar with gaming-oriented builds and when it comes to cad/cam requirements, I effectively know nothing......which brings me here. 

Rundown of what I have: Currently using a laptop (docked) with a Ryzen 9 5900HX, 16bg 3200mhz ddr4 ram, and geforce rtx 3070 and I kind of hate it. Most of our work isn't particularly complex, but fairly large in scale and a lot of times large weldments that I am unable to boolean into a single body (I assume having more entities, particularly with stock models, takes more power?). 

I tend to run into very long regen times. Even the other day I was using Area Rest (single entity body with single entity stock) that generated 400kb of code and it took 20 minutes to generate the toolpath (.01" cut tolerance with arc filter, no trochoidal motion). That kind of regen time for 400kb  and no dynamic motion with a single entity drive and no avoidance seems absurd to me.

 

TLDR: All this being said, they told me to get what I "need" and didn't give me a budget.....let's assume $3k-$4k. I'm not looking to waste the company's money and I want a worth-while upgrade, so I need your help. I get the importance of single-core speed and ram for cad/cam, but what about the video card? The quadro's can get nuts in price, so what is "good" without going overboard? 

I stumbled across this base build with varying options: https://orbitalcomputers.com/product/silenced-c2000/   Is it worth it to go from 32gb to 64bg? Doesn't seem like I even currently really have ram issues. Again, what is a "good" video card?

I also found this site with wildly varying builds: https://www.xicomputer.com/solutions/MasterCAM/index.asp 

 

Also for what it's worth, we are ITAR compliant and use a third-party IT service for our systems, currently all on Windows 10 Pro.

[gcode]

The PC in my siggy is from Xi, purchased about 3 months ago.

I paid about $4800 for it and it does a good job.

Our file sizes can run to 650 to 700 meg, and the physical parts can get to the size of a 2 car garage and weigh in north of 100k pounds.

I put this hardware in a sound deadened case with extra fans for the video card because I get tried of listening to the video card fans howl.

The case fans are quiet and the processor is liquid cooled and silent as well. I can still hear the video card when things get busy but the machine is 

MUCH quieter than the Boxx machine it replaced.

So far it has been an excellent machine.

 

[TFarrell9]

6 minutes ago, gcode said:

The PC in my siggy is from Xi, purchased about 3 months ago.

I paid about $4800 for it and it does a good job.

Our file sizes can run to 650 to 700 meg, and the physical parts can get to the size of a 2 car garage and weigh in north of 100k pounds.

I put this hardware in a sound deadened case with extra fans for the video card because I get tried of listening to the video card fans howl.

The case fans are quiet and the processor is liquid cooled and silent as well. I can still hear the video card when things get busy but the machine is 

MUCH quieter than the Boxx machine it replaced.

So far it has been an excellent machine.

 

Thanks for the input. I'm honestly shocked that a $4k build can handle files that size, that's super encouraging. 

I got this laptop a couple years ago and have only recently realized it was a complete waste of money.

[gcode]

9 minutes ago, TFarrell9 said:

$4k build

closer to $5K

It was originally $5.2k because I ordered it with 128g of super fast ram.

They downgraded me to 64g of slower ram, and refunded $400 because they said 

128g of fast ram and the 5,4 ghz overclocking I requested might not be stable.

We have 3 similar machines to this here in the office plus  my personal machine at home

and have had zero problems with any of them to date.

edit..  they are offering a newer model i9 now, OC'd to 6ghz!!

 

[Aaron Eberhard]

Laptops are always hard, as even if you get a blazing fast one, it can be hampered by cooling issues that cause the clock speed to get pulled way down.  I got a i9 laptop with an awesome graphics card when I got started from a friend at the beginning of last year.   It was great until it has been crunching for 4-5 minutes, then everything slowed to a crawl.    Try regenerating your area rest toolpath, and watch your processor and ram temperature.   I found that it was totally useable with a simple cooling stand (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MRWE5AX)  or "air vacuum" (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G3G3C7M) .  

When I got my laptop in, though, it solved all the issues by being a workstation, not an office/exec portable chassis with no cooling.   It's definitely bigger and heavier, though!

The most recent thread I know of about this was from Jake L:

I know he'd be happy to talk to you about what he just got.

[TFarrell9]

6 minutes ago, gcode said:

closer to $5K

It was originally $5.2k because I ordered it with 128g of super fast ram.

They downgraded me to 64g of slower ram, and refunded $400 because they said 

128g of fast ram and the 5,4 ghz overclocking I requested might not be stable.

We have 3 similar machines to this here in the office plus  my personal machine at home

and have had zero problems with any of them to date.

edit..  they are offering a newer model i9 now, OC'd to 6ghz!!

 

Oh gotcha. I just found one with the same cpu and gpu in your sig, though it was only 32gb ram (base obviously) and 500gb ssd it was just under $4k. Looks like even the "cheaper" 128gb is an additional $650.

7 minutes ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

Laptops are always hard, as even if you get a blazing fast one, it can be hampered by cooling issues that cause the clock speed to get pulled way down.  I got a i9 laptop with an awesome graphics card when I got started from a friend at the beginning of last year.   It was great until it has been crunching for 4-5 minutes, then everything slowed to a crawl.    Try regenerating your area rest toolpath, and watch your processor and ram temperature.   I found that it was totally useable with a simple cooling stand (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MRWE5AX)  or "air vacuum" (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G3G3C7M) .  

When I got my laptop in, though, it solved all the issues by being a workstation, not an office/exec portable chassis with no cooling.   It's definitely bigger and heavier, though!

The most recent thread I know of about this was from Jake L:

I know he'd be happy to talk to you about what he just got.

Even with the simplest of tasks, it sounds like the laptop is about to take flight from my desk. Super annoying to listen to. I really don't have use for a portable work station, so I'm looking to get away from it. I haven't tracked the temps, but I check on the load in the task manager and it certainly doesn't seem like it yields how hard the fans are working. 

Thanks for sharing the thread link, when I tried the search bar, it was giving me no results so I went to the ol' google machine and it definitely didn't show me that thread.

[gcode]

19 minutes ago, TFarrell9 said:

Looks like even the "cheaper" 128gb is an additional $650.

If you really want all that ram buy the machine with 8g of low ball, upgrade it your self and save some money

[ikertx0]

How does the quadro graphics card really stand out?

[JParis]

1 hour ago, ikertx0 said:

How does the quadro graphics card really stand out?

Nobody doing any real,  heavy duty work will run anything but...

 

Seriously,  spend the g'damn $$$

[#Rekd™]

6 minutes ago, JParis said:

Nobody doing any real,  heavy duty work will run anything but...

Stability matters!!!! 

[TFarrell9]

7 minutes ago, JParis said:

Nobody doing any real,  heavy duty work will run anything but...

 

Seriously,  spend the g'damn $$$

It really doesn't even seem like they are priced any higher than the geforce cards. Of course vram isn't everything, but just for reference on Xi:

(geforce)rtx 4080 (16gb) listed for $1,500

(quadro....or formerly quadro) rtx A4500 (20gb) $1670

(geforce) rtx 4090 (24gb) $2050

[jpatry]

14 hours ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

Try regenerating your area rest toolpath, and watch your processor and ram temperature.

The other day I couldn't figure  out why my stock model operations were taking cripplingly long times to regenerate.

Turns out that someone had reset the thread limit back to 4 in the multithreading manager settings, after putting it back to 16 everything was back to normal.

[MWearne]

If you can hold off another year, the 15th gen intels could be worth the wait. All just speculation until a chip is released and tested, but the hype 'Arrow Lake will make major leaps in single-threaded performance' is enticing seeing as the 14th gens are pushing 6Ghz now. And, with DDR5 another year older, maybe it'll be getting a bit better.

But if you have to upgrade now, as others have mentioned, don't get a laptop unless you absolutely need mobility. Towers are key to airflow and heat management. CPU, get the latest i9. Ram, you probably don't need more than 32GB, not many do, and its an easy upgrade later if you find you need it (the 32GB setup will be faster unless you're maxing out ram). Video, no one has proved to me you need a quadro for Mastercam. If your company is footing the bill, go get an RTX A5000 anyway, if you're on a tighter budget, an RTX 4070 will be plenty.

[Jake L]

20 hours ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

I know he'd be happy to talk to you about what he just got.

Absolutely. A few weeks ago I got setup on this beast:

Intel i9-14900k - liquid cooled - overclocked to 6.1GHz

96GB RAM

NVIDIA RTX A4000 w/ 16GB

We paid around $5600 for this from Boxx.

 

My previous computer specs:

Dell Precision 3571 laptop

Intel i7-12800k 2.4GHz

32GB RAM

NVIDIA T600

 

The biggest thing I was looking for was reducing regen times for larger 3D toolpaths and stock models. 

My benchmark file time went from around 3:45 to 1:55 - an almost 50% time reduction. With that said, I've seen about a 40% time reduction when I'm working on actual parts.

One of the things I didn't foresee being a time savings was file open time. When I go to open one of our bigger files 600ish MB I'd have to wait 40 seconds, the same file on the new computer is 25 seconds. And that's just Mastercam, something like an excel sheet which only takes a few seconds to open now opens instantly. It's not that this is a huge time savings, but having to wait those extra few seconds for something to open would really slowdown my workflow and I didn't even realize it until I got the new computer.

Why I chose what I did for hardware? Clock speed was my main concern so I went as high end as I could. RAM, I probably would've been fine with 64GB but it was only like $100 extra to jump to 96GB. The video card that I got seems like it would be overkill for what you need. We just got Vericut a few months ago which will heavily rely on the GPU. We almost went with the A2000 but decided to "future proof" a bit.

For GPU performance. On the old computer, when I went to verify in Mastercam the 600MB file I mentioned above, it turned into a slideshow. I almost couldn't move around the model while verify was running. It just pegged the GPU to 100%. With the new computer, the highest I can get the GPU to spike is 80%, and that's when I'm trying to push it. When I'm not trying to push it I typically never see spikes over 50%.

As for GeForce vs NVIDIA... put simply I did a lot of forum surfing before requesting the computer I did. I didn't even once see someone recommend a GeForce over an NVIDIA, just my 2 cents.

At the beginning of the year management is planning to get the whole programming department (about 10 of us) one of these new computers.

I have to say a HUGE thank you to @Aaron Eberhard for helping me understand how Mastercam uses each piece of hardware.

 

[cncappsjames]

On 12/8/2023 at 12:45 PM, ikertx0 said:

How does the quadro graphics card really stand out?

 

On 12/8/2023 at 2:13 PM, #Rekd™ said:

Stability matters!!!! 

Buy "Minimum Spec", get minimum performance, minimum stability, and maximum headaches. I get it, everyone's got a budget. When I get new rigs, I don't get the newest and fastest because I have a budget I'm trying to work within too. I get one step down from that and that gets me through a couple/few years normally.

[TFarrell9]

On 12/9/2023 at 7:13 AM, MWearne said:

If you can hold off another year, the 15th gen intels could be worth the wait. All just speculation until a chip is released and tested, but the hype 'Arrow Lake will make major leaps in single-threaded performance' is enticing seeing as the 14th gens are pushing 6Ghz now. And, with DDR5 another year older, maybe it'll be getting a bit better.

But if you have to upgrade now, as others have mentioned, don't get a laptop unless you absolutely need mobility. Towers are key to airflow and heat management. CPU, get the latest i9. Ram, you probably don't need more than 32GB, not many do, and its an easy upgrade later if you find you need it (the 32GB setup will be faster unless you're maxing out ram). Video, no one has proved to me you need a quadro for Mastercam. If your company is footing the bill, go get an RTX A5000 anyway, if you're on a tighter budget, an RTX 4070 will be plenty.

I could wait another year, but it's a bit of a timing thing with somebody else coming into the office and we were thinking of giving them my current laptop and getting me an upgrade. Thanks for the input!

On 12/9/2023 at 8:01 AM, Jake L said:

Absolutely. A few weeks ago I got setup on this beast:

Intel i9-14900k - liquid cooled - overclocked to 6.1GHz

96GB RAM

NVIDIA RTX A4000 w/ 16GB

We paid around $5600 for this from Boxx.

 

My previous computer specs:

Dell Precision 3571 laptop

Intel i7-12800k 2.4GHz

32GB RAM

NVIDIA T600

 

The biggest thing I was looking for was reducing regen times for larger 3D toolpaths and stock models. 

My benchmark file time went from around 3:45 to 1:55 - an almost 50% time reduction. With that said, I've seen about a 40% time reduction when I'm working on actual parts.

One of the things I didn't foresee being a time savings was file open time. When I go to open one of our bigger files 600ish MB I'd have to wait 40 seconds, the same file on the new computer is 25 seconds. And that's just Mastercam, something like an excel sheet which only takes a few seconds to open now opens instantly. It's not that this is a huge time savings, but having to wait those extra few seconds for something to open would really slowdown my workflow and I didn't even realize it until I got the new computer.

Why I chose what I did for hardware? Clock speed was my main concern so I went as high end as I could. RAM, I probably would've been fine with 64GB but it was only like $100 extra to jump to 96GB. The video card that I got seems like it would be overkill for what you need. We just got Vericut a few months ago which will heavily rely on the GPU. We almost went with the A2000 but decided to "future proof" a bit.

For GPU performance. On the old computer, when I went to verify in Mastercam the 600MB file I mentioned above, it turned into a slideshow. I almost couldn't move around the model while verify was running. It just pegged the GPU to 100%. With the new computer, the highest I can get the GPU to spike is 80%, and that's when I'm trying to push it. When I'm not trying to push it I typically never see spikes over 50%.

As for GeForce vs NVIDIA... put simply I did a lot of forum surfing before requesting the computer I did. I didn't even once see someone recommend a GeForce over an NVIDIA, just my 2 cents.

At the beginning of the year management is planning to get the whole programming department (about 10 of us) one of these new computers.

I have to say a HUGE thank you to @Aaron Eberhard for helping me understand how Mastercam uses each piece of hardware.

 

My reasons for upgrading are the same as yours. File opening is certainly another annoyance I face. Even a 10mb file takes right under a minute to open, it's quite aggravating. 

I only currently use Verify which can pretty pretty choppy depending. We're getting a Mitsubishi MVR35 with a programmable RAH in a couple months, as well as the simulation package with the post, so I have to assume simulating heavier files on my current computer could be pretty miserable to sit through. 

Thanks for your input!

[TFarrell9]

I've been using my new pc for a week now and figured I'd update this with what I got and a toolpath generation comparison. 

i9-13900k currently with base clock of 3.0GHz, 32gb 4400MHz DDR5, RTX A2000 12gb. Came in just under $3k from our third-party IT service.

Just in general use, opening and closing files, even moving geometry around on the screen, this pc feels leaps and bounds above what I was using. Loving it so far. 

There was a toolpath that took just over 17 minutes to generate on the old computer, the same toolpath can be generated in just over 2 minutes with this one. 

Thanks again for the input!

[Kyle F]

I pitched a new laptop to my boss yesterday haha! Currently I'm rocking a PC at work and a PC at home so I feel like it's worth the extra $$ to buy once/cry once.

One of our new large aerospace customers was inquiring about cyber security so we are kind of re-doing that whole aspect at our shop, and he told me they actually prefer a laptop over PC for security reasons (I have no idea why, but sounds like good news to me lol)

I've had some emails with aaron on laptops but I am curious if anyone else is rocking one?

any specs/recommendations would be appreciated. It's horrifying sometimes how long stuff takes.

My current setup stands:

@home: Intel xeon cpu e5-1650 v4 @ 3.6GHz, 64GB ram, with NVIDIA Quadro M4000 graphics card

@work: Intel xeon cpu e5-1650 v3 @ 3.5GHz, 65.6GB ram, with NVIDIA Quadro M5000 graphics card

Sometimes it takes a minute to grab a new tool or up to 3 min just to open the "Holders" section in my tool list when I'm at home, but I suspect that may have something to do with my tool library being located on a network and non-locally? 

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

1 hour ago, Kyle F said:

I pitched a new laptop to my boss yesterday haha!

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you don't want a laptop unless you really need a laptop.  You will get significantly less performance for your money.  Even if it's specced the same on paper, it will almost always run slower due to thermal throttling.  It will die sooner, and it will be less upgradable, if at all.

[JParis]

A computer should only have a 3-5 year span....

My previous desktop with a Xeon, I lived with because it existed before I got there...our entire Engineering & Programming staff have been on Dell Precision Workstations, Engineering for about 7 years, Programming it'll be 3 years.

Programming and the Toolroom are all running the same spec'd systems

Precision 7760

11th Gen i7-11800H @2.3Ghz CPU's

64 gigs RAM

RTX A4000 NVIDIA Cards

We just upgrade to 1TB SSD drives, we outgrow the 256 that came with them...

I run Solidworks, Mastercam, Vericut, Materilse Magics, EOSPrint2....none of them suffer...this system beats my old Xeon everyday and twice on Sunday's...

Heat has never been an issue, I keep mine propped up on the power supply to keep the air flow on the bottom...none of my guys has had issue.

I won't dispute that heat has beatup on laptops, as power consumption has come down, In my experience, it's not anywhere near the issue it used to be with them.

[Kyle F]

16 minutes ago, Matthew Hajicek - Singularity said:

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you don't want a laptop unless you really need a laptop.  You will get significantly less performance for your money.  Even if it's specced the same on paper, it will almost always run slower due to thermal throttling.  It will die sooner, and it will be less upgradable, if at all.

I definitely understand that. The way I see it is like this: In my shop, I am currently the only multiaxis mill programmer/set-up guy... (for now)

It's already cumbersome dialing in new programs running back and forth from the production floor to the office, or writing notes to myself to take into the office,.. It would be so much easier to be standing at the machine control, while also being able to make modifications to programs. Not to mention I could have all tool libraries + files local on the laptop which seems like it could help with my slow-down grabbing files from the network server.

It's been not the biggest issue, but today we're having a 15pallet 5axis mill and another 10pallet 5axis mill moved into the shop.... so now that I'll be at the helm of 3 different machines while trying to feed them all new programs, these time wasting things like walking back and forth and waiting for files to regen/open... really starting to see how it can add up. Of course we'll run tombstones on some pallets so we can do simple 3axis jobs in larger quantities, but I'll still be doing most the heavy lifting if I had to guess... Boss man told my manager he's keeping his eye out for a multiaxis programmer but every time we get a new employee who is "supposedly some expert" they ALWAYS seem to fall super short of what they claim their capabilities are,.. it's quite sad. Wouldn't you rather under-sell yourself and come in and surprise people and blow expectations? idk haha sorry about going off on a tangent there.

 

3 minutes ago, JParis said:

A computer should only have a 3-5 year span....

My previous desktop with a Xeon, I lived with because it existed before I got there...our entire Engineering & Programming staff have been on Dell Precision Workstations, Engineering for about 7 years, Programming it'll be 3 years.

Programming and the Toolroom are all running the same spec'd systems

Precision 7760

11th Gen i7-11800H @2.3Ghz CPU's

64 gigs RAM

RTX A4000 NVIDIA Cards

We just upgrade to 1TB SSD drives, we outgrow the 256 that came with them...

I run Solidworks, Mastercam, Vericut, Materilse Magics, EOSPrint2....none of them suffer...this system beats my old Xeon everyday and twice on Sunday's...

Heat has never been an issue, I keep mine propped up on the power supply to keep the air flow on the bottom...none of my guys has had issue.

I won't dispute that heat has beatup on laptops, as power consumption has come down, In my experience, it's not anywhere near the issue it used to be with them.

I appreciate the input, looks like a nice machine.

I am also definitely going to be getting a nice cooling system that I'll always use, and have no problem with leaving it plugged in to power while in use.

I was building some "dream setups" P.C.'s on BOXX.com and it's crazy how easy it is to spill over 10k in cost, so $2,500 is looking like a steal lol

[Aaron Eberhard]

3 minutes ago, JParis said:

A computer should only have a 3-5 year span....

My previous desktop with a Xeon, I lived with because it existed before I got there...our entire Engineering & Programming staff have been on Dell Precision Workstations, Engineering for about 7 years, Programming it'll be 3 years.

Programming and the Toolroom are all running the same spec'd systems

Precision 7760

11th Gen i7-11800H @2.3Ghz CPU's

64 gigs RAM

RTX A4000 NVIDIA Cards

We just upgrade to 1TB SSD drives, we outgrow the 256 that came with them...

I run Solidworks, Mastercam, Vericut, Materilse Magics, EOSPrint2....none of them suffer...this system beats my old Xeon everyday and twice on Sunday's...

Heat has never been an issue, I keep mine propped up on the power supply to keep the air flow on the bottom...none of my guys has had issue.

I won't dispute that heat has beatup on laptops, as power consumption has come down, In my experience, it's not anywhere near the issue it used to be with them.

Agreed on all counts.   Although when I'm docked at my desk, I have my laptop living on this stand: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MRWE5AX/

The biggest problem I've seen with laptops and thermal throttling is if you get a "business" chassis.  Just look at the difference between a 3561 and a 7760's chassis:

Right after I started Vector, a friend lent me the 3561.. It got HOT when programming, and I had to keep it on a cooling pad to keep it running at peak speed, especially if I was doing something like a teams meeting where I was sharing my screen it would kill the processor Ghz due to thermal throttling.   On a cooling pad, it ran great. 

Now, with my 7760, I don't need to keep it on a cooling pad and it does fine in any condition, but I just kept the cooling pad, because, hey, why not?  Cooler is happier, right?

[crazy^millman]

I just got the new(refurbished) 7780 with the i9-13950HX Nviidia RTX5000A 16gb card and went down to 64GB with 5600 ghz. The 128GB was only 3600 ghz and thought memory speed was more important. I saved about $2000 and got the 5 year pro warranty. I never had to use it on the 7740 once. I threw branch new Samsung Pro 990 M2 T2b drive in along with 2 of the Samsung Pro 980 M2 2TB drives that were in the 7740. I took a current file I have been working that was had 20 revisions and made my first stock model dirty. The 7740 with the best i9 from 4 years ago with the RTX 5000A 16gb card with the Samsung Pro drives was taking about 20 minutes to reprocess the file. It was running about 46 to 50 degrees Celsius on the hard drives. This new(refurbished) regenerated that file in 4 minutes and is running about 34 degrees Celsius on the hard drives. I have been keeping my laptop on a cooling pad with 2 KLIM vacuum for some time now and think that makes all the difference in the world. I take the cooling pad and fans everywhere and no issues. I must keep the computer in my possession at all times and traveling tower never going to happen.

[crazy^millman]

I just got everything all installed and configured. I was coping 140gb of files from a hard drive to another. It was doing it at 2.3gb a second.

[Simon Kausch]

On 2/2/2024 at 10:30 PM, Kyle F said:

I definitely understand that. The way I see it is like this: In my shop, I am currently the only multiaxis mill programmer/set-up guy... (for now)

It's already cumbersome dialing in new programs running back and forth from the production floor to the office, or writing notes to myself to take into the office,.. It would be so much easier to be standing at the machine control, while also being able to make modifications to programs. Not to mention I could have all tool libraries + files local on the laptop which seems like it could help with my slow-down grabbing files from the network server.

You could also use a cheap laptop or a mini pc + monitor and just use a remote desktop connection. It's fast and cheap. Plus no syncing files on different devices. I'm currently using an old computer and just use windows remote desktop to connect to my main pc in the office.