Benchmark

[Roger Peterson]

bogusmill

 

 

that is exactly why I originally started this thread, a common file (part of the default install of sample files) with a minor adjustment to total tolerance so that we can see what hardware works well with MASTERCAM, not spankyCAM, longlearningcurveCAM, shortlearningcurvebutnofunctionalityCAM, wenowhave3customersCAM, 2dCAM, wecanonlyimportigesfilesCAM, sweatervestCAM, GougeCAM, etc...

 

 

My last post was for the poster who ran it in another software with "similar" settings, apples and oranges.

[Keith @ Solid Code Solutions]

keep your pants on!

[Steve Hattori]

Ok, to sort of answer John Paris's question, it seems you can spend around $1000 to $1500 on simple Core-2-Duo with an Asus P5 Deluxe motherboard, 2g ram, and whatever ancillaries you want, and get calc times of 5-6 minutes. I actually only used Asus's AI tuner to overclock my E6600 CPU, and it knocked the time down from 7:31 to 5:41. If I had the patience and knowledge Bogusmill has, I could match his 5 min time as well, but the Asus utility makes it accessible to anyone without understanding multipliers, memory timings, voltages, FSB rates, etc. Bogus is getting good results even using a MUCH less expensive video card than a Quadro. I spent about $900 on my "junkyard" computer, and $500 of it was the Quadro alone..

So, you can get pretty fast machine without going the very spendy Dell Precision route.

[bogusmill]

Sorry Roger, I read that other post too and thought that people were losing sight of the reason so many are running this test. Didn't realize that was directed at another post.

 

Steve, absolutely right. Part of my frustration is that here the University has to abide by state purchasing contracts and can only buy Dell or HP when me, and anyone with enough will (you for instance) can have better performance for a lot less money.

 

Speaking of less money, I buy most parts from NewEgg.com, they are the MSC of computer parts. Steve you say you have about $400 in your PC. NewEgg sells the E6600 for $229 and the P5B-D for $177. I want you to immeadiatly email me where you get your parts cause my $400 won't even buy the two main components.

[Keith @ Solid Code Solutions]

quote:

---

My last post was for the poster who ran it in another software with "similar" settings, apples and oranges.

---

Roger,

 

You shouldn't be too quite to judge the other software as I have used both extensively and know were the issues are with both. I thought I would put a few things into perspective regading the timings as because this is really what it is about. My intent was not to throw the SolidCAM curveball in to show how slow or how fast to convert anyone to another CAM system, it is to present perspective.

[Steve Hattori]

Bogus, I get a lot of stuff at pricewatch.com. I just checked, and found the P5w deluxe for 194, and the e6600 for 179. I found my Quadro 3400 for 550 there. So, a grand buys you bloody fast setup... In fact, a lot of the vendors there will assemble the system for you at small premium, and many will negotiate price on the phone. Sometimes it's hit-or-miss, and what you are looking for is not shown, but generally, you can find a deal on most things there.

There's my secret. Now, if you would, please tell me what your OC settings are, so I can try them...

Sadly, my laptop is an old Turion ML40, and can't be OC'd, but 9min isn't a bad score. I'll just have to wait to upgrade.

 

Keith, I am told that Mcam uses the solid, or surface, to run toolpath on, whereas Cimco, and maybe solidcam use a generated .stl. This is supposedly what accounts for the calc time difference. I can set the geometry tolerance in Cimco to whatever is needed for toolpath accuracy, so generally use .001 for ruf, and as small as needed for finish. I don't know why Mcam doesn't have this feature...?

[Keith @ Solid Code Solutions]

Steve,

That is possible and I'm going to look into it futher and will let you know. It will be a good know.

[Steve Hattori]

Roger, after re-reading your post re using stl in mcam, how do you get it do that?

 

Also, as for my $900 system, I did the mb, cpu and quadro as an upgrade, using my existing case, ram, and 2disc-raid, so a complete system would obviously cost more.

[Steve Hattori]

Keith, maybe we can gang up on roger and get him to divulge how to use stl's?

[Keith @ Solid Code Solutions]

Roger,

 

Here you go!

 

SolidCAM HSM

 

3.1.3 Facetting tolerance

Before the machining, SolidCAM generates a triangular mesh for all the faces of the 3D model geometry used for the operation. The Facetting tolerance is the accuracy to which triangles fit the surfaces. The smaller the value the more accurate the triangulation is, but the slower the calculation.

The 3D model geometry will be triangulated and the resulting facets will be saved. The triangulation is performed on the 3D model geometry when you use it for the first time in a SolidCAM HSM Operation. If you use the 3D geometry in another operation, SolidCAM will check the tolerance of the existing geometry. It will not perform another triangulation as long as the facets have been created with the same surface tolerance.

 

Just to let you know I processed the benchmark in SolidCAM with a facet tol. of 0.0001 and a cut tol. of 0.0001 and still processed the three toolpaths including the faceting in 2 min 45 sec. I realize you may not care or give two shi#s but there are other like my self that are a little more open minded.

[Guest]

I see gcode has run the Benchmark on a 64 bit version of XP.

 

Is anyone else running the 64 bit version or is anyone running the 64 bit version of Vista Ultimate?

[bogusmill]

Steve, I can send you an Excel file that 3DMark06 created when I tested my video card that tells more than you can ever use. Let me know if you want it. But the basics are simple.

 

All CPU's of a particular family tend to run at the same speed. In this case Core 2 Duo will run at 3.5 to 4.2 depending on your luck of the draw meaning MFG. date, stepping etc. But you can't sell them all as the $1000 top end model so they lock the multiplier at a lower value and charge less for them. I bought the lowest so it's multiplier is 7 and cost is $180. The only way to make it run in the 3.5-4.2 range is to jack up the FSB. To do that you must have RAM that will run much faster and have a MB that is made for overclocking.

 

My PC 8500 RAM cost $180 which is much less than the $800 more for the top CPU. The kicker is if I get mine running as fast as the top CPU mine will be faster. The top CPU would be 12 X 266FSB = 3.192GHZ. Mine would be 7 X 456FSB =3.192GHz. But mine with the much faster FSB makes RAM, chipset and everything on the motherboard run faster so the top CPU machine can't keep pace yet costs $600 more.

 

Does anyone besides me see a niche market here for affordable custom PC's made specifically to run the most popular CAM package in existance?

[Guest]

quote:

---

Does anyone besides me see a niche market here for affordable custom PC's made specifically to run the most popular CAM package in existance?

---

I think the problem you'll have is defining "affordable"

 

One guys affordable 2k system is another guys, OMG I can't spend that much on a new computer.

 

I'm into my new build for about $1700 so far, it should go too much higher to finish it off, all the "big" stuff is done

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

9 minutes 12 seconds in X2 MR2 PC2 first time through.

 

2 minutes 25 sec. the second time through.

 

quote:

---

... 11:09.235 (initial)

5:32.06 (after initial)

 

MCX2 MR2 (Beta)...

---

was the first time I did this test.

 

System Specs;

HP Pavilion zd7000 Laptop (2 1/2 Yrs old)

XP Pro O/S

P4 3.4 GHz w/ HT (on)

1 GB RAM (not sure of speed)

NVidia GeForce FX Go5200 64 MB Video Card

 

MR2 showing it's speed increases...

 

[ 09-03-2007, 06:55 PM: Message edited by: CNC Apps Guy ]

[bogusmill]

Affordable may be a bad term. Reasonable might be better. I know our Dell laptops were $3300 ea. Our PC's over the years have run $3500-$5200 so $2000 to run the benchmark in 5min. 30sec. or less should be extremely reasonable. The biggest problem is after you build them customers would expect tech support.

 

That is a nightmare. My dad's PC "just quit working" one day. After 30min trying different things I turned the keyboard upside down and wine came pouring out. People do dumb stuff like that then blame the computer or it's maker.

[Roger Peterson]

Keith, I apologize, I did keep my pants on I was being a smarta$$. Triangulated stl files are fast, there is no doubt.

 

 

The minute you guys start "overclocking", and start talking "motherboards", you lose most of us. While I have made a couple of pc's, I am no expert, and the only overclocking I ever did caused sever instability. Most people just want to be able to purchase an off the shelf pc in two forms, FAST or REALLY FAST. This thread has a lot of great info, and does all of us a lot of good to see what hardware works and what doesn't.

 

 

James, I hear you, I didn't have my stop watch but I seen over a minute faster in X2mr2pc2 just watching the clock. I will re-run it and see what happens, mr2 is apparently faster

[Keith @ Solid Code Solutions]

Roger,

 

That's cool!

[Guest]

I ran this on one of the work boxes today

 

AMD 4000+ 2.4 Ghz

2 gigs RAM

Quadro FX540

 

9.39

 

regen 1.54

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

quote:

---

AMD 4000+ 2.4 Ghz

2 gigs RAM

Quadro FX540

---

That's the exact machine I've got. It's about two years old, and I had another one (different video card) at my previous job three years ago. Methinks I made a good choice.

[PeterM]

Dell precision 490

Intel Xeon 2.66ghz

2 gig ram

Xp pro

Nvidia nv285(go figure)

 

7.27

[peon]

6:40

Desktop

Intel Core 2 CPU 6700 @ 2.66 GHZ

XP PRO 32-bit

4 Gig Ram

[GlenBA]

8:41

 

Dell Precision M4300

Processor: T7500 @ 2.20GHz

Memory: 2046MB RAM

Video: NVIDIA Quadro FX 360M

OS: WinXP Pro SP2

Drive: 200GB 7200RPM

 

MCX MR2 ED version

[Guest]

Intel Q6600 2.44 Mhz(Quad Core)

4 gigs 800 mhz RAM

XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 640 megs

Two 10k RPM 150 GIG WD Raptor Drives

WinXP Pro SP2

 

 

First time through no tweaks or anything yet

 

7:12

and

1:07

 

Got some bench marking and stuff to run now

[Keith @ Solid Code Solutions]

John how are you using 4GB of ram. Are you using 64 bit?

[Guest John Paris @ Services 4 Automati]

quote:

---

John how are you using 4GB of ram. Are you using 64 bit?

---

Win Xp Pro sees 4 gigs of RAM, It only lists 3.25 gigs as being available for windows. My toolpath settings also showed the same 3.25 gigs of available memory.

 

I ran that at 50% and 80% and the difference was literally only a couple of seconds.

 

I have downloaded the 64 bit 120 day trial version from Microsoft, I might try to install that, perhaps as a dual boot set up and see if it is any better.

 

While running the Sisoft burn-in utility last night I also noticed that core 0 was running a bit hotter than the rest of them so I might pull the CPU and fan and make sure my Artic Cilver 5 compound has spread across the heat shield evenly.