Benchmark

[bogusmill]

"Bogus - where do you order your components from?"

 

Newegg.com for most parts, FrozenCPU.com for somethings Newegg doesn't have. I had to RMA my Asus P5B-Deluxe and an Enermax aluminum keyboard after 9 months use and they refunded my purchase price since replacements were'nt in stock. I Love Newegg.

[FP1]

6 min. 25 sec. on a new pc, home built, Core2Duo E6750 2.66 Ghz, 2Gb DDR2-800 ram, XP-Pro 32bit, sata-II 16Mb cache hd, MSI 256Mb 128bit GeForce 8600GT video. Under $650 to build with new everything except XP-OS. It was way past time to dump my old P3-866!

[bogusmill]

Way to go FP1! It's not hard to build your own, everything is modular and more or less snaps together. Just gotta do your homework on what parts work with what parts, read reviews of components your thinking about using. Sometimes a motherboard doesn't work well with certain brands of RAM or a power supply doesn't stay within 10% of it's voltage. There are many review sites and forums that can help you make good component choices.

 

I'm building my next home PC now. CPU arrives today.

Asus Rampage Formula

Xeon Quad core X3550 2.66Gb, 12Mb cache 1333FSB

Evga GF 8800GT 512Mb

2 X Western Digital Raptor, 10K RPM, 16Mb cache RAID 0

OCZ Gamestream 700 watt power supply

For now Ballistix Tracer PC8500 DDR2, 1Gb X 2 stix

Later on 4 x 2Gb OCZ Reaper PC8500 DDR2

Hitichi 500Gb hard drive

Thermalright Ultra 120 Xtreme cooler

Twin Dell 2408WFP 24" widescreen monitors

 

Win XP Pro SP2 32bit

Win XP Pro 64bit

 

I can use all 8Gb RAM in the x64 OS and when running the x32 I'll have 5Gb of RAM configured for a RAM drive. If I'm luckey this may get me close to the record benchmark time again.

[Michael Sullivan]

14 min 45 sec

 

P4 3.0 GHz

1Gb ram

Quadro FX540

Win XP pro

 

 

quote:

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Scary thing is that this is a substantial upgrade from the laptop they had for me when I got hired!!!! A freakin hand me down old a$$ desktop... [Mad] [Curse]

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I hear ya on the hand me down lol!

 

My new hand me down is coming up soon!! WooHoo!!

[FP1]

bogusmill I agree its not that hard to build your own. You are right about doing your homework. I spent 16 weeks reading reviews and specs on newegg and tigerdirect. Would also jump to the mfg produt pages and read those too. You can learn alot from other peoples reviews. You can't be too concerned with the negative reviews unless they are all negative. You can save some $$$ by building your own, especially the high end ones.

 

The fact is most of the 2d and ocassional 3d mastercam users don't need a $2000 computer. I was doing McamX 2d on P3-866 11 year old pc. It would do 3d but it was way too slow to really use it. It only took a week for me to finalze my choices. The other 15 weeks were spent fantisizng and doing virtual on-line builds of that $2000 computer and $500 Quaddro FX-1500 video card. Obviously those of you using 3d and multi-axis on a daily basis benefit from a higher end computer, but the one I put together will get the job done too, just a little slower.

 

In this build I also used a good power supply Antec Earthwatts 500W w/an 80+ rating and a Gigabyte motherboard GA-P35-DS3L P35-ICH9 chipset. Over 1000 sold on newegg with a 5-egg rating. Got everything from newegg. Everything worked on the first try.

[FP1]

I recently did a memory upgrade. With only mcam running, going from 1Gb to 2Gb of DDR2-800 ram gave the exact same benchmark time of 6 min 25 sec.

 

The lesson learned: You will get a bigger bang for the buck by putting your money into a faster CPU.

[Brian B 74]

I like the idea that everyone is sharing information about their hardware for processing speed.

 

What about the the config file?

 

I think the guys with the fastest times should share their config files. Maybe there are others of us out here who have a setting wrong somewhere that would allow a speed boost as well.

 

Don't you think?

[Bruce Caulley]

WOW! lots of numbers!!

 

So, am I better off with a dual core 3.16Ghz with 6MB cache, or a 2.66Ghz quadcore with 12MB cache??????

 

Bruce

[bogusmill]

I'm betting the 12Mb cache, my faster Core 2 Duo running at 3.5Ghz cannot match a 3.2 Xeon Quad core so I'm now trying an overclocked 2.66 Xeon Quad. I've put my money where my keyboard (mouth)is. Now well see if thats really faster.

[Xmishu]

12 min 2 sec !

Dell OPTIPLEX GX620

P4 at 3.00 GHz

XP pro sp2

2 GB RAM

 

[rshields21]

1st post on the forum

I got 10:07 on my home computer, thats not super accurate I was to lazy to find an app for timing it so I used my microwave lol so I'll say 10ish minutes

 

-DFI LANPARTY UT NF590 SLI-M2R/G Motherboard

-AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Windsor 2.4GHz Dual Core 512KB x2 L2 Cache

-CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

-CHAINTECH GAE79GS-A1 GeForce 7900GS 256MB PCIe x16 Vid card

-CORSAIR 620W Power Supply

-Western Digital 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Thermaltake water cooling CPU kit

Vista Ultimate 32bit

 

Total price in 3/07 - $1,091

 

I'm about to order the Black Edition (unlocked multiplier) Athlon X2 6400+ 3.2GHz so I'll post a new time when I get it. Using the perfmon app in vista it looks like my CPU is the bottle neck at this point, so hopefully this will help alot.

I'll find a real timer too

[L Davis]

My company is buying new computers. They suggested a Dell Precision T3400 375w system with a Intel core2 Extreme QX6850 (3.00 ghz/1333mhz/2x4mb L2) with a 512mb PCIe nVidia Quadro Fx1700.

But instead I suggested a Dell Precision T3400 525w system with a Intel core2 Quad Q6700 (2.66 ghz/1066mhz/2x4mb L2) with a 768mb PCIe nVidia Quadro Fx4600. The rest of the systems are exactly the same. Was this a wise trade off?

[Guest]

Was it a wise trade-off?

 

Before I answer, both good systems

 

No, I don't think it was a good trade-off.

 

The 3.0Ghz processor will be substantially faster when it comes to processing times.

 

If that is the main function, processing tool paths, then the faster CPU would have been a better buy.

 

JM2C

[L Davis]

I agree, I see that your benchmark tests refer only to processing, but what about the whole picture? I spend half of my day processing tool paths and half verifing the tool paths. My STL toolpath models can get to a size of 40mb to 60mb. Which is doing the most of the work when verifing files that are this large. Note: The system I have now is not even a close match to the T3400.

[Guest]

Remember this is only "MY" opinion. I've not benched the set ups.

 

I don't think, anyway, that the additional memory in that card is going to play as big a role as you seem to think.

 

I believe under the lower FSB speed you would only be creating a bottle neck between the CPU and GPU. I am of the mind that the higher clock speed on the CPU will be of greater overall performance help.

 

JM2C

[L Davis]

Thanks, For your info. I don't know which system exactly they are sending me from our parent company, but I should be getting the system with in the week. I will post the performance time when it gets here.

[Jaz]

What software are you using to verify with? MasterCam verify seems to benifit primarly from faster speeds (CPU, fsb and memory). Vericut takes more advantage of the multiple cores and more memory.

[bogusmill]

Lately I've been watching the CPU usage of different apps with task manager. I was kind of surprised to see Catia use all of one core in a dual core system when I rotated a model of our wind tunnel. Last weekend I installed Catia on my new home system and saw all 4 cores of my Xeon X3350 used during the install. I'll put in MCX2 tonight and run the benchmark at stock speed so I'll know where I stood before overclocking starts.

 

Quad cores are not nearly as easy to get a high clock speed but I've read of others reaching 3.8Ghz to 4.2Ghz clocks using my MB CPU combo so if I can boost mine 1Ghz to 3.66Ghz I'll be happy. We'll see if a 40% overclock equates to a ?% reduction in benchmark times.

 

Jaz, just curious where you work.

[Brian B 74]

My Quad Core I have overclocked from 2.4 to 3.5ghz. Brought my time from 7:10 to 5:10. Cores starting running a bit hot, so I backed down to 3.2ghz. This produces a processing speed of 5:30.

[Jaz]

quote:

---

Jaz, just curious where you work.

---

Product Manufacturing is where I clock in and out.

[L Davis]

Jaz,

I'm using Mastercam mr1 sp1. I'm going to up grade to mr2 sp1 when new computers get here. I've noticed that after the verification and I'm rotating the tool path model in the verification it is slow to view or to turn. Is the video card fx-4600 going to give me a better spin on the part.

[bogusmill]

Just note on installing MCX2. DON'T USE THE COMPLETE WEB DOWNLOAD! On the MC website you can download the file mastercamx2-mr2-sp1-web.exe which is a complete install and seems like the easy thing to do but there's something wrong with it.

 

Our IT guys had my PC for three weeks trying to get it to work. I would click on something and the cursor would stay as a crosshair when you move to the icon area and take 30 sec. to a minute to recover. I thought that there was something going bad in the hardware. They finally got me going with a disc image of a working install from an identical PC. But then I tried using this download for my home PC last weekend and the same behaviour occured. The imaged PC was upgraded as MC released MR's and SP's and I realized the all in one had problems.

 

So I removed it and loaded just mastercamx2-mr2-web.exe and then mastercamx2-mr2-servicepack0001.zip and it works just fine. Unfortunately the MR2 only file is no longer on the MC site. I used a copy I downloaded months ago.

[Jaz]

I think you will be very happy with the FX-4600, especially combined with a strong computer. I'm running the FX3500 and it is OK, although I had hoped for more improvement in MasterCam with it. It seems that MasterCam's rotate and zoom leans pretty heavily on the CPU and system memory but that may just be my impression.

[L Davis]

Thanks guys both of ya'll have great info. that every body needs to know. I also experienced problems with the same download of mr2 full package off the web site, but the Mc tech said there shouldn't be any problems with it. That conversation took place after I removed it and went back to the mr1 sp1 that I have stored in a file on my computer for safe keeping.

[bogusmill]

If any of you have the need or desire to build an overclocked PC there is a nice 3 part video series on it that can give you some basics to get started here.

 

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2287804,00.asp