OT Plz help make systems

[kwolf]

Hi folks,

I want to make some systems . The systems mainly run MC(8.11/9) and SolidWorks (2001 plus) and UG(18).

The OS is WIN XP Pro and 2K Pro.

I don't exactly know what to choose to have good and stable systems. The systems are not considered to be high end . Please guide me what I should select for each step.

My options are as follow:

1. CPU : Athlon or P4 (1.7~2GHz) ?

2. (512 MB) RAM : DDR or RD ?

3. Graphics Card (64 MB): ATI Radeon 8500/GeForce 3 (or whatever you recommend in this price range) ?

4. Which mainboard and its brand ?

5. IDE HD (at least 40GB) : Which brand ?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

You're going to get as many differing answers as replys. So I'll give you my opinion.

 

CPU - Go with Intel. Get it as fast as you can afford.

 

RAM - Stay away from RD RAM. You'll have to buy your chips in pairs and it's PRICEY!!!! DDR is a much better value. Besides the FSB runs max of 300MHz (I think) and RD runs faster then that so you've got wasted headroom. 512MB is a nice round number 1GB may help with UG though depending on the size of your assemblies.

 

Graphics - STAY AWAY FROM ATI !!!!!!!!!!!! I can't emphasize enough that their stuff is trash. I tell you what, I'll put my OLD Matrox G400 16MB card up against ATI's fastest, bestest, expensivest(is that a word?) gee golly I gotta have it card, and the Matrox card will SMOKE IT HANDS DOWN. I'm a Matrox fan, it is a really stable chipset.

 

For HDD's get a 7200RPM. Western Digital and Maxtor make good drives.

 

Hope my $.02 helps.

[kwolf]

Thanks for your reply,

 

However I'm curious about GeFoece 3 MX.

Does MX version have problems with XP Pro and 2K , like Win ME/9x?

[cadcam]

If you are going to run UG18 you need a dual Proc.

this is the only thing UG supports.Not being the software it self but the company.

they say to only run this on a Daul or they will not support you.

 

And they want certian mother boards and Video cards.

[kwolf]

Hi Jay,

 

I can't believe/understand it .

You mean the software can run on a single processor system , BUT the EDS will not support it? I think I saw a UG 18 working on a single proc at least once.

[cadcam]

quote:

---

You mean the software can run on a single processor system , BUT the EDS will not support it?

---

Yep I have seen it run on a single but they will not support it.

 

you hit on the head.

I have found they are vary picky to make sure there are limeted problems.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Jay,

 

That's good to know. So with that being said, you should get an approved hardware list from UG then pick from that. One suggestion I will make is that you go to an Adaptec Wide Ultra 3 SCSI Interface Card and a 10,000 RPM SCSI HDD instead of staying with IDE. Its MUCH faster especially with large files. Western Digital makes good SCSI Drives and Seagate has a fair product too. Expect to pay about $250 for a 18GB HDD, yes they're pricey but they're better and faster and tend to crash less.

 

JM2C

[Bullines]

quote:

---

One suggestion I will make is that you go to an Adaptec Wide Ultra 3 SCSI Interface Card and a 10,000 RPM SCSI HDD instead of staying with IDE.

---

Sorry, James. I have to add my $0.02 to this

 

If you're going to have only one hard drive in your system, then you might as well go with a less-expensive (compared to SCSI) IDE drive. In comparing the latest IDE and SCSI specs in a single hard drive environment, both drives would use the same amount of resources (CPU cycles) and the IDE drive may be a tiny bit more efficient in terms of bandwidth usage. Where SCSI shines is in the case of having multiple SCSI devices (hard drives, ROM drives, etc.). When dealing with multiple drives, SCSI handles available bandwidth much better than IDE could.

[Jerry Bichsel]

Here's my $0.02.

 

SCSI and get multiple drives. I'm running 5 SCSI hard drives from 4.5GB to 18GB. Smokes any IDE.

 

Fujitsu 18GB, Ultra160, 10K RPM, 8MB cache, $169 (I've got two of these, one for data, the other as a mirror), One Quantum 9GB Ultra160, 10K,4MB cache $59 (boot drive), one IBM 9GB Ultra2(mirror of boot drive) and one IBM 4.5GB Ultra2 as my pagefile drive.

 

Once I upgrade my Adaptec 2940U2W to the 29160, lookout.

 

Video - for CAD/CAM, get a CAD/CAM card, not a gaming card. GeForce cards are geared towards gaming. Sure they will work, but for the same or less money you can get a 3DLabs Oxygen GVX1 or such that are rock stable.

 

RAM - 512MB minimum. DDR will save you some serious $$$ and since the Front Side Bus (FSB) on a P4 runs at 400Mhz, you are not wasting $$ on RDRAM.

 

Processor - Dual and I'm an Intel fan although AMD has made incredible strides over the last couple of years.

[johns]

Check out the UG site, they have a listing of preferred hardware and OS. I found that every CAD/CAM solids package has the Oxygen graphics card on their list. It may be more $ but it comes highly recommended and has been also recommended in this forum. As far as OS, the feedback on their list is Win2000 Pro. XP has been recommende by some and cursed by others, so it would be wise to check out the specs on the UG site, because it is more demanding than MC or SW on a system. Consider that a graphics card can make or break the reliability and stability of a station, so don't cheap out on this. More RAM is better for any solids program.

[kwolf]

Thanks for your replies and suggestions.

I have several other questions please:

What chipset is best for P4? VIA,Intel 845D,SiS ..?

And I need to know about ATA 133. Some maninboards have ATA133 support with Intel845D chipset . Can I use ATA133 with IDE (7200 rpm) drive? I've heard they have some incompatibilities.

And another question: Please tell me if I can use Geforce 3 MX in XP Pro and 2K Pro without problems in Mastercam,SolidWorks?

 

Sorry for long post.

[William Grizwald]

Single procs are fully supported. Given the now low prices of duals though, they are highly "recommended" though by no means required.

If you go to the EDS site, there is a list of supported systems - MOST all of which are single cpu. There is also a list of supported graphics cards (which IS the most important issue here).

 

Go to:

http://support.ugs.com/online_library/certification/

 

>If you are going to run UG18 you need a dual >Proc.

>this is the only thing UG supports.Not being the >software it self but the company.

>they say to only run this on a Daul or they will >not support you.

 

>And they want certian mother boards and Video cards.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Bullines,

 

I meant to say a couple of 18GB SCSI Drives. Are you sure on the cycles. SCSI handles everything on the card except for the buffer whereas the EIDE/UDMA, etc... uses the CPU.

 

JM2C

[cadcam]

Mr William,

My info was not just made up but came from UG users that UG support wants dual proc's.

 

I have not gone thru the list to see witch ones on there site are single or dual.

 

but for the MC & SW side they both do not support dual Proc's.

 

If he talks with his UG rep and they say Single I would follow the specs on the higher requerments.(SP?)and make the system from there.

 

Thank you for your time Jay.

[Mick]

UG support single processors as well as duals. There is no lack of support for singles, only specified support for certain machines, and they are made up of duals and singles.

So its incorrect to state that UG support only duals. If that was the case, there'd be a lot of unhappy UG users out there. Everyone I know running UG is running it on singles. The biggest asset you can have for UG is a decent video card and plenty of RAM. Actually, I better cut this reply short...hehe..this isn't eUnigraphics.com

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

I don't thing Webby minds constructive dialogue. They (UG) is only competing for the CAM stuff anyway. Their CAD stuff is excellent and has some great engineering tools.

 

Now the serious question, I've always been under the impression that SolidWorks supports "Multi-Threading", i.e. Multiple CPU's. If you are seriously going to run UG and SOlidWorks on that machine, with prices being what they are these days, I would have to seriously consider putting a Dual CPU machine together. Now, be warned that Mastercam DOES NOT SUPPORT MULTIPLE CPU's. Once you launch Mastercam, you need specify what CPU to Run Mastercam (NT 4.0, 2000 Pro, and XP Pro are able to do this). I've always preferred to put Mastercam on CPU1 (as opposed to CPU0). There's a TON of information on the forum about running MC on these machines. I know I've explained exactly how to do it at least 4 times in here so just do a search on "Dual CPU" and it will bring up the topics so you can make a better informed decision about the Pro's and Con's. If nothing else, you'll come out of this better educated about how it works.

 

Hope that helps.

[Bullines]

quote:

---

Are you sure on the cycles. SCSI handles everything on the card except for the buffer whereas the EIDE/UDMA, etc... uses the CPU.

---

James,

 

Yes, I'm postive. The IDE controller (usually on-board) controls the data flow and not the CPU. The CPU just handles interrupt requests and memory mapping, regardless of whether the controller in question is an IDE or SCSI one.

[cadcam]

quote:

---

So it’s incorrect to state that UG support only duals.

---

Mick, I mad this statement like I said in the earlier post this came from a few full time users of UG.

 

I believe at this time I have been miss lead and I am wrong in my statement.

 

So I apologize for the miss leading info, all so sense I did not do my home work before opening my BIG MOUTH

 

So all is still good.

[JAMMAN]

quote:

---

However I'm curious about GeFoece 3 MX.

Does MX version have problems with XP Pro and 2K , like Win ME/9x?

---

The "problems" with the MX cards are fewer with the NTish kernels, but it will always be a "light" version of the card so why take a chance?

 

quote:

---

What chipset is best for P4? VIA,Intel 845D,SiS ..?

---

The last time I researched this the SiS was king (believe it or not). It supports DDR333, read about it, man. Tom's SiS mobo's

 

So what have we learned? Looks like (once again) ATA over SCSI, intel over AMD, Ge-force w/o MX, DDR over RAMBUS. I personally dis agree with the "INTEL" thing, but as of the time I last bought Mastercam, they didn't support AMD.

 

And Jay, being misinformed does not make you a bad guy. IMHO you can use your "big mouth" any time you want on this forum.

 

[ 04-20-2002, 02:57 PM: Message edited by: JAMMAN ]

[cadcam]

I have used the AMD on mastercam it works great.

I was thinking about building one for the office.

[Jerry Bichsel]

JAMMAN,

I will agree on ATA/IDE if you only have a single drive. However, if you have multiple hard drives then the benefits of SCSI really shine.

 

As to graphics cards, again, for running UG, SW, MC I don't want to put my money into something designed for Quake, Doom, Flight Sim or gaming in general. Since I make money with CAD/CAM, I will spend the money to get a CAD/CAM card.

 

Dual procs - SW is multi-threaded in some areas, here is and excerpt for the SW Knowledge base:

 

"There are low level operations in SolidWorks’ modeling algorithms which use multi-threading (e.g. Boolean, silhouettes, line generations, mass properties, body check). These operations become multi-threaded in SolidWorks operations like a cut-extrude or a boss. However, SolidWorks doesn't use the low-level modeling algorithms on a one-to-one bases, therefore the overall effect may be hard to determine based on the configuration of the body and the complexity of the topologies. The most obvious area of improvement the user can see is in mass properties and in body checking because those operations directly use the low level modeling algorithms. In general, the solving process used for parametric modeling is by nature very linear and cannot take full advantage of parallel processors. Please note that SolidWorks does not do any specific benchmarking to determine speed gains in SolidWorks from a second processor. Certain operations will benefit form a multithreaded environment, but SolidWorks cannot provide any statistical information on such benefits at this time."

 

One area that you will see increased performance with dual procs and 3DLabs cards is dynamic rotation, view changes, redraws, etc. across the board. Many Oxygen cards take advantage of multithreading and can show performance improvemants, according to what I've read on 3DLabs site.

[Bullines]

quote:

---

As to graphics cards, again, for running UG, SW, MC I don't want to put my money into something designed for Quake, Doom, Flight Sim or gaming in general. Since I make money with CAD/CAM, I will spend the money to get a CAD/CAM card.

---

I would love to see how a CAD/CAM card would run, say, Quake 3 Arena. John Carmack from idSofware is the l337 (read: elite) 3D programmer and Quake is an often-used tool in OpenGL benchmarking for video cards. Keep in mind folks, these "games" are some of the most highly advanced 3D applications on the market.

[cadcam]

I am with you Jerry I like the 3d labs cards you can not go wrong.

[kwolf]

Hi Folks,

 

I came to these results so far :

IDE Drive, GFX Card at least GeForce 3 GTS and DDR , but how about CPU?

I did a search on net about CPU since I am curious about Athlon. I saw some results that Athlon CPU itself is more powerful than Intel even than their latest product 'Northwood' .The results are based on some results ranging from solid modeler like SolidWorks 2001 ,GFX like 3DS Max, Lightwave to gaming like Quake III. And in every aspect Athlon shines over its opponents.

But some of my friends tell me stay away from Athlon because it has not mainboards as stable as Intel P4. And They have some problems with video driver. .

Does anybody have an exprience with Athlon? And what was its configuration?

Jay will you tell me what will be your config for Athlon?

 

Thanks in advance. And sorry again for long post

[kwolf]

Oh forgot to mention the address for Benchmark of CPUs.

http://www.streamtech.net/Articles/P4%20vs.%20XP2000+.htm