Dream Computer

[Sandybar]

If you had a choice of a dream computer for under 10K what would you get. I make molds and patterns which at times take forever to crunch numbers. Boss ask me to find out what the industry is using.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Mike Whitten CAD/CAM Contractors]

Check out the Benchmark thread

[Guest]

I am going through the Dell recommended computers and I am up to $7800

 

dual Xeons, dual FX1700's, 4 gigs, two 160 gig 10k rpm drives, Dual 24" monitors, Win XP Pro

[ToolMan184]

John, Why dual XEONS? MC cant use duals can it? Dual video cards?

[Guest]

quote:

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John, Why dual XEONS? MC cant use duals can it? Dual video cards?

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He did ask about a "Dream System" right

 

running multiple sessions and multiple CAD applications would be easily done with little or no drain on resources at all.

 

Someday when MCAM grows up it'll offer multi-core/processor support

[Sandybar]

Hey Thanks for the info. I went to the benchmark page and found lots of good information. I do alot of multiple sessions such as programming for two different masterCam programs.

[MLS]

quote:

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Someday when MCAM grows up it'll offer multi-core/processor support

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24 years old eh? Should be soon when young MCAM can think with more than one head shouldn't it? I wonder when...

 

Out of curiosity John...You think the dual mid range graphics cards would be better than one high end...say like a FX 4600?

 

Might be looking(again) soon...hopefully.

[Slixmix]

3 Way SLI!

[Guest]

quote:

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say like a FX 4600?

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IMO and mine only

 

I think that card is a complete waste of cash unless your designing and working with complete assemblies with thousands of faces. I think the middle of the road FX1700/FX1500 is more than enough card for the vast majority, overkill for the 2D guys and a little short for some of the more "high-end" guys.

 

I believe you are waaay better off buying Mhz on the processor than over spending on the video card.

 

Buy the 3.2 Ghz chip as opposed to the 2.4 and the phat card, get the middle of the road video card.

 

That's my opinion

[bogusmill]

X3 is supposed to support multiple CPU's and should be out this year. I don't know if 2 video cards is supported by MC but dual Nvidia cards are only on Nvidia chipset motherboards. The Intel boards are much faster but use only ATI cards in dual setup. Only one person reported a better benchmark time than my homebuilt (by 2 sec.) If I were to build one today it would be a Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 reviewed here(http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3189) with a Intel QX9650 quad core processor, 2 gigs of OCZ DDR3 memory, a Gainward 8800 GT goldern sample video card with 1 gig of RAM, and 2 150 gig Raptor hard drives in RAID 0 configuration. This would come in easily under $4000.

[Craig Madsen from CM3D]

Dell Precision Workstation T7400

Dual Xeon X5482 3.2Ghz, 2x6M L2 cache 1600mhz FSB

16GB 800mhz as 8 DIMMS

512mb PCIe Quadro FX3700 (tests faster than 5700 for Engineering tests).

 

etc.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Don't worry so much about the processor. Get Windows XP64 bit and 16 GB of RAM.

 

Craig spec'd an excellent system.

 

Get that exact one and you will be in programming heaven.

[Guest]

quote:

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Don't worry so much about the processor.

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Colin, don't look now but the processor he spec'd IS the top of line, so I guess he did worry about the processor

 

[kkominiarek]

ram ram & more ram......get the best video card

you can afford that is proven to work with mcam x2

sp1 as well as your os.

[Guest]

quote:

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ram ram & more ram

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Not "quite" true.

 

If you are running XP Pro, the 32 bit flavor, there is little if any gain in having above 2 gigs, even if you install 4 gig, your system will only see and use between 2.75 and 3.25 gigs of it.

 

I would take a 3.2 Ghz system with only 2 gigs over a 2.4 Ghz system with 4 gigs ANY day of the week.

 

Ghz and FSB is where all the action is taking place.

[bogusmill]

Thats right John. I tried MCX2 on a 64 bit system and found no improvement in benchmark time. 64 bit MC would be great for X4. The system I spec'd out in previous post could easily be overclocked to 4 ghz, a 25% improvement. I have had more trouble with Quadro video cards here than GeForce cards at home but if you must have the best Quadro is it.

[MLS]

If you are not using Vericut with larger parts, I would tend to agree with John. The RAM is not such a big deal.

 

However, having 32-bit 4 GB with the 3GB switch in place has made it possible to run some larger parts in Vericut that were not possible with only 2 GB at the tolerances we needed.

 

That being said, my intentions are 64-bit with at least 4 GB for my next one, but only because of Vericut. THE biggest memory hog of any software I have personally encountered.

[Guest]

MLS, I would agree with your needs based on your use. 64 bit at this point in time for MCAM offers not gain at all.

 

The thread started however with,

 

quote:

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I make molds and patterns which at times take forever to crunch numbers.

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Sandybar would not have the same needs based on his intended use.

[Sandybar]

Hey thanks for all your input. I have a better idea of the type of puter I need. The benchmark was also very helpful.

 

So 64 bit is not helpful for Master Cam yet? Will it be in the future?

[gcode]

quote:

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So 64 bit is not helpful for Master Cam yet? Will it be in the future?

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I assume it will be sometime in the future...

whether that will be X3, X4 or even further out, I have no idea.

[Colin Gilchrist]

MLS,

 

Vericut is not really a memory hog, your cut tolerance is. The reason Vericut needs so much memory is because it builds it's internal models with a different method than any other verification product. Vericut actually creates tiny blocks that create an accurate volume of your part model. Imagine taking a balloon and filling it up with sand. When you tell Vericut that you have a 1 x 1 x 1" block and you what a cut tolerance of .001, you are creating 1,000,000 polygonal blocks in your memory. The larger the size of your material and the smaller your cut tolerance, the more little tiny volumetric blocks you are creating inside your RAM.

 

I agree 100% that Vericut is memory INTENSIVE, but it is not a memory "HOG". The math routines that it runs to perform a simulation are incredibly robust and quick, but depend on having the entire Cut Stock model loaded into the system RAM with enough RAM left over to do the math calculations and still run Windows.

 

When you have a simulation that you run and it asks you to adjust your cut tolerance, it has figured out what the maximum tolerance you can use that will fit the entire Cut Stock model into system memory. If you say "no" and use your cut tolerance "as-is", Vericut must constantly swap data from RAM to the hard drive, back and forth.

 

I consider a memory hog to be a program that runs slowly compared to other real world benchmark software programs. The problem is that trying to compare Vericut's internal data structure to anything else is really apples to oranges, because of the way that Vericut has choosen to develop it's software.

 

The advantage with Vericut is that you always get an accurate report of the volume of the gouge, excess, part, and a whole host of other things. The other cool thing is that Vericut doesn't suffer from "time slicing" which other simulation softwares have a problem with. This occurs when you speed up the simulation and an error occurs between the "jumps". This can cause the program to miss an error if you are running it too quickly. This never happens with Vericut.

[MLS]

Agreed John.

No advantage for 64-bit and Mastercam only.

Tis just my dream.

 

Intensive Colin ...sure, I guess hog has a bit of a bad connotation.

 

My point was just that it needs more memory if you want your cut tolerance as accurate as we do...and for those that run Vericut and Mastercam...RAM does become pretty important.

 

 

What would be the advantage of Mastercam utilizing 64-bit in the FUTURE?

 

Processor speed and video cards I can see first hand differences of...just curious of how Mastercam would utilize more RAM hypothetically speaking.

[Guest]

quote:

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What would be the advantage of Mastercam utilizing 64-bit in the FUTURE?

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In laymans terms.

 

It's the difference between how much traffic a 32 lane highway could handle as opposed to a 64 bit highway. Double the information in the same piece of "time"

[iowajim62]

I would think the best gains for number crunching in the future would be Hybrid Hard Drives or a "Real" Ram Drive to speed up crunching not just ram or cpu cycles. CPU can only be as fast as the subsystem it's attached to. jm2c

[kkominiarek]

jp & colin thanks for the education