Computer Building Questions

[Scribbles]

Hello, I'm building a few computer systems for my dad, who run's a small Tool & Die shop with his brother. They recently lost their shop to a fire, and are needing some new PC's.

 

They are looking to move to at least MasterCam 10 with Solids, but possilby up to the X series (i don't know which)

 

I was hoping for some tips for getting the best bang for their buck out of the computers, they are probably only looking to put 1500$ or so into them.

 

So a few questions for all of you out there:

Are multiple cores fully utilized (dual core vs quad core)?

 

Does Mastercam make use of GPU's such as the Nvidia Quadro series, what sort of performance increases would observered with the lower price range quadros vs standard GPUs? (geforce 9800 would be the likely alternative)

Does GPU memory capacity provide any additional benefits, or is 256MB sufficient?

 

Does Mastercam utilize Nvidia cuda capabilities?

 

Does Mastercam operate on XP or Vista 64bit without issue?

Would greater than 4GB of memory be advantageous?

 

 

Any help or direction that can be provided would be most appreciated.

[gcode]

Check out the Benchmark thread stuck to the top of the forum.

It goes back a couple of years so you may want to

stick with the last half dozen pages or so

[Thad]

Where in Michigan?

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

Thad

[iowajim62]

Here's a great start. Matt's $1500 rig is also the fastest. You'll need to add a Case and fans to the price.

 

Link to Matts Build in the Benchmark Thread Page 17

[MotorCityMinion]

I don't see a video card listed in Matts rig. Anybody know what it is?

[gcode]

quote:

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I don't see a video card listed in Matts rig. Anybody know what it is?

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That's one of the drawback to relying totally on the benchmark thread..I don't think the video card

has much effect of the actual proccessing time of a toolpath.. just unshade, turn the toolpath displays off and let her rip..

 

The debate of Quadro vrs GeForce is endless.

much like the debate between wear vrs control cutter comp.

 

I prefer Quadro CAD/CAM cards, but a lot of people are perfectly happy with the MUCH cheaper GeForce gaming cards..

 

That being said, I recently bought a Vista x64

laptop with a GeForce 9600M video card.

It runs OK but has lots of minor annoying video troubles.. in hindsight, I wish I'd spend the extra $$ and bought a Quadro powered Dell workstation grade lapatop

[iowajim62]

Matt's running a 9800 GT

Matt's 8800 GT swapped for 9800 GT Benchmark Page 18

[bogusmill]

This is a no brainer. Forget Quadro cards. At your budget you can get a lower end to mid level Quadro but I assume you want the rest of the PC. You did mean $1500 per PC? If you meant $1500 for 3 or 4 PC's you may have a problem.

 

MCX3 is not multi threaded but is sensitive to L2 cache size. Get the bigger cache size before faster speed in Core 2 Duo, not Pentium, 2 sticks of RAM, at least 1Gb each but 2 sticks of 2Gb RAM is better and cheap right now. Then the Gigabyte board and they will be OK for a while. I have that Gigabyte board and an old E6320 1.86Ghz CPU running 24/7 at 3.57Ghz, GF 9800GT video card 2 x 1Gb PC9600 RAM does the benchmark in 4:05 and spent about $700 on it.