Computers configured for Mastercam

[Mike DeButts @ MLC CAD Systems]

Rob,

 

I apologize for dropping the ball on the benchmark thing. SolidBox is a new company. Deciding to not flood the shelf’s with systems that may or may not sell for that quarter was not going to be a good move, so it only made sense to benchmark final numbers as systems were sold. Based on the hardware we were able to test with Dell all current systems will run the benchmark within 2 minutes. Now with the 3rd quarter coming on we hope to be able to learning better ways to read Dell’s roadmaps of hardware. This will help reduce lead times on the SolidBox systems. We have also decided to pre-order 1 of the Level 1 systems for each series for final testing. These systems will be sold quickly after testing at a discounted price!

 

I will provide a list of all Benchmarked SolidBox Systems that we currently have tonight…

 

Thanks,

Mike

[Mike DeButts @ MLC CAD Systems]

HIGH SPEED DESKTOP LEVEL3 1min 17.06 sec

 

COBALT DESKTOP LEVEL1 1min 21.463 sec

 

COBALT MOBILE LEVEL1 1min 38.5 sec

 

CARBIDE DESKTOP LEVEL1 1min 16.737sec

 

CARBIDE MOBILE LEVEL1 1min 12.01sec

 

Keep in mind the more expensive systems handle video much faster. This means "FASTER VERIFY"! They also show more speed dealing with larger files with Surface Toolpaths and or Multi-Ax Toolpaths.

 

If you have questions about a particular system let me know. Direct 512-906-6398 or [email protected]

 

Thanks

[Rob @ Target Machine]

Thanks Mike. I appreciate the response.

 

My T3500 runs the bm in 1:10 with Win7 64Bit.

 

I just ordered a 3rd Velociraptor and haven't benched it yet.

 

I don't expect it to give much better #'s, but now I'll have the option to go to Raid 5.

 

I'm thinking my next move should be a Quadro FX 4800 1.5mb card.

 

Then I can take the system home for my side work and get a new box for my day job.

 

Maybe a new SB sytem for X-mas.

[Steve Hattori]

Rob, if you want to see some comparo's between SSD and ANY platter hard disc, go to ANANDTECH and search SSD. You will see that NO hard disc setup is even close to a SSD, esp the Intel version...

[Rob @ Target Machine]

Thanks Steve, I'll check that out. My plan was to use the 4 x Velociraptors in Raid 0 for now and get a Z drive around Christmas. Here's the one I'm looking at.

 

Z drive

[Rob @ Target Machine]

Steve - I looked at the read/write speeds of the ssd's and only see 260 to 285 mbps. I was getting 250 mbps with only 2 10k drives. Now I have 4 in raid 0, so at 480 mbps it seems that my array is faster than a single ssd.

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but I've been warned that Dell backplanes use the ICH10r sata controller which is not capable of passing the trim command to the drive even if it is marked as a non-raid drive. This is why Dell doesn't offer ssd's with the Precision Workstations as far as I know.

 

That ssd would be dead in a year without the trim command so I am told. I could use Ocz, which doesn't rely on the trim command, but I don't hear much good news about Ocz's firmware garbage collection unless you go with at least 512 Gb drive space to offset the performance degradation over time.

 

That's why I'm looking at the Z drive. You can hot plug the nand cards like swapping memory sticks if/when needed and they get up to 1.4 gbps read/write speeds.

.

.

 

[ 07-01-2010, 09:22 PM: Message edited by: Rob @ R & D Engineering ]

[Steve Hattori]

Rob, if you look at Anandtech's benchmark data, you will see that the ssd leaves the velocraptor in the dust for real-world tests. I can't explain the details as well as his article does, but I have a 2-disc raid0 with 10k raptors on my desktop,and the laptop with the single ssd is about 5-10x faster for any disc-intensive task. X4 opens in a few secs on the lappy, about 35 on the desktop. I've had the laptop for 2.5 years, runs x4 every day, and never cleaned the ssd. Still smokin fast. The lappy goes from dead to a Vista desktop in 12 sec. The PC takes about 2 minutes....and if you RAID the ssd's, its even faster.

Anand's article is long, but its worth the read. He pretty much forced OCZ and others to completely change their ssd controllers because they showed poorly even against a hard disc, and really sucked vs the Intel X25. Now the other mfg's are catching up to Intel...

I haven't looked at updates for a couple months, so it may have changed, but I think the ssd is here to stay...

[Rob @ Target Machine]

Thanks for the response Steve.

 

I've done a little more digging and find that the disparity is that platters can blow the doors off ssd's in large sequential read/writes, but that only happens in the real world manipulating very large files.

 

In the real world, or Windows, the data is usually accesed as random reads and sequential read/writes.

 

It is the ability to blow the doors of platters with random reads that makes the ssd's fast.

 

The benchmark tests aren't on even ground, so they are misleading. The numbers lie.

 

I'll be looking at an Ocz Vertex 2 ssd for my next hd, but I'm really holding out for a whole new box.

 

Dual hex core cpus, a Z drive, and a Quadro FX 3800 will be my next endeavour.

[Steve Hattori]

Rob, the Cimco guys have dual-hex-core HP workstations----very fast, if you find software that uses multi-core! Sadly, that would not be us...

In the meantime, I'd still like to have one for future enhancements, and for now, I really like the SSD performance. I just did a comparison with a 5x path- PC took 4m 45sec, lappy- 2m 15sec..and the lappy is not OC'd like the pc IS... I think the 5x and highspeed stuff is disc-intensive, and the ssd shows a big difference for me, since most of what I do is 5x. I also wish Windows made clustering a bit easier...can't afford a mac just for that.

So, good luck with your new system- it should fast!

[Müřlıń®]

quote:

---

but 2.5 years out, when your $1500 Quadro card blows up

---

Underclock it G

It'l last longer...

 

 

Question about benchmarking that file...

 

Those computers that regen in 1 min vs 2 min. Does that mean all the other toolpaths crunch in half the time also?

[Mike DeButts @ MLC CAD Systems]

For those interested-SolidBox has updated product for the third quarter. Please visit the site www.mysolidbox.com/mastercam to see the new system configurations. Benchmark times will be added as the new systems filter in.

 

Also SolidBox has teamed up with San Diego CAD/CAM. So those of you in the San Diego area get with Trevor or contact SolidBox direct [email protected]

 

Any Mastercam or SolidWorks resellers interested in teaming with SolidBox please email [email protected]

[j.nguyen]

Ok,I just had Mastercam crash at a bad time and didn't save for 3.5 hours......oh well...I uninstalled my X4 and went to X2 for another customer and my config was not set to autosave.

 

So, I'm ready to run out and buy a computer right now just for Mastercam. I have been told that my computer is the issue. However, I have Unigraphics Catia and Vericut loaded on here and seem to have the most problem with Mastercam crashing? After reading though this thread I still don't know which machine that will give me the most stability. Speed is a second factor.

 

Will a every day user that uses all the operation 2-5 axis that uses large files and use it every day give me a suggestion on graphics card, processer etc. that will work good for me.

 

Thank You very much

Jamey

[Mike DeButts @ MLC CAD Systems]

Jamey,

 

Look at the www.mysolidbox.com site. Any of the Cobalt Series systems would work very well.

 

http://mysolidbox.com/mastercam/index.php?...e=index&cPath=4

 

Feel free to give me a call with questions. 512-906-6398

 

Thanks

Mike

[j.nguyen]

Thanks Mike-

 

I should have mentioned it needs to be a laptop. The FX2800 is a good graphics card for Mastercam. Have you used this one running Mastercam on a regular basis? Sounds like the graphics card is key?

 

Jamey

[Mike DeButts @ MLC CAD Systems]

Yes sir the SolidBox Laptops below use the FX2800M

 

Cobalt Mobile

http://www.mysolidbox.com/mastercam/index....&products_id=15

 

 

Carbide Mobile L1

http://www.mysolidbox.com/mastercam/index....0&products_id=4

 

Thanks

[gcode]

New Toys for gcode..

 

I've got 2 of these puppies coming in next week..

just in time too.. we're going to be kellering the

front end of a ship for the Navy soon.. I expect we'll be giving these guys a workout

[Joe788]

Nice gcode! Let us know how they do.

[gcode]

I'm looking forward to testing them out.

Our IT guy absolutely forbade the RAID 0 setup

so I ordered them RAID 1.

That will knock the performance back somewhat but they will still be killer machines

[gcode]

Finally got our new Carbide Level 1's online this week.

Quoted delivery was 3 weeks.. actual delivery

was 5 days.

It took longer to get my IT department to hook them up than it took to get them bought and delivered

Out of the box they run the benchmark in 1:15

The Quadro FX-4800 video card is awesome.

STL files that took 20-30 seconds to load into

Verify on my old machine open in a couple of seconds on these machines.

So far these machines have been rock solid.

No issues to report and bazing fast..

I don't do the 300-500 meg mold files that kill Verify for a lot of people. It would be interesting to run one through Verify and see how these machines handle it.

[Shirokuma]

I need a computer for Mastercam x4 to run a vertical mill.

 

What purchase would be considered...

 

top end?

middle of the road?

and good enough?

 

Should I just purchase the profile used in Rob's signature, starting with a Dell T3500?

 

- Jeff

[Rob @ Target Machine]

Jeff,

 

The equivalent of my build is the SolidBox Cobalt series Level 1.

 

I can say that I'm very happy with it and I run the benchmark in 1min 12 sec.

 

I wasn't too impressed with the first line of SolidBox systems, but I am impressed with what they offer now.

 

I'd give Mike a call at SB. I hear good things from other forum members who have purchased one of thes systems.

 

BTW. My next box will be a SolidBox.

 

My advice...Get a Cobalt Level 1 or better and ask for an Intel X25M G2 SSD instead of the 10k drives in Raid 0 or get them set up for Raid 1.

 

Running raid 0 is very dangerous if you're not running Acronis Backup daily like I am.

 

[ 08-17-2010, 10:13 PM: Message edited by: Rob @ R & D Engineering ]

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Jeff, it really depends on what kind of parts and programs you'll be doing. If you're a moldmaker, you need top end. If you're doing two and a half axis work (plates with holes), you could get by fine with what most people throw away. The bigger the part is, the more features it has, and the more organic the features are, the more computer you'll need.

[Mike DeButts @ MLC CAD Systems]

I saw mention of Mastercam not being able to utilize multiple core processors. Well in fact it does with X4. Check out this video http://www.mastercammill.com/videos/multi-...ing_render.html

 

This is a huge time saver for those using High Speed Surface and Multi-Axis Toolpaths...

 

You will find many Multi-Core processors [Quad Core to Six Core] in the SolidBox computer systems found here www.mysolidbox.com/mastercam

[MotorCityMinion]

Flame suit on:

 

BS, as most of of like to see the end results of what we just programmed before moving on to the next tool path as it is usually dependent on the results of the previous path. You also can not utilize the multi core with all the tool paths, only the newer ones.

 

You will find many Multi-Core processors [Quad Core to Six Core] in the (NAME YOUR STORE) computer systems, for less money, found anywhere on the net.

 

Got deep pockets or don't feel like doing the research, buy it from Solidbox. Ya, I'm envious as well.

[gcode]

quote:

---

You will find many Multi-Core processors [Quad Core to Six Core] in the (NAME YOUR STORE) computer systems

---

true but if you want Quadro video cards you have fewer choices

Dell HP Xi Polywell etc or do it yourself.

I buy Dell cause they are strong machines with

a world class warranty.. and Solidbox is a Dell

at a substantial discount.

Sure I could home build 90% of the performance for 60% of the money... but I would never sell that to my boss...and you're not going to get a

3 year warranty on a do it yourself box.

I gave our IT vendor a shot and building those boxes and he couldn't come close