Xeon processor

[Jody]

Hi all!!

 

I am looking at a new computer. Is the Xeon Processor worth the extra money? and is the FX5900 with 128MB or the FX5600 with 256MB better.

 

thanks

Jody

[crazy^millman]

From what I have seen and researched my next will be a dual Xeon worth about $14,000 dollars with 4 hard drives and a riad 5 controller to boot. Of course I am crazy like that. I spent more on my computer at home than my company has on any computer hey have in here.

 

Crazy Millman Feels you need the rigth tool to do the job if not usign the right tool then why do the job to being with.

 

[ 10-20-2003, 03:28 PM: Message edited by: Millman^Crazy ]

[Jayson Kramer]

The FX5900 is the better card..

[the1yyz]

Dual Xeon's are very helpfull however I am not sure current mastercam versions support multi-threading.

 

Your best bet is to find a mother board with lots of sockets for ram. SCSI not IDE is a better way to go on any 3D app. As for the graphics a little more speed and ram can never hurt.

 

I have gone from 1- 1gig processor to 2 - 1gig processor (PEnt III) and have notice only a slight increase in performace in Mastercam.

 

Anybody have and system recommendations.

[CNCGUY]

At my previous job we had a Xeon processor with a SCSI. I dont know what the graphics card and ram was. I think CNC had to update a file for the HASP.

 

The MCAM rep. always commented on how fast it processed large 3D toolpaths. I loved it.

[pimij]

If you search the forum there is some posts related to this - basically MasterCAM is DOS app in a windows world - so it ignores any SSE or hyperthreaded extensions. Any processor with a strong FPU will do a good job (AMD - hint) - I'm sure all of this will change when X comes out though - full-blown windows app and all.

[Bullines]

You might not notice a huge difference in performance between a P4 and a Xeon right now. If you go the dual route, then Xeon all the way, obviously.

[Jody]

Thanks everyone,

 

Jay, is the 5900 card that much better than the 5600 even if i go with half the memory in the 5900?

 

Bullines, if i went with dual Xeon processors we would have more money in the computer than we have in CNC's. j/k

 

Jody

[Bullines]

Dare to compare the specs:

 

5600 & 5900

 

As far as Mastercam is concerned, there isn't that great of a difference between the two. Mastercam doesn't have to worry much about bump mapping, dynamic shaders, etc. If it were my money, and you won't be running things like Doom 3, Half-Life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004, I'd get the 256MB version of the 5600.

[MetalMarvels]

I really like the 256 MB version of the FX5600 - runs everything I want (MC, SolidWorks, Mechanical Desktop, and games). It also doesn't sound like a jet engine at takeoff RPMs.

 

JM2C

[Jody]

That is what I was looking for

quote:

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If it were my money

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and

quote:

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I really like the 256 MB version of the FX5600

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I understand that. I went to the links bullines post and understand those pages about as well as I understand ?women?

 

thanks

Jody

[Bullines]

quote:

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I understand that. I went to the links bullines post and understand those pages about as well as I understand ?women?

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Ok, then To put it another way. If you chose the 256MB version of the GeForce FX 5900 instead of the 256MB version of the GeForce FX 5600, you may be able to run Unreal Tournament 2003 at 1600x1200 with all the details cranked and get decent frame rates. You'd probably have to settle for 1280x1024 with all the details cranked with the GeForce FX 5600 to get equivalent frame rates.

 

If you chose the 128MB version of the 5900 instead of the 256MB version of the 5600, the results would be the same as above. The only difference would be that the 128MB 5900 would require Unreal Tournament 2003 to use the cache more often since it has less memory to store all the textures and such.

 

What does this have to do with Mastercam? Nothing at all. Mastercam doesn't have to worry about things like real-time lighting/shadowing and fancy-shmancy visual effects. Therefore, the stronger/bigger-bandwidth on the 5900's GPU is irrelevant in terms of Mastercam, which why I say the 5600 would be just as good (and less expensive). Personally, I'd want the 256MB version.

 

Better?

[Jody]

bullines,

 

You got all that out those two links. Wow!! You have brains beyond your wisdom

 

I am going to have them quote the 5600 with 256 memory.

 

Thanks

Jody