Computer hardware for mastercam-which components to spend money on...

[?Mark]

got my overclocked, liquid cooled Quadro 4200k, 500g Intel ssd Boxx in yesterday

all I can say is Wow.. this puppy is fast... and quiet.

there is downside though.. now my home rig seems really lame

Any way to compare verification times between your old and a new pc? Can you pick something with substantial verification times (30+ minutes)?. I'm loosing a lot of time on that. I'd greatly appreciate it.

Seems that toolpath generation times are not that bad anymore with multicore processors. It's the verify that seems to become more of the bottleneck for me.

[Zbuilder]

Well, one programmer here has the Dell Precision T1700 with NVidia K600 card. Graphics in X8 work correctly & is still pretty fast. He doesn't have very big files, usually less than 5 megs or so, or less so he can get away with it. So IT gets me the K620 card because it has 2 Gig ram instead of 1Gig that the K600 has. Well, the K620 card does not work for X8 very well. When doing a Backplot, the toolpath for all selected operations are always on & the Quick Verify is either all off or all on & cannot follow or walk with the tool while stepping. This is a problem because it is more difficult & time consuming to try to verify with the Quick verify off & all the paths showing & with Quick Verify on, all your geometry is covered. I tried changing every setting on drivers in different configurations & nothing has worked. I tried turning off Hardware Accel & the Front Buffer in X8 but that didn't help either. My next try will be to uninstall the K620 drivers & try to install the K600 drivers if it will let me. I'll update in a bit.

[Zbuilder]

Oh, before I work on it I forgot to mention that X6 still works correctly but X8 doesn't. Looks like a big enough change in the video protion has been changed in X8. Don't know about X7, we skipped over it because X6 works so well.

[Zbuilder]

OK, according to NVidia, there's no way to load different drivers onto a card using their driver software because it checks the actual chipset on the card & installs the appropriate drivers. Bummer. Guess I have to use X6 until I get another card.

[rhettmandel]

I'm enjoying reading this thread and all you reply's because I'm also in the market for a new workstation for Mastercam here at work. I need help. Every time I've received a  new workstation it always seems fast then it gradually slows down and I am constrained to it's pace.

 

Currently I have a:

 

Think Station C30

OS: Windows 7 64-bit Professional

Processor: Intel Xeon® es-2620 @ 2.0GHz
Memory: 24 GB
Video: NVidia Quadro 2000D
500 GB 7200 rpm HD

 

This system really gets slow it locks up like crazy and I only have Mastercam and Solidworks, and I rarely run them simultaneously. It has gotten better with X8 and X9 but it's not efficient to me yet.

 

 

I requested these specifications  as a minimum based on what I have read here on the forums:
 
OS: Windows 7 or 8/8.1 64-bit Professional
Processor: Intel I7
Memory: 32 GB
Video: NVidia Quadro k4200
250 GB solid state drive

 
Our IT department returned with this:

 

 

 

Do you guys think this system will be ok? I mostly program simple part geometry, but I utilize all of Mastercams Dynamic and 3d tool paths. Please give me you opinions on this system based on the specifications, and what kind of performance would I be expecting. My current workstation takes about 12 minutes for the benchmark file.

 

Thanks.

[m98custom1212]

No! Horrible Selection.

 

Only thing is good is the Xeon but I wouldn't recommand a Xeon for you either. I would save the money and go I7 47XX  or step and go I7 5820.

Not enough ram 16gb minimal for  desktop cad/cam workstation 

No SSD. No modern Workstation should come with out an SSD at least 256gb

  

 

Send me link something confusing about K4200 in lenovo but they added on 2200? 

 

$2k? Really ask dstryr about the computer I recommand for him it was around $2.5 mark  but had a hexcore and 512SSD

[rhettmandel]

m98custom1212 thanks for the reply.

 

The way it works is I give my company specifications and they buy what they think is close enough to what I requested. Also I'm constrained to Lenovo because that our approved vendor at the moment.

I requested an I7 and ssd based on reading the forums and they came back with xeons and a hybrid drive. My current system has 24 gb of ram, and this one only has 8.

 

It comes with the k4200 I accidentally added the other qoute to this thread. So the K4200 is good enough?

 

Here is another one IT sent me. Is this better?

 

[Zbuilder]

I had the hybrid drive also but with Trend Micro (company anti-virus) , it's still too slow. Complete boot up, where the HDD light isn't on anymore, takes about 2 minutes. With my new SSD, less than 30 sec. I can see a speed up during use also. Look at Micro Center (online)  for SSD sales right now.

[Eric@HorsepowerInc.]

I had to jump in on this subject, and I personally will never buy another without a ssd. So much faster, and not quite bullit proof but close. The I7 and quadro have served me well on all the software we use.

[rhettmandel]

Hey guys I really do appreciate the feedback. So do you guys think I can just upgrade my drive to a SSD based on my scores below? I am leaning towards just keeping my current workstation, because based on the choices I was given I feel like it's not worth the effort for minimal increase in productivity. But from what everyone has been saying for years, a SSD makes a huge difference for a minimal investment.  I'm going to see if I can try just getting a SSD first, usually here it seems like they would rather replace a whole system than just a component, but I'll try. Let me know what you guys diagnose from these scores. It does show my HDD as being the weakest link of my workstation.

 

[Zbuilder]

Make sure your BIOS can be set to AHCI. You seem to have a newer type so I'm sure it has it but make sure it's turned on for the SSD. Improves performance of the SSD by making sure all features are used.

[rhettmandel]

Does Mastercam have an list of workstations it tested on? That would great then we could just go buy what they use. They should have CNC Software list their teams rigs so we can go get the same ones, especially for those users like me who are not big experts on pc components.

[m98custom1212]

That Xeon is 10cores but horrible clock speed 2.3GHz.