AutoCAD hardware

Dai · 11-04-2009, 10:10

I've been tasked with speccing a machine for 3D AutoCAD use.

Do we have any AutoCAD gurus in da house?

Clearly it's got to be based on a 64bit system but I'd appreciate help to avoid any 'gotchas' later. Got a spec in mind I'll post if anyone has the experience to criticize.

Kymmy · 11-04-2009, 10:40

With autocad it's very much CPU speed, memory and the right sort of gfx card... (they do specific ones for cad/graphical workstations)

11-04-2009, 10:51

Twin xeons? loads of ram and as for gfx I dunno if you really needs specialised graphics hardware nowadays? you could bung a 4850x2 in for the price of a mid range FireGL. Is this for a professionals business so it can be offset by tax?

Jon T · 11-04-2009, 10:53

I've got a mate who's a CAD technician, when she asked her IT department about this she was given all the advice that already been given, she was also advised she may be best going for a RAID setup for the HDD setup.

TBH, as Zing said, I would imagine any decent mid/high end graphics card would do the job.

Graham M · 11-04-2009, 10:58

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...112&id=8915326

Kymmy · 11-04-2009, 10:59

I use Rhino a lot here on 2 PC's and memory really does impact the programs more than anything..

Zing and Jon is probably right about the gfx cards... especially as modern day cards have better physic engines built into them...

Dai · 11-04-2009, 11:43

Agreed about the memory issue. I've been observing him trying to run it on an existing workstation.

With a big 3D model you keep bumping into XP's 2Gb limit per program and there's a *lot* of disk swapping going on which slows everything to a crawl.

For that reason I'm thinking we have to start with a 64-bit system. I'm thinking a Core2 quad and possibly Quadro FX1800 graphics on a suitable mobo to carry a shed-load of ram.

Kymmy · 11-04-2009, 11:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

For that reason I'm thinking we have to start with a 64-bit system. I'm thinking a Core2 quad and possibly Quadro FX1800 graphics on a suitable mobo to carry a shed-load of ram.

That with at least 4GB sounds like a qood place to start

Dai · 11-04-2009, 11:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon T

I've got a mate who's a CAD technician, when she asked her IT department about this she was given all the advice that already been given, she was also advised she may be best going for a RAID setup for the HDD setup.

If he'll let me splash out a bit I was thinking of a couple of Raptors in Raid0. That should get me some write speed

11-04-2009, 11:50

you would be better with twin xeons and just standard hdds striped. The twin quad xeons would give you 60% extra ooomph over a single Q9

Is this a business solution?

What benefits are you going to get with that GFX over a 4870 in that system?besides spending an extra 250 quid?

Dai · 11-04-2009, 11:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

you would be better with twin xeons and just standard hdds striped. The twin quad xeons would give you 60% extra ooomph over a single Q9

Is this a business solution?

Yes, it's for a business client. I've been wondering about xeons myself. A dual-cpu board may be the best way to go.

AutoCAD is tested and certified with a restricted list of graphics cards. These have drivers specifically designed to work with the program.
You have to use one from the list to get best results.

Jon T · 11-04-2009, 12:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

Yes, it's for a business client. I've been wondering about xeons myself. A dual-cpu board may be the best way to go.

AutoCAD is tested and certified with a restricted list of graphics cards. These have drivers specifically designed to work with the program.
You have to use one from the list to get best results.

Are the CAD drawings going to be stored locally? If so you need to look at backup solutions.

What RAID level to use is a matter of choice, If you go with RAID 0(striping) you'll get nice and fast read/write performance but no increased data integrity/protection. Capacity for this RAID level will be the sum of both drives.

If you go for a RAID 1 array(mirroring), you've got fast read performance(write is usually not enhanced that much), and good data integrity in that if one drive fails, your PC will still work with the one good drive, you can then rebuild your array when you replace the faulty drive. Capacity of a RAID 1 array is half of it's total capacity though.

Dai · 11-04-2009, 12:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon T

Are the CAD drawings going to be stored locally? If so you need to look at backup solutions.

Good point Jon. My thoughts at this time are to keep the working storage local for best performance initially.

I'll probably push a backup across to the existing NAS on a schedule of some sort.

Jon T · 11-04-2009, 12:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

Good point Jon. My thoughts at this time are to keep the working storage local for best performance initially.

I'll probably push a backup across to the existing NAS on a schedule of some sort.

Do you know what a typical size may be for one of the AutoCAD files, does the NAS have enough space for now/the future?

Not knowing the network topology, how many workstations etc, this may not be a issue, but has the network got enough headroom/spare bandwidth and speed to cope with the backups without causing slowdown?

Sorry, not trying to be difficult, just helping you to make sure you've got all bases covered.

Dai · 11-04-2009, 13:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon T

Not knowing the network topology, how many workstations etc, this may not be a issue, but has the network got enough headroom/spare bandwidth and speed to cope with the backups without causing slowdown?

No problem Jon, you're certainly not being 'difficult' from where I'm standing. These are all things I'm adding to my checklist. And much appreciated.