building new computer 1000 budget

[hcivic.com]

so the time has come and the old system needs replacing, been a while so I have no idea what to buy. Give me some ideas, i mostly do the office stuff, and work on solid works and thats it

 

[endlesszeal]

would that be with or without a monitor? or is a complete build?

Definately a conroe based system because quite frankly, they completely manhandle any of amds processors and probably for a while until K8L is released...

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300: $183
Gigabyte S3: $123
Corsair XMS 2X1GB 675mhz: $205 after rebate
NEC 3550A: $30
Seagate 320GB: $95
OCZ GameXtreme 700watt: $110 after rebate
Cooler Master Centurion 532: $50 after rebate
Video Card: ~$200 left


This is a really rough estimate. Since you're doing CAD work and stuff, I would suggest trying to bump it up to the E6600 core ($312) because it has twice the cache, which is nice for heavy rendering apps. The Gigabyte S3 is one of the first boards to support Conroe and has been a favorite so far for the budget. 2GB is the minimum for what your intended needs and 675mhz because its not biggie compared to 800mhz if you're not going to overclock. The power supply is nice solid one for a good price and the Centurion case is really quite. Of course you could replace both for the Antec Sonata II w/480 watt psu for roughly $70 and you'd have another $90 to spend on the graphics card. I didnt know which one to suggest since CAD cards and gamer cards are quite different.

Just throwing some stuff out there.

 

[CRX-YEM]

I just put 8 of these computers together for our SolidWorks 2007 CAD design centers
If you don't need a moitor it's ~ $1050, if you need more disk space add a bigger had disk
Also keep in mind that SolidWorks has had better benchmarks running with the AMDx2 chips vs Intel Duo's

The limitation of using the eVGA 7950GT vs. an nvidia quadra FX540 workstation graphics card is the limited number of accelerated windows. Amount of video memory determines the number. If 64M - 128M of memory, 3-12 accelerated full screen windows. So I choose a 512MB 256bit video card over the the quadra series, because once you look for something in the quadra line that has any sort of horsepower you're going to spend $600+ on a graphics card.

The part number are all newegg order numbers

Case Chenming 601AEB​

N82E16811125480​

$57.99​

Mother Board MSI K9N Platinum Socket AM2​

N82E16813130049​

$99.99​

Processor 2.2GHz AMD x2​

N82E16819103747​

$182.00​

Memory G.SKILL 2GB DDR2 800​

N82E16820231098​

$209.99​

Video eVGA 7950GT 512MB​

N82E16814130061​

$279.99​

DVD-writer NEC 7170A​

N82E16827152076​

$30.99​

Power Supply ASPIRE 680W​

N82E16817148019​

$99.99​

System HDD Seagate 80GB SATA 3​

N82E16822148107​

$49.99​

CPU Cooling TT Venus 12​

N82E16835106038​

$26.99​

Coling Fans80mm x2​

N82E16811999071​

$9.98​

LCD Monitor 19" Viewsonic LCD​

N82E16824116011​

$189.99​

 

[hcivic.com]

thanks for the help

 

[MikeBergy]

If your work is primarily 3d CAD, I'd wait a month and save the extra for a Quadra series card. Gaming cards and Workstations cards work differently. My friends' PCI-e cards didn't run Solidworks nearly as well as the Quadra based card that was in my coworkers workstation; the workstation was running off win 2k though, and the other off XP. Don't know how much of a difference that would've made though.

 

[reikoshea]

Well here ya go. This is the best computer (box components only) i can come up with for under $1,000:

Rosewill R604-P Case​

N82E16811147058​

$25.99​

Hitachi 160GB Hard Drive​

N82E16822145091​

$53.99​

PNY Quadro FX540 128MB​

N82E16814133132​

$229.99​

LG DVD-ROM Drive​

N82E16827136083​

$17.49​

Rosewill 500w PSU​

N82E16817182044​

$52.99​

pqi 2GB DDR2 533​

N82E16820141224​

$182.99​

Intel P965 Motherboard​

N82E16813121035​

$106.99​

Intel E6300 Processor​

N82E16819115005​

$181.00​

Microsoft Windows XP Pro​

N82E16832116175​

$139.99​

Total Price: $991.42

Intel generally works better for intensive applications like solid works, and the Core 2 Duo is vastly superior to anything on the market per $.

Quadro Video cards are excellent for stuff like CAD, Solid Works and Inventor.

I dunno what else to add to that. But you can probably drop the OS and the hard drive for a new monitor or something if you plan on swapping hard drives.

 

[CRX-YEM]

PNY Quadro FX540 128MB = POS compared to the 7950GT 512MB

I have these systems up and running solidworks flawlessly.

Also I really wouldn't use the Intel Duo, the AMDx2 perform far better in in a solidworks environment. Also I'm running solidworks2007 on a XP machine with a really old pos no name video card, works fine with minor limitations. So the 7950GT which I have running now will be adequate. If you're going to be building 250+ piece assemblies, then yes a Quadra series card is a necessity.

pqi 2GB DDR2 533 *note, I would not use anything less than the DDR2-533, I preffer the DDR2-800 as I have noticed much improved performance over DDR2-533
​

 

[reikoshea]

PNY Quadro FX540 128MB = POS compared to the 7950GT 512MB

I have these systems up and running solidworks flawlessly.

Also I really wouldn't use the Intel Duo, the AMDx2 perform far better in in a solidworks environment. Also I'm running solidworks2007 on a XP machine with a really old pos no name video card, works fine with minor limitations. So the 7950GT which I have running now will be adequate. If you're going to be building 250+ piece assemblies, then yes a Quadra series card is a necessity.

pqi 2GB DDR2 533 *note, I would not use anything less than the DDR2-533, I preffer the DDR2-800 as I have noticed much improved performance over DDR2-533
​

yup, youre definitely right on a few of the things, but i have trouble believing that the X2 out runs a Conroe Core Intel especially in something like solid works. The reason you noticed better performance with the DDR2-800 RAM on your computer is because of Hyper Transport. Im not going to argue that point, because you are right. If you tweak Hyper Transport to run with DDR2-800 then you will most-likely be on par with an Intel Duo 6300 with the standard 533.

As for the Quadro, I will concede to your point. Ive always been of the mind that if you are going to be doing CAD work, a Quadro or FireGL card is usually a better choice over the gaming cards. Truly, Ive never used a Quadro card with cad. OnBoard Unicrome, Ti4200, and 9800pro were the only cards ive used with CAD. If you do CAD work for a living, i will bow to you on this point.

I guess a lot of its just a matter of preference.

I was trying to figure out how you got all the stuff you did within the budget. Then i noticed you were at $1,237.89. Oh well.

 

[CRX-YEM]

I'm not trying to say the X2 out performs the Conroe in all instances, only in the new version of solidworks have I seen a vast inprovement.

I saw $1000 budget, figured if he wanted a descent system, then he spend an extra $200. either system you or I spec'd would perform well for his needs I pressume.

 

[reikoshea]

I'm not trying to say the X2 out performs the Conroe in all instances, only in the new version of solidworks have I seen a vast inprovement.

I saw $1000 budget, figured if he wanted a descent system, then he spend an extra $200. either system you or I spec'd would perform well for his needs I pressume.

Most definitely, the language i used makes it feel like im mad at you are calling you out or something. That wasnt my intention, just talkin, you know.

My system that im buying after christmas will DEFINITELY blow both of ours away though. But im kinda cheating. Going with the Dual Monitor (19") setup, E6400 (OCing), 7950GT 512MB and 2GB of G.Skill DDR-800 CAS 4 RAM. Good system. Vast improvement over the $2,000 one. But i had to drop some of the fun .

 

[CRX-YEM]

I like your honestly and sincerity, and I didn't take it to heart at all, I assumed we were having a civil discussion. nice to see we're on the same page (no pun intended)

 

[MikeBergy]

PNY Quadro FX540 128MB = POS compared to the 7950GT 512MB

If you're going to be building 250+ piece assemblies, then yes a Quadra series card is a necessity.

Yes, and Yes.
That is an OLD Quadro card. Solidworks is compatible with a lot of the newer Ge-Force cards, you just have to go onto SolidWorks' site to see which ones work well and which don't. Gaming cards will work, they just aren't as efficient as the workstation cards. It's like using a P4 with HT for a server platform, or a Xeon dual processor setup for your gaming computer. They may work, but they are by no means the optimal piece of hardware for the job. The 7950 has way better specs compared to that old quadro for any graphics task. It's just a newer, better card.

Our aircraft design had a few thousand parts in the assembly; hell, we probably had a couple hundred asemblies within the assembly. A quadro would have come in handy. It took like 5 minutes for the machine to load it, and when we made changes, we always had our fingers crossed.

 

[Citizen_Insane]

Also keep in mind that it is very easy to bios flash GeForce cards to turn them into Quadro cards for a fraction of the cost. You'll have to research which version of the card to get, but almost all Nvidia cards share the same GPU, they just run different software to enhance certain things. Pixle shading and all the cool effects you see in games waste a lot of pure geometry pushing power that can be freed up by bios flashing. $300 >>> $1500 (and the performance is exactly the same).

 

[endlesszeal]

Thats a good alternative, however, a quick search seems to say that the geforces are no longer softmoddable to quardos. The only PCIE version will the be the 6800s, which is already 2 generations old. I dont know how the ATI camp is doing.

A possible solution is find a moddable geforce and use it solely for rendering and then get a separate card to run video games since most boards now have 2 PCI-E 16x lanes. Not sure if this would work though..

 

[endlesszeal]

Geforce7800gtx/gt mod quadro is possible? - Guru3D.com Forums

similar forums seem to mirror the responses.

 

[Citizen_Insane]

Oh, I just assumed it was possible since it was with older cards...I have a 6800 and was recently thinking of doing the mod, but since I game, it'd be sort of a waste.