Our office is in the process of pricing and purchasing new work stations for 19 CAD users before our upgrade to '16. Here are the specifications agreed to so far by IT:
Lenovo ThinkStation P300 Intel Core i7-4790 Quad Core 3.60 GHz
NVIDIA Quadro K620 2GB Graphics - Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
8GB RAM - 32GB Maximum RAM - DDR3 SDRAM - 4 x Memory Slots - 1TB
(Upgraded Memory) 8GB DDR3 1600 PC3 12800 ECC UDIMM --- Total memory 24GB
Does anyone have opinions about what's sufficient/insufficient/overkill with this setup? We do a lot of image overlay and GIS map import. DTM occasionally. The idea is for these machines to be useful for 3-5 years. Any advice would be helpful before we pull the trigger and place an order. Thanks in advance.
My understanding is that AutoCAD and its family of related products makes no use of more than a single processor core, so multi-core processors do nothing for you - for ACAD, at least. What you want is the processor with the largest cache memory, which are typically Xeons. That what I've been told, anyway.
those are cheap enough...
max out on the RAM
get Two 1 TB drives, the second one as automated (30 minute) full backup.
good software should be able to split the load between Acad and all the other processes, even if Acad get stuffed on just one... keeps the quad core busy without maxing out.
JD,
Here's two places to check.
Hardware Advisor:
AutoCAD Recommended Hardware
Certified Hardware:
Autodesk - Certified Hardware - Find Recommended Hardware
Dave
Thanks Guys. More memory is probably a good call at least for the power users here. The look on IT's face should be priceless.
You will end up adding the RAM in year 4&5 anyway so you might as well do it now. Memory is cheap.
RAM is cheap, and I am cheap too. 🙂
Most Big Box vendors will use the smallest chips they can and fill all of the slots... the smaller chips that add up to Less than total RAM supported. Since the slots are full, to upgrade, the small chips will be pulled out and would go on the shelf. They make good decorations but are to light to use as paper weights. 🙂 Better to get fewer Big chips and have empty slots... if that can be specified, or just get it maxed out now.
http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Support-for-multi-core-processors-with-AutoCAD.html&apos ;">Autodesk's own words
Norman Oklahoma, post: 338023, member: 9981 wrote: http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Support-for-multi-core-processors-with-AutoCAD.html&apos ;">Autodesk's own words
that is both interesting and disappointing.
on the other hand, who sells high end CPU chips that are Not multi thread these days?
Dual Core is sop on the cheap ones, Quad Core multi thread on just about all the moderate to high end boxes. High powered GPUs are getting common too, even in laptops. I wonder if Autodesk can utilize those capabilities?