Computer Help - CAD Workstation

[piman2k]

Hello dudes

It occurred to me there are some clever computer cookies on here so I thought I'd ask for help.

I want to buy a personal CAD workstation, ideally a laptop as I don't want to set up a desk or buy monitors. Something that can run Solidworks or CATIA.

As a side note, if it could double up as a station to game from (ideally RFactor2 and iRacing) then that would be a mega bonus.

I do not mind buying refurbished at all, and I would like to spend extravagantly but have no concept of a budget requirement.

Would anyone have any ideas of what I'd need and where I could go to buy one?

Many thanks

Ryan.

[sideways14a]

Does your cad software scale with cores? If so there is only 1 make to consider.

...and it aint Intel.

[sideways14a]

I cant find many benches for Catia but a couple for solidworks shows zen2 AM4 cpus on par with intels 9th gen and in many rendering tasked humping them dry and hard.

If you are rendering a lot then maybe you should look for cinebench results for modern cpu's - they might not scale quite like your apps do but the results from cinebench r15 and r20 could be used as a bit of a sign post for where you should look.

Imho i would go one of two ways depending on finances.

AM4 platform with either 3900x or 3950x depending on how much grunt you need
if your flush with folded pictures of her maj and want the best of the best of everything pretty much ever then its gotta be Threadripper.
But TR = £££s

[sideways14a]

Here is one of many Threadripper benches in cinebench (rendering application)

Now while i do not for one second expect you to buy into the insane cost of this platform and the 64 core 128 thread godzilla of the computing world i thought i would post it in the hope you would buy it for me.

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_page..._review,7.html

The overclocked graphs on other sites are so bonkers out of control the editors had to rescale the graphs to show them.

[Drifter]

What you planning to model? I use Solidworks and I’m still using my original 7 year old laptop. It copes with most things, but I do use a desktop at the office which can handle the big models. Both of mine were built be workstation specialists.

Last I looked on my Solidworks reseller (solid solutions) they were pimping Dells for about £3300.

[sideways14a]

Dell intel stuff, you would have to put a 9mm to my head and promise to empty the entire mag to make me even consider using that junk.

[piman2k]

Thanks dudes. I literally have no idea what most of that meant.

I don’t intend to be modelling massive assemblies. Component parts and 3D scanned surface data. Nor will I do tonnes of rendering.

[Drifter]

I don’t intend to be modelling massive assemblies. Component parts and 3D scanned surface data. Nor will I do tonnes of rendering.

Shouldn’t need much of a spec for that, you’ll need to consider the requirements for the gaming more I think. I’ll check the specs on my laptop so the jock can poke holes in it lol.


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[piman2k]

Many thanks mate! I didn't think it would need to be fancy, but again, I used to know much more and now I'm at the point where I just don't think I care enough.

The gaming side of it is very, very secondary. It really isn't important. If it's the difference between a £500 refurbished job and a £2,000 rig to game on, I know where I'll be going.

[Drifter]

Okay so my old brick (survived a drop from pickup truck in Nigeria lol) is...

Intel i7 3720qm 2.6ghz
16gb ram
Nvidia Quadro k5000m
165Gb primary drive
400Gb data drive

All of our data is stored on Solidworks PDM server so space is not an issue.

It even survived the upgrade to Win 10!

Desktop is almost the same, faster cpu and twice the ram.


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[piman2k]

Thanks a lot chief, you're a superstar. I enquired with a rep about buying a copy of SW but I've gone completely unanswered.

[Drifter]

That’s the biggest cost tbh, I renewed all of our licences for 5 years for solidworks, simulation and pdm for £38k !

We do use Solid Solutions, used to be NTcadcam.


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[Drifter]

Just thinking, might be cheaper for Autodesk Inventor if you’re not fussed which software you use.


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[sideways14a]

Software costs dwarf actual hardware costs.
Imho the way to go is with one of the higher threaded AM4 platform chiops like the 3900 - you cant go wrong with that.

Oh and never in a million years would i touch a refurb.

[piman2k]

I’m not fussy, I just know Solidworks and CATIA.

Sideways, come on lad, point me to something then!

[Drifter]

I looked at Inventor before I started my current job, it looks the same as Solidworks, just slightly different commands.

Looking back Solidworks Pro was £5500 for a new licence back in 2015.

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[piman2k]

I don’t want to sound like a douche though but there are ways around licences.

Thanks dudes. I will try and decode what sideways wrote against your spec bud and figure it out.

[Drifter]

Yeah I think there’s copies out there. It used to be a twat to get around a few years back, but I’m sure a way around is out there.


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[sideways14a]

I dont know much about the software you are discussing but i do know an awful lot about computer hardware.

CPU - today and for the next couple of years at least its AMD - for rendering or anything that might be heavy on the processor then get one with more cores. The current 3900x is a 12 core 24 thread part, the 3700x is an 8 core 16 thread part and the 3950x is a 16 core 32 thread part. If your software "likes" more cores then obviously get a computer with a lot more of them. If the software is not strong on multithreading (ie tends to use only 1 or 2 cores) then get something with a high single thread speed - Intels top stuff is good at single or limited thread software because they have a higher clock speed* thus can usually be faster than a larger more powerful cpu with more cores but a lower clockspeed.

Memory - absolutely 100% minimum 16gb of ram nowadays, i would aim for 32 at least depending on budget and software requirements. I am not going to go into memory speeds and tuning because thats out of scope of this thread but if you want i can go into it.

Storage - No arguments here with anything, its SSD all the way now - unless you have some extremely big files to store but this is an outlier. Always always always back your machine up to the cloud or something else. I get several terabytes of MS cloud storage via onedrive which i jighly recomend for off site/ device backups as i work in education i get it free with O365 so try and get a cloud storage platform with large amounts of space, if you buy ms office 365 you get onedrive with it but its bloody expensive for businesses. For the SSD i would look at a minimum of a 1tb NVME m.2 drive.

Video card - i have no idea if your software supports gpu rendering or acceleration. Some do and thus you would need to check with the software requirements before we could make a decent suggestion.

Not much else bar flippancy like the case, dvd rom drive if you must have it... (dont bother unless you need it) and psu which should be of a good make, high enough wattage to support future requirements - i would say at least 650 watts.

Ohh and you need a copy of windows 10 - if your building yourself you will need to buy a license, if your purchasing from a pc supplier then it usually comes with that. I would factor in some additional software like malwarebytes ~15 a year iirc for extra malware help or one of the other many virus checkers.

Is this a standalone machine? or going on a lan, is it to be part of a large active directory network or just a home box?



*Within turbo duration (tao) - a turbo boost one a 5.2ghz intel 10900k is only supposed to last something like 45 seconds or so... then clock speed falls and so does performance..

[Drifter]

You can search through the certified options here, not that it tells you sod all without looking up the specs on the manufacturers website.


https://www.solidworks.com/support/h...-certification

This from Javelin might help

https://www.javelin-tech.com/blog/20...commendations/

Which suggests single core for normal models.

To be honest I’ve never looked into the hardware too much as I’ve always bought from the reseller.

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