[Guntruck]

Im simply fed up with my current computer... I consider myself fairly good at diagnosing hardware related issues yet my current system remains nearly unuseably unstable. It's a P4 2.6ghz 800mhzFSB blah blah... anyway... ive replaced every component execpt for the CPU and the Gigabtye 8knxp Rev 1.0 motherboard and im just sick of the thing randomly crashing and going very slow at times... ANYWAY, I'm not a gamer and the main thing I use my computer for is Catia. What systems are you CAD guys out there running at work etc??? I just need something extremely fast. I currently have alot of good components so im just thinking of upgrading the mobo/processor.. what do you guys think??

 

[Mike B.]

There are several monkeys that could help you spec out a great machine for what you are doing. Personally I'm using an Athlon 64 X2 (3800+ I believe) for mostly Solidworks and some big spreadsheets. I'm never lacking anything but more screen real estate, dual 17" LCDs now but I'd like to go with dual 19".

 

[stosh]

Check out Xi Computers. They make machines for running CAD programs.

What is your budget?

 

[SK6]

Check out Xi Computers. They make machines for running CAD programs.

What is your budget?

Xi makes a killer station.

Typically, the best way to improve performance with most cad software is RAM and RAM.

Essentially CAD eats up memory like there’s no tomorrow. So get as much RAM as the motherboard can handle, and then the video card, same thing, as much video memory as you can afford to buy.

Trust me I know, I’ve been doing this for 20 years…….

 

[DHS]

Amd 64 3800+, 2gigs ram 4800, asus sli deluxe board. dual Geforce 6800 cards, SATA 7200 drives. XP Pro.

never gets slow for me.

 

[Mike B.]

Yeah, forgot to mention the 2GB of RAM to go with the Athlon 64 X2

 

[Rockland]

Time to stop playing around. You need to step up to one of these bad boys. :devil:

kidding.

My first engineering job, right out of school, I was seated infront of one of these. Indigo 2 running SDRC I-Deas (a program I don't think is even made any more).

Prior to that I had only used AutoCAD on DOS.

 

[SK6]

After 20 years, I've used Autocad, including teaching it, Microstation, Quickpen (stand alone and Autocad) SolidWorks, IterGraph (sp?) (the original version of microstation) MatC CAD and a few other that were so old and long ago, I forgot the name.

More RAM in the box and on the Vid card. There used to be a phrase, "Buy RAM till it hurts"

 

[Guntruck]

I really dont have any budget... just nothing completely unreasonable. I have a decent Video card XFX FX5900ULTRA with 512 Mushkin ram in dual channel.... I just think I need a new board and processor...