Snappy little PC for cadcam

Close... Make that $500 plus $180 for the FX580 (really good priced video card btw). Still no ready made box could come close. : )

-- Bill

decent system.. What OS are you running? If you take the plunge to

I'm sticking with XP (32bit) for a while. When Win7 comes out with a service pack I'll jump into 64bit and more memory. NX while known to work with Win7 is not yet certified for it. I always wait for the first service pack anyways.

-- Bill

Yea, I don't blame you. I made the switch to vista for 64bit just so I could get more ram for my solidworks machine. There were a few headaches but all in all its a solid machine. Core i7 extreme, 12gb ddr3, raptor drive and a fx580.. I couldn't run my dual ancient monitors on the 580 so I had to switch back to my older fgl 5600. It works fine.

But the 580 at under 200 bucks is great. the 5600 cost me an arm and a leg when I got it.

In time I plan to add one of those 10krpm drives as the boot/ application drive. Then use the current 7500rpm HD for work space. Should speed things up even more.

-- Bill

nICE.

What would help me is a second computer. Two identical boxes, chair with wheels.

No reason for the 10K drives. The newer single platter Samsung drives are nearly as fast, with 2x the size for 1/2 the price.

I'm building a similar system currently. But haven't decided on a Core i5, or a AMD Phenom II x4. But I'm going to bypass the Quadro card, and instead do an ATI 4670, and do a soft-FireGL hack to it.

Better yet, set up dual monitors on your main PC, then use RealVNC or a similar app to remote to your other boxes.

There was a time when I used to program, setup-run machine, while running, program next op... Seems as parts got more complex I decided to stick with programming only then help the setup guy. Maybe it's an age thing.

The dual monitor thing, just realized I'm currently using a 19" lcd wide screen, but have an old 19" lcd square format sitting around. Might look a little odd but could be better than one. My wife on the other hand has a killer 28" Viewsonic. She won't give that baby up. She uses it for accounting work. Can put two fullsize 8.5 x 11" pages next to each other!

-- Bill

Being on NX, I've always opted for Intel & Nvidia Quadro. Don't overclock, don't really tinker once it works. Never an issue. Are you gaming with this system? I've never liked ATI for cad but hear they can be the gamer's delight.

-- Bill

The quatro I have at work SUUXXXX!!! I think it's the cheapest one. I have literally an old style pci slot nvidia 6200 that blows the quatro away across the board. But I hear gaming cards go faster than cad cards because they take "liberties". Where the cad picture is more accurate. I can't tell the difference, but I can tell a speed difference of 25%, I timed it. Sad thing is my dell 2.8 crunched code at almost half the speed at work. So I can verify a lot faster, but generate a lot slower at home.

Don't

Overclocking sucks, even for gaming. Most of the time you crank up the mhz you have to crank up the voltage. that is what the real time clock uses...

Never an issue. Are you

There was a time for cad ati was the only way to go. But their drivers have historically sucked. Plus they got into the game market and cheapened up their cards. NVIDIA RULES!!! I had their first card, been a loyal fan ever since.

Now you need a good sound card so you can jam out while programming. I suggest the sblive fatality pro gamer with 50 meg of ram on the card. That card is a work of art. You will be able to listen to music and not choke your system.

Got a good spaceball??

The other guys at work have dual wide screen lcd's, and I have one 21" viewsonic. I wouldn't trade any of em setups. I love a big fat giant monitor that's not 10 feet long and short. I love high refresh rates, glossy convex glass screens, hell I love to degauss! lol But two pc's would be the bomb.

Now sittingduck might be onto something... I am on nightshift, out in an office in the shop, and there's 20 badass comps in the design room, all connected on a sweet network. So maybe I could log into a couple of those boxes, and use them to verify, post code, etc... hmmmm.....

News flash... The fan would not fire up on the FX580 card... even after all day use... odd. So I found a local distributer who got me an FX1700 for about the same price. Works great.

Even better, since I like to play and record music in my spare time, I've had an Audiobox usb unit by PreSonus. Supports two XLR or line inputs as well as a mixing function. When more work comes my way, I'll pick up another drive to keep that stuff on. Right now I've got a couple jobs but like all start ups... slow.

Still got my little Space Traveler that works fine.