Cad Desktop, Comments Welcome?

Processor AMD Athlon 64 3400+ Mother Board Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP Memory KVR333X64C25/1G Graphics Card VP880 Pro Hard Drive Western Digital 80GB - WD800JB CD/DVD -/+ Burner Sony DRU530A Monitor 1 x Iiyama 22" 514

I'm putting together a SW CAD desktop for the first time! at home, My money so cost is an issue. I'm inviting informed comment, Please shoot me down in flames if I've got it wrong but please explain why. From my research I have come up with the above,

The first processor I looked at was the Athlon 64 Fx but I was eventually put off by the cost, I use Solidworks a lot but I'm moving from a PIII 800Mhz so anything is going to be an improvement! Ps I'm going for AMD as I can't see why not? plus they can work both 32 & 64, not that I have any software to take advantage of this yet!

The motherboard was an unknown quantity for me. Gigabyte seemed to offer a good number of choices, which I thought was a good sign? Haven't used Raid before But I've gone for the High end option which supports Raid.Backup is becoming more of an issue for me. So I may be tempted to implement it later.

For Memory I have decided to start with 1Gb 333, the motherboard will allow up to 3Gb with 333 and lower and 2Gb with 400, Now again I'm half guessing but with 400 the memory has to come in pairs? What would I need to do to notice the difference between 333 & 400?

Graphics Cards, First I looked at

formatting link

and noted all the cards that supported SW 100% and then went from there. Again cost is a factor but I'm unsure of how to match my requirements to the hardware, anyway The "VP990 Pro" sounded a bit too extreme for me, I should also point out I work in the Film/Tv industry hence I like the idea of having good rendering hardware, even if I haven't got the software yet.

Hard Drives? Again Western Digital is a name I've seen before but that's as Far as it goes, I haven't gone balls out for 250Gb as I don't need it just yet, plus there is something about not putting all my eggs in one basket! I'd rather have several smaller as opposed to one large.

One thing that's slowed me down in the past is CD burning hence its got to be worse with DVD so I've elected to go for best which supports the most, I think this Sony may be it, and the cost isn't too off putting.

Monitors, I worked with IIyama 22" in the past so I'm going back for more. Again Cost is an issue so I'm just going with one for the start but I plan to move onto dual display in the future.

Anyway theses are my very uninformed thoughts so far please add freely

Regards

Oliver

Olly,

Good MB, I have two of the -940's, and good processor.

Memory is sufficient for most work.

I'd steer clear of the 3D labs card. I used to use 3D labs exclusively (permedia 1 thru GVX) They had a good product with good drivers and support. They dropped the ball and tried to live off the R3-4/Gamma chipset combo for too long. Nvida was way ahead of them for years. By the time they had a new chipset it was too late. They nearly went bankrupt, and ended up being bought by Creative.

I don't think they have the development and support resources they once had. Everyone's had problems with thier newer cards and drivers. Nvida cards are faster and have more mature drivers, at least for now.

Western Digital hasn't made a "reliable" hard drive since the mid to late

90's. I got a pile of fairly new (failed) WD drives, I wouldn't buy another one. Get a Maxtor

Regards

Mark