desktop suggestions....

8 core 3.2 Ghz Mac Pro with a few extras makes it to $6000.

8 core 3.2 Ghz Mac Pro with a few extras makes it to $6000.

dont forget the 30 inch hd monitor or at least a 24.
bob

do you load windows on the intel mac to run solidworks? does that slow down the performance running in PC- mode or is it fine with solidworks?

Bo wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@i29g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
The Mac's Radeon video card is unsupported for SW. You'll get less support from the VAR than usual. Furthermore, 8 cores is a waste if you're only running SW. Buying a Mac just to run SW can't be a serious suggestion. The Mac may be a superior platform in general, but it's just wrong for SW.
If you want to buy a pre-built box without thinking too hard about tailoring it to your actual usage, I'd recommend having a look at the SPECapc benchmark results for SolidWorks:
Looks like the Dell 690 with the Xeon 5160 and Quadro 3500 is the fastest they have on record at the moment. For almost the same performance, you can nearly get a pair of Dell 390s for $6000. I think I'd spec the 690 and the 30" monitor. Maybe a pair of 24" monitors. Stay with XP pro for now. Either of these will run SW at a speed on par with the Mac, but with better, more stable graphics.

Go with a Appro XtremeWorkstation WH5548H ....
I'd start with 4 to 8 gigs of ram with a 64-bit OS of course. And in 1 or 2's years time, Solidworks and many more apps will be more and more multi-threaded and really put all 16 of those processsor cores to work! Also, after that time period, you could expand that 4\8 gigs fo ram to 128 gigs. You'll need it when windows 7 is released.
Don

I use a PC with a 24 inch monitor 1920x1200.
Bob

Thanks!

Obviously, there are options to put in whatever graphic card you want in a Mac., and there is one reasonable priced NVIDIA card and several other Radeons.
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
I wouldn't necessarily discount Apple. The base price Mac Pro Quad Core 2.8 GHz starts just under $2500, & ramps up depending on all the options, just like Dell, HP and the rest.
A DELL 690 starts @ $1700, & quickly blows past $4000, but I haven't tried to do a literal comparison between nearly identically equipped Mac & Dell workstations.
Wonking out on one brand versus another without a hard look may shortchange you on what you might be able to do.
I don't say Mac is the right choice, but just one of many good ones. I personally don't run Swks on a desktop, but I do run SolidWorks on my Mac Laptop, and it suits my needs now.
Bo

Don't speak if you don't know. There is no "PC-mode". You install Windows as you would on any other PC and the workstation behaves exactly as a Dell or HP or whatever. The performance is the same as an identical-specd Dell or HP or whatever. -Marc

9g2000prf.googlegroups.com: Agreed that going with the Radeon is a poor choice, as would choosing an NVS with a Dell, but why you would do that? Just spec the Quadro card with the Mac, fastest processor, with 4GB or 8GB RAM, two fast disks, add WinXP x64, and you get a screamer for around $800 les than an identically-speced Dell.
-Marc

Jesus, how many lies from Mac apologists do we have to endure?
"You install Windows as you would on any other PC" EXCEPT that it requires other software to run the OS because the Mac mother board prevents it from working like "any other PC". Running Windows on a Mac is NOT just like a dual boot, because a real PC dual boot does not require Bootcamp or Parallels equivalents. You can install Windows and Linux on a Dell or HP without a chip on the motherboard interfering.
Also, you can't really spec a Mac the same as a Dell or HP, because the real PCs have a huge number of options that the Mac doesn't. Go to the Mac configurator website to confirm this for yourself. When you are done, the Mac will cost you significantly more, and if it is a laptop, you STILL may not be able to get a machine that is certified to run SW.
Mac shit is over hyped, over priced and under optioned. Steve Jobs is an unrepentent communist. If you buy any of his crap you are a brainless sheep.
Daisy.

.. For a quick note regarding what Harry Sasquatch may have been referring to, I'll offer a quick note from the SolidWorks crew at the recent MD&M show.
One of the SolidWorks presenters of demos noted he was using SolidWorks 2008 on XP Pro on his MacBook Pro Laptop in the virtualization program Parallels. That may be what S. was referring to as PC-mode. I haven't done SWks inside XPPro in Parallels, but have done XP Pro Loaded native, and SWks 2006 runs fine for me on a MacBook Pro. I would expect running in Parallels might be paying a slight speed penalty, but don't know how much.
Other users have reported surprisingly good speeds from Parallels & XP Pro.
Bo

Miss Daisy,
Have you actually ever tried all this? I initally configured a Dell workstation and then went to the Apple Store to compare prices. I was lucky that all the parts I wanted were offered as options (latest gen. Xeon 3.0GHz, Quadro 5600 1.5GB). I agree I have to do some work, namely install Windows myself. That may be too much for you dear Daisy but I kind of like that because I get a clean installation without all that Dell/HP/Lenovo crap they install. Yes I have a machine based on EFI instead of a BIOS and that is different. If you find that too extreme, fine, never buy a Mac and in a few years when all PCs will come with EFI hang onto your 2010-era Dell, it will be the last of it's kind. And Job is quite a communist: like American capitalism at its best to me!
-Marc

Looks like American capitalism at its best to me! Yeah, well, it is both convenient and lucky that you wanted a Quadro 5600, because it is the ONLY SW compatible video card you can get with the Mac, and by the way it DOUBLES the price of the machine. Same with the Xeon's because most PC users are not clammoritng for Xeons (not to mention being forced into 8 of them), but it is the only thing the4 mack offers, so you're stuck with very high price "options" which are not really ioptions at all. Its the only shit you can get from the Mac site. How can yuou defend such a bisarre combination of crap that SW users in general for do not ask for or recommend?
Limited options at an elevated price, and a motherboard that intentionally limits the OS you can use as well as an OS that cannot be installed on non-mac mobo sounds like totalitarian control, and that the Soviets have invaded Cupertino to me.
Different? Not just differemt, but confined to the Mac way of doing it. Every bit as dispicable as Microsoft. Special software to allow other OSes? Any version of Windows or Linux requires no such "different"ness. Stop defending this mass enforcer.
Daisy.

Daisy, with all the negatives you put out, I am astonished you can get up in the morning and have any energy left to get to work.
It is just a computer. It is not Russia in the 80s where you couldn't get them or if you did you had only one choice.
Choices to day are good, and it forces all the other players to keep up or come up with something new & BETTER.
"confined to the Mac way of doit it" doesn't seem like what I see, since I can run nearly any practical OS I want to run on my Mac, if I really have a need to do it. No one forced me to buy a Mac, and I don't force anyone to do so either. Choice works real well, particularly when the customer is informed. It is not a war.
Life is good - Bo

Daisy,
We're here to get you. You have nowhere left to go. You should surrender before it's too late.
Wroouaah!
-Marc

French Roast, french kiss