Is RAM the moset important thing in a workstation?

bob z. tends to lean towards the big ram and big video over the big processor.

Buying a big block Chevy & dumping a Roots blower on it doesn't do nearly as well, if you don't constantly maintain and tune it up, and keep the bugs out of it.

Dual Xeons is a huge waste of money in SW, and presumably in IV as well. The Xeon just does not perform any better. Currently, SW does implement much in the way of multi-threading. I have no idea about IV. YOu should probably ask in an IV forum.

Anyhow, Opteron or AthlonFX is the fastest thing going for SW, and probably for IV as well. Any of the faster Opteron, AthlonFX or Athlon64 should outrun any P4 or Xeon.

As to the quantity of RAM, more than you need is a waste, but too little is very costly in the performance. Find out how much you need by loading up an assembly you would consider the most stressful, and check the task manager.

Go RAM for sure. Recently someone posted for the STAR benchmark a score that was about 60% faster than me and the only thing they had different on their system (same brand and model) was another 1GB of RAM. He had 1 instead of 2.

KM

Yeah Id like to stick with AMD above

But I'm kinda on a budget and not sure I can go TWO CPUs.... hence the question abt sticking with one CPU and going for more RAM and good vide card

more ram than you need is NEVER a waste. set that page file to zero and let it rock.

bob z.

Ok, definitely don't spend any budget on Xeons processors in any quantity.

Ok, I sympathise with that. But there is a practical limit to how much you can use.

sure, but RAM is somewhat cheap so I say load the thing up. I don't know why anyone buying a new puter nowadays wouldn't put at least two

1gig sticks in. if you have to compromise anywhere it's CPU and hdd.

If you are dealing with large files, having a good amount of RAM is very important.

Not as important but nice, is a fast hard drive SCSI (15,000 rpm) or RAID 0 SATA 7200 / 10,000 RPM setup. This helps when you are loading and saving your large files (200 to 500 MB).

Good point. But that wouldn't be excessive. If you're only using 1.5 GB, a

4GB system is a bit silly.

"Good point. But that wouldn't be excessive. If you're only using 1.5 GB, a

4GB system is a bit silly."

For sure, since XP can only access 2.7 GB max anyhow!

Be careful about conclusions with STAR. There is a spreadsheet with results in the same thread as STAR. Not sure you can say memory quantity is the whole story. STAR runs in very little memory, less than

256Mb. There are other things that could happen to make that difference. My little XP2000+ with 1GB was faster than half the systems. I have received input and plan to release an updated version that will be less susceptible to system settings. The big conclusion the initial release of STAR gives is that there are other things besides raw horsepower that can effect system performance. In fact one thing that STAR might show up is the effect of having a lot of services running.

What I might do in the updated version is leave the old test intact and add the improved test that doesn't depend so much on your system.

1. Fastest possible single CPU and motherboard/chipset
2. Enough memory so that you never page out to disk. Could be 1Gb, could be 4Gb. I use 4 with large assemblies or complex parts, my other machine is just fine with 1Gb. Start with 1Gb and upgrade if necessary. Street price is 0/Gb for decent RAM.
3. Good video card. Quadros come to mind. I have an FX3000 at work and a 500XGL in my home office. Get as much as you can within your budget after meeting 1 and 2 above.
4. Decent hard drive. A WD Raptor is as good as it gets unless you want to spend big bucks on SCSI RAID. Unless your processor is so fast it can load and regen your parts as fast as the IO can deliver them this portion of your system will have little effect on results.

You can make up for a lower quality graphics card by running your graphics in etch-a-sketch mode. You can't make up for a slower processor when you have to rebuild a complex mold part with verification on rebuild turned on.

I'm thinking abt building my own PC

Since I'm NOT up on the hardware end of things...anyone have good specs on what case, power supply, motherboard, cpu to buy?

I can handle the rest of the hardware such as optical drives, ram, drives. etc.... but lost on the above

I'm thinking I want to build around AMD processor as they are not so power hungry

Also thinking Lian Li case but not sure what model and why.

Advice?

I agree Dale. I have Duel Xeon 2.8ghz and they are slow. My home machine with a FX-51 Athlon is waay faster. Although one problem is if I really want to be able to work efficiently while my machine is processing at work I do like to have duel processors. I just wouldnt recommend Xeons. I am going with duel Opterons next time.

How about wait a few months and get a dual core dual Opteron setup! 4 CPUs!!

Tigerdirect has a spiffy Shuttle case for the FX55. Put in a DVD/CD burner and a decent graphics card and hard drive and you will have a pretty decent system in a very compact quiet footpring with little to do other than install a few components. Get an LCD monitor and you can move it around very easily.

I've kind of decided to stay with a full size case

But thanks for that advice I will look into it