Options for a new CAD workstation

I went through the same thing. I will never buy another name brand computer. Buy individual components and put it together yourself. You won't save any money, but you'll have a lot easier time dealing with the supplier.

SideShift Option: Find the local Geek Store who does white box construction and who may indeed plug the components together for less than Dell (because they buy parts by the dozens or more), plus giving you a ready supply of tech. support & parts if and when you need them.

These types of guys/companies produce equipment just as good as the name brand and possibly better, because they need to please their local customers, and therein is the committment.

Bo

See the recent post called PNY Nvidia Nightmare.

I personally would never build a box myself for the same reason this fellow is running into, and it sounds like you have as well. I wouldn't even have my friendly neighborhood box builder do it. I buy stuff from vendors like Boxx, who specialize in CAD and graphics boxes. I have also bought from Hypersonic, a little lower cost, and primarily aimed at gamers, but they had a very nice cad-speced laptop.

There are options in between Dell and the local corner finger pointer.

The amount of time you can sink into troubleshooting a home built box is mind boggling, and well worth the pocket change you save. What you can get in Australia is a different issue.

Matt, you noted using Boxx

Do they actually configure boxes specifically for CAD?

I didn't see 3D CAD noted in a quick scan of their website, though I suspect it is buried 3 levels down somewhere.

Thanks - Bo

What about HP? They have some nice AMD systems.

I am on my third system from XI computer, they even have overclocked/ water cooled systems out of the box.

If you do get a local computer builder for a CAD box, ask them how many they have built, and who for, and what CADsystem is was built for. Get references from the computer dealer.

Did you check with your reseller? Sometimes they have leads or know who a good builder is in your area or maybe give you a reference.

A local shop is nice, just need to be experienced with the right hardware for CAD/SW.

samurai.

I would not buy from a small supplier again if I didn't save money. As the systems are certified by SW, surely my SW vendor would have to deal with any problems. Or even better I would get a stable SW workstation (surely they exist?). Having looked at the SW website again I notice they also give HP & IBM as vendors. The HP workstations have a confusing array of possibilities. The IBM page has removed a lot of the clutter and specifies which systems are better for SW. But really I probably have a budget of up to AUD $4000 (and already have screens).

I was also wondering whether now would be a good idea to upgrade what with Vista coming out & none of the systems certified with it yet.

Michael

I find it hard to believe that your var is going to take responsibility for a windows computer running solidworks. This is way outside of there scope. When you say 'any problems' that could be hardware or software of any kind that you've installed since purchase, or drivers or ... well the list is long. What does a 'certified by sw' system actually mean? My guess is like all other certifications, it means that solidworks has reviewed the components, found them to be satisfactory for running sw (ie. enough ram, good graphics card etc) and that's it. They sure aren't going to send someone right over when your system crashes!

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I took a dump in a cardboard box. I taped it shut and then wrote "Certified for Solidworks" on it. I took it to work and put it on top of my computer. Everyone was very impressed, but a few asked about the bad smell.