Sluggish Solidworks

I am curious, what were the specs of your old computer?

Regards,

Anna Wood

JKimmel wrote:

What version of SW were you running on the old computer? Are the options the same? Dual processor and lots of memory aren't going to help SIB much, it is raw cpu power there with a fast graphics card.

For starters run your graphics quality all the way up and then all the way down and test it both ways. If the bottle neck is graphics it will show up there.

How many processes do you have running in task manager?

Are you sure you have the right graphics driver? Some years back we saw Dells ship with less than stellar graphics drivers. We saw almost double the performance on the right driver.

Have you checked the logs for errors?

JKimmel wrote:

The old computer had an Athlon 64 FX-53 and a Quadro 980XGL and is currently running 2006 SP3.

That would do it. The FX53 was the fastest single processor chip of its time (2-3 years ago), and the Quadro is a professional card. Your new box sounds generic. An AMD 2.4 ghz is what, about a 3400+? That's nothing to write home about.

...and how many times do we need to say that the Radeon is not for freaking CAD? This must come up a couple times a week.

You're comparing a 68 camaro to a Ford Focus.

And that doesn't take into account differences between settings...

FlowerPot,

What posts are you reading. JKimmel has not said he was using a Radeon. Nvidia Quadro's are all that are mentioned.

Regards,

Anna Wood

FlowerPot wrote:

"Anna Wood" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Well, the very first post in this thread says JKimmel is using a Radeon. Hmmm someone is confused,

Daisy

FlowerPot,

I see what is happening now. It appears that JKimmel has two threads going with the same title and two different systems listed. In the thread I responded to there is no mention of a Radeon card.

Either that or there are some oddities happening with Google Groups where I am reading this thread.

Regards,

Anna

FlowerPot wrote:

Simply put, the Xeon chips are a joke. Intel only woke up and started performing again with the new Core architecture (Conroe). The FX-53 is a lot more powerful than a dual core 1.6 Xeon, especially since SolidWorks is not dual-core optimized software. So you're comparing a

2.4ghz AMD FX core that does a lot more instructions per cycle vs an Intel Xeon 1.6ghz. Thats why you're getting a worse score.

Next time you go to buy a workstation, do a bit of research instead of believing what Dell sales team tells you.

Since it is a new system with a new FX3500 graphics card, it is most likely that the CPU is the 1.6GHz Xeon 5110. This is the entry level product in the Xeon 5100 series that is based on the same core technology as the Core2 Duo. Clock for clock, Xeon 5100 series CPUs are faster than AMD Opterons/Athlons and MUCH faster than previous generation Xeon/P4 CPUs.

Still, the 5110 is the very bottom of the line and dog slow. The ship in a bottle benchmark scores are exactly what you should expect from this processor - comparable to a P4 2.6-2.8 GHz or Opteron/Athlon at

1.8 GHz.

The 2.33GHz Xeon 5140 would be about the same as the 2.4GHz FX53 and either the 2.6GHz Xeon 5150 or the 3.0GHz Xeon 5160 would be quite a bit faster. You could pop either of these CPUs into your system for an instant performance fix. Your vendor might even give you a little - very little - credit for trading in the 5110.

Next time, consider a system with a single 2.66GHz Core2 Duo E6700 (or whatever is second fastest in the Core2 lineup at the time of purchase.) It's faster than any dual core AMD processor on the market and a terrific value. The Core2 Extreme X6800 is faster, but also much more expensive. Quad core processors will be available for the Core2 platform in mid-November. The only reason to opt for Xeon platform is if you need 8-way processing or more than 4GB RAM.

" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com:

What you're saying about the Xeon is only true for the older P4-based 5000 series chips. I'm not even sure they're still making those at 1.6 GHz. If they are, this would be consistent with that SIB score. There is a 5110 Xeon clocked at 1.6 GHz which is based on the new Conroe derived core. The fastest of those (5160 at 3 GHz) should be under 20 seconds on SIB. Cut the clock speed in half and reduce the memory bandwidth (slower bus on the 5110 than the 5160) and a score of 43 seconds is believable, maybe just a little slow for that hardware. SIB is slightly sensitive to window size. If the test was run at a higher resolution than the old system, that could also be a factor.

Anyhow, the problem isn't that an old technology was spec'd. The problem is that the absolute cheapest of the new technology was spec'd.

I'm just disappointed that the new computer is half the speed of the two year old one. I don't know if I can live with that.

Do you still have the old one? Just kidding, mostly. The new box will probably support the fastest thing going right now, the 5160 Xeon. That and matching RAM should be on the order of $1.5k. That's not really much compared to the cost of waiting longer than necessary for rebuilds.

I wonder what the story is of how you ended up with one of the slowest machines currently being produced (paired wit ha respectable video card), and how policies changed from having one of the fastest in its time.

I upgraded my 1.6 ghz Xeon dual processor to a 3.2 ghz Xeon dual processor. Ship in a bottle times still vary between 40 and 50 seconds. I was expecting under 20 seconds. The old computer, an Athlon 64 FX-53, gets under 30 seconds on ship in a bottle, and performs better in most other solidworks processes. I think the new computer does animation better, though.

Every part of this computer is faster than the old one. Why don't the benchmarks show this? What else might be wrong?

An upgrade would have been an FX60 and a new motherboard. Dual core and double the speed of the FX53.

Benchmarks imply equal settings. You haven't mentioned your settings on either box. Verification on rebuild? Software ogl? Image quality? Display mode? Here's how settings can affect ship in a bottle scores:

Hypersonic Aviator FX7 (laptop) AMD X2 4800+ (dual core)

2 Gb RAM nVidia Quadro Go FX1400

HI LO (image quality)

27.2 21.1 edges shown 26.1 20.5 no edges 27.5 21.2 wireframe (not shaded) 27.5 21.4 hlr (not shaded) 27.7 21.4 hlg (not shaded) 21.2 19.0 (graphics window not showing)

Boxx Technologies 3200 AMD FX57 (single core)

3 Gb RAM nVidia Quadro4 3450

HI LO (image quality)

24.4 18.2 edges shown 23.4 17.5 no edges 26.4 18.5 wireframe (not shaded) 27.3 18.9 hlr (not shaded) 25.3 19.2 hlg (not shaded) 18.5 15.8 (graphics window not showing)

Dual core does not fare well, comparatively, on ship in a bottle. The ship is not a great simulation for most kinds of real modeling. The two machines above are actually pretty similar in rebuild speed for complex surface models, although they go about it very differently.

40-50 seconds is pretty slow. Is this a homebuilt system? Did you just upgrade the processors? What about the mobo? RAM? I've never heard great comments about the Xeons. Also, are you talking about real dual processor or do you mean dual core?

New computer is a Dell, processor is dual core. Hyperthreading is currently on. Memory is 4 gig of ddr2 533mhz. Video is Quadro FX3500 with SW approved driver. Best time for ship in a bottle is 32 seconds with graphics window not showing, up to 50 seconds with "normal" performance settings. CPU usage is about 26%, memory usage barely changes.

2 year old Athlon FX53 best time for ship in a bottle is 20 seconds with graphics window not showing, up to about 28 seconds with "normal" performance settings. Processor pegs at 100%.

Rebuilding a complex part takes 15 seconds on the new computer and 7 seconds on the old one.

Performance otherwise seems sluggish when compared directly with the old computer, files take longer to open, rebuilds are slower, it crashes more often, but it doesn't seem to be working all that hard.

Ship in a bottle may not be a good benchmark for normal solidworks use, but is there anything better? Even if it isn't a very good benchmark, I would still expect this computer to perform better.

Thanks for your help,

John Kimmel

John,

What is the model number of the Xeon processor you have? You say it is

3.2 Ghz, that would indicate that you purchased a Xeon Processor 5060. This is old P4 NetBurst technology and would have been just equal to, or worse, then the Xeon Processor 5110, Core 2 Duo processor that you had before. It would not be faster then your old AMD system, which you are seeing.

If you want to upgrade processors you need to be looking at a Xeon 51xx Core 2 Duo series of processor, not the 50xx series which are old P4 technology.

You need to be looking at a Xeon 5130, 5140, 5150 or higher for an upgrade. The new C2D processors do way more at lesser clock speeds, so you can't compare old P4 to new C2D clock speeds.

Regards,

Anna Wood

We haven't seen a lot of benchmarking on the new Core2 technology. Intel does know how to make processors that perform better at lower clock speeds but they have ended up in laptops. The Centrino my boss has is about comparable to my FX53. But there isn't a P4 in the house that can hold a candle to it.

What this whole thing suggests is:

1. That performance technology is still at something of a plateau as far as SW is concerned.

1. You can't buy on brand name or labeling. Xeon means so many things that it has become meaningless. AMD at least has given a new name to each new processor technology whereas Xeon is just a valuable (to Intel, no the customer) marketing label.

From what I've read and heard from other folks, and from what your 26% seems to be saying, I would ditch the hyperthreading. If 2 processors don't help that much, 4 help even less.

Sounds like Anna has good advice about the Xeons. I don't know much about the newer Intel processors, but I did have a P4 w/ hyperthread for a short time before I sent it back and got an AMD. I had pretty much the same experience as you are having now. Hyperthreading could not be turned off without reinstalling the OS. Might have been a bios problem, but I was working with the mfgr on it, and they could not make it happen. Could have been that there were limited bios choices for that mobo.

Top also has good advice about the Intel/AMD thing. AMD has been the top chip for SW for a while, although the newer Intels have made some gains I'm not on top of. The biggest bang for the buck these days would probably still be the AMD X2 4800+. The fx60 is no bargain, although it is fast, it has been priced at a premium. I've seen that Dell is offering AMD in some boxes now.