Will this last?

Jordan97

Jordan97

Jordan97

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Currently have i3-2120 on a Z68 chipset board, 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz and onboard graphics. Also running an SSD

Next year I am going to uni to study engineering and I need a computer that will run CAD software comfortably.

I am going to buy another 8gb of RAM so I'll have 16GB in total. I've already bought another SSD and I'm going to put them in RAID 0. I also want to upgrade my processor obviously and have read online that an i7 will be much better for CAD than an i5 but I'm not whether to stay with SandyBridge of upgrade to Ivy??

Also going to get a decent graphics card but I have a thread for that here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18687167

If I go ahead with all these upgrades, will this system serve me well for the 4 years I'll be at uni?
 
Personally I'd go with IB as it's slightly better and you can get yourself a Z77 motherboard as well if you fancy native USB 3.0 ports
 
On a SATA3 connection you can expect around 500-550MB/s Read and Write speeds max so a single sata 3 ssd will do that on its own , so no need to raid.
 
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mickyflinn said:
On a SATA3 connection you can expect around 500-550MB/s Read and Write speeds max so a single sata 3 ssd will do that on its own , so no need to raid.
Click to expand...

Thats not how raid 0 works. Each SSD has it's own sata connection so you'll get roughly double the speed in RAID 0. I still wouldn't do it though.
 
I'm mainly doing it because I only have a 60gb SSD atm which isn't quite big enough and the extra speed is a nice added bonus

Does everyone definitely recommend ivybridge over sandybridge?
 
Jordan97 said:
I'm mainly doing it because I only have a 60gb SSD atm which isn't quite big enough and the extra speed is a nice added bonus
Click to expand...

I don't know enough about RAID to know the answer, but is this going to work? If you've bought a new SSD it's presumably bigger than 60GB, so you'd be running two drives of different sizes in RAID 0. I'd guess this is either not going to work, or only the first 60GB of the second drive would be in the array?
 
I've not come across a CAD program that uses hyperthreading, most don't use even 4 standard cores to their full potential.

CAD software if it need a boost above the standard CPU cores, tends to use the GPU, and that tends to be for high end stuff. I suspect most CAD users will be fine with an Integrated GPU.

(Edit)
If you are rendering that may use hyperthreading, but investing the money in a GPU would probably be better than the CPU, but this would depend on the specific CAD programmes you are using.
 
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