CAD PC upgrade

Snookums · 25 Apr 2016 at 18:22

Built the gf a PC back at Christmas for cad use (autoCAD & sketch up pro) My knowledge only really covers gaming PC's in depth but I have a vague understanding of cad needs. The current spec is:

Fx 8350
Evga 750ti FTW
8gb ram
1tb Hdd

All in an mATX case at stock. I'm aware that Intel CPUs are much better for workstations but i7's and xeons come with a bigger price tag. How would an i5 fair in comparison to an 8350?

To my understanding mid range consumer level cards are better off than entry level quadros and fire pros.

I want to know the best path to upgrading for her in the long run. I know it's missing an SSD as its stands right now but mATX fm2+ boards are very rare and none of them have full support for everything so her board only has sata 2. Whilst an SSD would be quicker would it be the best next step?

I know autoCAD recommends 16gb of ram too.

So what would be the best step in up grade paths from here? Budget to buy now is around £100 but obviously is its more beneficial to change CPU that would need saving.

I'm thinking get another 8gb stick, then change CPU then an SSD but I'm not 100% sure this would be the best path.

What would you guys recommend?

joeyjojo · 25 Apr 2016 at 18:39

In what way is it inadequate?

Running out of memory, CPU not powerful enough, GPU problems...?

Snookums · 25 Apr 2016 at 20:31

Honestly not sure, I need to find out as she won't be able to work it out. But as whole what would you say is the weakest point?

lsg1r · 26 Apr 2016 at 00:15

You need more ram, seriously if Autodesk recommends 16GB for their program it basically means it needs 16GB to function with any reasonable performance in my experience. It's the same with all of their programs in my opinion too.

For £100 (might be a tiny bit over) I'd be getting 2x4GB or even 2x8GB of RAM and a 250GB SSD, it will be an improvement even at sata2 speeds.

Graphics might be a little weak too but unless you're doing massively heavy work it should be fine for now.

Snookums · 26 Apr 2016 at 00:46

The board only has 2 ram slots so I'll have to get another single 8gb stick for her and hope the run stable with each other. As for an SSD I might wait till the end of summer and see how cheap I can grab her a 500gb and ditch the Hdd completely.

What gpu upgrade would you recommend from here? Would it be worth saving for a Quattro or FirePro or get a better consumer grade?

lsg1r · 26 Apr 2016 at 01:10

Snookums said:
What gpu upgrade would you recommend from here? Would it be worth saving for a Quattro or FirePro or get a better consumer grade?

Honestly the debate over quadro/firepro versus geforce/radeon has been going on for years.... In the past the custom drivers for the workstation cards may have been useful as the software was often using opengl to do the graphics, now most have shifted to direct x and don't have any custom drivers.

My personal view, and in my experience, is that unless you are a big business/school etc who has money to burn you can get away with a gaming card if you sufficiently cool it etc without any issue.

As to what to buy, I'd personally be going 970 range (960 with 4gb maybe) or higher but I'd try the ram and ssd before a new gpu.

Also don't forget there are settings inside autocad to improve the display performance etc

Snookums · 26 Apr 2016 at 01:16

Yeah of course I'll go ram and SSD first was just curious as the best gpu progression.

How would an i5 stack against the 8350?

lsg1r · 26 Apr 2016 at 01:25

Snookums said:
Yeah of course I'll go ram and SSD first was just curious as the best gpu progression.

How would an i5 stack against the 8350?

GPU is literally a simple case of best you can afford, if I say an m6000 quadro is basically a titan x (albeit with 12 versus 24gb ram with recent update to m6000) you can get an idea of the mark ups etc involved for what is essentially very little benefit for 'home users'

i5 versus fx8350, multithreaded, the fx would just come out on top, the i5 is better single threaded.

Autocad is a little weird in that it's not really multithreaded but it does still use multiple threads for some things so it would likely perform better with the i5.

Sketchup (iirc) and other 3D modelling programs like revit/3ds max would benefit from the extra cores on the fx but as I said theres not a huge difference in benchmarks (just look at cinebench r15 for reference)

At the end of the day it really depends on if you want to get new motherboard/cpu and if you intend to do any overclocking.

You could check your gpu performance in autocad using afterburner or similar to get your fps/cpu etc on screen.