Cad system build - spec me please

[solway]

Hi guys

My business is looking to buy a new pc. i am a surveyor, so a lot of Autocad & 3d civil work. its not a technician office, so prob no need in quadro/firepro etc (unless cheap)

its been a few years since ive done any builds so a little out of date myself.

have been looking at pre-built systems, and by the looks of it i could build a high one for same price.

cost is every thing, if i said below £600/500 mark. but to have enough power to use autocad etc 3dcivils, photoshop etc

im currently on a HP machine, intel 2core quad Q8300, 4gb ram, intel g41 express chipset with graphics inbuilt.

am i under the impression that autocad is more cpu based than gpu, although a separate gpu is good for rednering? gpu is the area im lacking on with this pc.

any advice please.

 

[solway]

a typical idea, on AMD system. if intel is faster with same price, i might go down that route.

i'll await for advice.

 

[smilertoo]

You could probably get away with adding ram and a gfx card to the system you have.

 

[matt_fsr]

Not a bad start, but you may be limiting yourself there, as you're replacing an Intel quad-core with an AMD quad core, and not a modern one at that.

For a mere £20 more you can get this CPU:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-327-AM&groupid=701&catid=1967&subcat=1944

Which has integrated AMD 7660 graphics - the early intel onboard graphics were notoriously poor, which is probably why your current machine struggles.

If you find that CPU's graphics not powerful enough, it still leaves you the option of dropping a dedicated graphics card in later.

A better CPU would be this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-373-AM&groupid=701&catid=1967&subcat=1944

If you decide to go for one with integrated graphics. (Latest generation AMD CPU)

However, from the (lengthy!) Anandtech review of even the new 770k

With a substantial advantage in IPC and shipping at similar frequencies, a dual-core Core i3 Haswell will deliver much better CPU performance than even the fastest Kaveri at a lower price.

What you need to do is find out what your software really needs, whether its' pure CPU performance, or actual 3D graphics power? If you're only needing graphics performance improved, then chuck a card into your existing PC and it should make a huge difference.

 

[Danny75]

a typical idea, on AMD system. if intel is faster with same price, i might go down that route.

/snip

i'll await for advice.

An ATX motherboard would not fit in that micro-ATX case.

Also, one thing might be to go with 8GB RAM for now, and use the spare money on a better CPU/GPU. Then you can always add another 8GB RAM more easily in the future.

 

[solway]

thanks guys

anyone want to throw up some screenshots of a amd or intel system

don't care on case, or HDD space. i have always seen GPU embended as being slow, or thats just me being old school.

boss is spending, so if i could would be good option to add dedicated gpu, that way i could get dual monitor going if needed.

 

[solway]

PS, we need an extra machine, since we have an new employee, so i'll replace mine with a newer powerful system.

 

[Danny75]

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Asus VANGUARD Intel B85 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £74.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £65.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G1600HC9DC01) £59.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 450W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £53.99
1 x Zalman T3 Micro -ATX Case USB 3.0 - black £20.99
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-221LBK DVD Rewriter - OEM £17.99
Total : £473.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Good CPU, very decent motherboard with 5 year warranty, good PSU with 5 year warranty. And you have around £130 left over for a GPU like a GTX 660 which is a popular option for Autocad and the like. Reason I haven't stuck a GPU in is because the newer GTX 750's (which should be similar to the 660's) are released this month and might be worth checking out price/performance wise.

£140 will get you this FirePro:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD FirePro V4900 Professional Graphics Card - 1GB - GDDR5 SDRAM £139.99



Do some research about your GPU options to see what might be best for you.

 

[solway]

danny thanks,

been reading up on autocad etc, its more CPU software, with a bit of heavy rendering graphics via GPU.
firepro/quadro is more precision/no errors than speed, whereas geforce/radoen is more speed/refresh

autocad looks like its not fully multi-core support, so higher the ghz the better 1 core will preform. rest of the core tend to idle.

yet i do use other software with multicore support.

im a bit confused on the cpu ranges. i.e. some have APU, some don't, not sure whats latest socket or chipset etc. whats diff between piledriver and Kaveri etc, whats the diff on intel/amd, at same cost bracket?

sorry for quick replys, im in work and have no time to chat lol

 

[Danny75]

danny thanks,

been reading up on autocad etc, its more CPU software, with a bit of heavy rendering graphics via GPU.
firepro/quadro is more precision/no errors than speed, whereas geforce/radoen is more speed/refresh

autocad looks like its not fully multi-core support, so higher the ghz the better 1 core will preform. rest of the core tend to idle.

yet i do use other software with multicore support.

im a bit confused on the cpu ranges. i.e. some have APU, some don't, not sure whats latest socket or chipset etc. whats diff between piledriver and Kaveri etc, whats the diff on intel/amd, at same cost bracket?

sorry for quick replys, im in work and have no time to chat lol

Piledrivers don't have integrated graphics (APU), Kaveris do. If you were going with a discrete GPU, then a Piledriver in that range would give you better performance than a Kaveri. And Intel will *always* (around the same price range) give you considerably better single-core performance.

So for CPU, your best bet is Intel imo, as the i5-4670 will still have four powerful cores to use for your multi-core programs. And since you have some budget left over, you can throw in a Quadro/Firepro/other card to handle the graphics. For around £130 you will definitely get better graphics with a card than a Kaveri could provide.

 

[solway]

danny

im looking more towards intel now for getting more out of single core. than AMD (although you get more cores with AMD)

im guessing Haswell only comes with HD4600 graphics? and that it only supports dual channel mem without going into i7 figures.

cpu it does support 2400mhz ram, but then its getting motherboard to support it to at a budget?

speaking on motherboards, whats diff between B85, H87, Z87 chipsets??
looking for 6gb sata, usb3, pcie spare for GPU,


also is amd cpu Integrated R7 Graphics better than intels HD4600?

 

[solway]

Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM - £167.99

MSI Z87M-G43 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard - £91.99

Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD - £65.99

TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G1600HC9DC01) - £59.99

SuperFlower Golden Green HX 450W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black - £53.99

Arctic Cooling Freezer i30 Intel Cooler - £32.99

Zalman T3 Micro -ATX Case USB 3.0 - black £20.99

LG GH24NSB0 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.99

Sub Total : £428.26

how about the above?
not sure on CPU cooler tho? any ideas?

 

[matt_fsr]

danny

im looking more towards intel now for getting more out of single core. than AMD (although you get more cores with AMD)

But your software doesn't use anything more than 1 core it seems, so AMD wouldn't suit your needs.

im guessing Haswell only comes with HD4600 graphics? and that it only supports dual channel mem without going into i7 figures.

cpu it does support 2400mhz ram, but then its getting motherboard to support it to at a budget?

speaking on motherboards, whats diff between B85, H87, Z87 chipsets??
looking for 6gb sata, usb3, pcie spare for GPU,

You should get those with pretty much any board, the different chipsets usually just support a variety of different additional features, although I'm not too hot on which ones are which.

also is amd cpu Integrated R7 Graphics better than intels HD4600?

Yes, but you're probably best off going the Intel route, rather than AMD, as AMD needs to use multi-thread applications to come close to Intel performance, but on single-core using applications, AMD seems to fall badly behind.

In short, Intel + dedicated graphics card. If you're budget limited, you may want to consider an i3, if you're not going to get the benefit from a quad-core CPU.

 

[solway]

cheers,

another question

using the intel system, is it worth going to 2400mhz ram?? and if so is there a cheap mobo that will support it?

or is it overkill on the selected cpu?

just thinking that the system will have a lot of memory usage with autocad work etc.

 

[solway]

bump to last question?

 

[joeyjojo]

bump to last question?

There's scant information on this, but my feeling would be go for the cheapest in the capacity you want. From ocuk that would be:

1 x GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1333C9DC) **OcUK Exclusive** £113.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99



You can get 16 G of faster stuff for 1% more money, but as there's no guarantee of even 1% more performance I'd probably leave it.

 

[ShivP]

You could go to an i3 and I recall someone saying you could "unpark" or "unlock" the two threads to make it have effectively 4 cores as a pose to 2 cores and 2 threads - don't think this is true, but have a look into it

 

[solway]

There's scant information on this, but my feeling would be go for the cheapest in the capacity you want. From ocuk that would be:

1 x GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1333C9DC) **OcUK Exclusive** £113.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99



You can get 16 G of faster stuff for 1% more money, but as there's no guarantee of even 1% more performance I'd probably leave it.

sorry, what i was trying to get at..

Is there are advantage in increasing the memory stick to 2400mhz for more of a preformance boost?

or if even the i5 can take advantage of the 2400mhz mem?

i.e. if it gives 30% more preformance for the sake of £20/30 more?

 

[joeyjojo]

I know what you were asking, the answer is that I can't find any AutoCAD memory benchmarks so can't say for sure.

In general though, memory-limited applications are few and far between, so any extra money (even a couple of quid) will be wasted. So just go for the cheapest dual-channel set at the size you need.

For instance, in this 3D modelling benchmark, the faster memory made a 0.6% difference (1 second in 3 minutes, bottom of page):
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bulldozer-ddr3-overclocking,3209-12.html

Even at DDR3-2400 and with fully-optimized primary timings, high-speed RAM offers minimal application performance improvements over DDR3-1600 CAS 9.

 

[solway]

I know what you were asking, the answer is that I can't find any AutoCAD memory benchmarks so can't say for sure.

In general though, memory-limited applications are few and far between, so any extra money (even a couple of quid) will be wasted. So just go for the cheapest dual-channel set at the size you need.

For instance, in this 3D modelling benchmark, the faster memory made a 0.6% difference (1 second in 3 minutes, bottom of page):
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bulldozer-ddr3-overclocking,3209-12.html

ok cool thanks for that

thinking of either i7 or i5, with 8gb of ram. since autocad is more cpu intense, i'll see how it fairs with hd4600 graphics, if not i'll shove GPU in