Experiances from CAD Users on the Intel Platform and Mobile Devices

Evoss

Evoss

Evoss

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Hello all,

I would like to gain your views and opinions on how the Intel platform has changed you experience regarding CAD for better or for worse.


Example questions:

** These apply to any applications or packages you have used **

Have you stayed with one package, upgraded your Intel CPU and noticed a considerable change. From what CPU to what CPU?

Has upgrading the CPU made the biggest difference or have other hardware components made a difference?

Can you give examples of how the upgraded Intel CPU has made a difference to your CAD experience?

Is there anything you can only carry out well on the Intel platform?

Do you use CAD on other devices, e.g. tablets, mobile devices?


If you could give me as much insight into how the Intel platform helps aid CAD, I would be very grateful.

Thanks

Evoss
 
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Dont use CAD on mobile platforms, its only use is for allowing none technical types spin it around with there fingers. Even then it requires the model to be stripped down into a 3Dxml format (or simmilar).

As for the intel platform, its has reduced the cost on a hardware front significantly in late 80s i was spending £20k + for a Sunstation to be able to run CAD. Now i can spend 2.5k on laptop and it will do 99% of our required designs, but may take a little longer in massive assembly's due to the RAM restrictions. The IT department like it as well as it allows them to integrate it with the rest of the company (everywhere i have been its window servers, exchange, Office etc.

So in a nutshell in order of importance.

Cost - Much cheaper
Flexibility
Ease of use
 
SPG said:
Dont use CAD on mobile platforms, its only use is for allowing none technical types spin it around with there fingers. Even then it requires the model to be stripped down into a 3Dxml format (or simmilar).

As for the intel platform, its has reduced the cost on a hardware front significantly in late 80s i was spending £20k + for a Sunstation to be able to run CAD. Now i can spend 2.5k on laptop and it will do 99% of our required designs, but may take a little longer in massive assembly's due to the RAM restrictions. The IT department like it as well as it allows them to integrate it with the rest of the company (everywhere i have been its window servers, exchange, Office etc.

So in a nutshell in order of importance.

Cost - Much cheaper
Flexibility
Ease of use
Click to expand...

Excellent response thank you.

If people have feedback relating to upgrades over a smaller time frame, that would be excellent.
 
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SPG said:
Dont use CAD on mobile platforms, its only use is for allowing none technical types spin it around with there fingers. Even then it requires the model to be stripped down into a 3Dxml format (or simmilar).
Click to expand...

This. Our contracts managers only ever use pdf to view drawings on their laptops/ipads (whatever). Most of their laptops can't run the autocad dwg/dxf viewers...

Over the years I've used a variety of desktops (mainly intel based). Can't tell you what spec they were now, other than I'm currently using an I5-3340 variant with 8gb RAM and GeForce GT 610.
Biggest limiting factor with all machines has always been RAM and GFX power, with most companies I've worked for being too tight to buy a dedicated CAD workstation.

That said, better CPU power has reduced the frustration of successive AutoCAD variants over the years, whilst most of them can handle the software version, it's the speed at which they manage it that makes all the difference. But we start getting into RAM & GFX territory again.
However, the relative cost for machines back when I started doing CAD compared to now, means we pay roughly the same amount but for machines that have more than doubled in power - But this is from a cad user, not an IT worker, or office procurement guy.

There's nothing worse than having to hide/switch off layers so you can pan and zoom without having to go and make a cup of tea whilst the computer thinks about it. I still have to do that sometimes, but it's generally less often these days.

Longtime autocad user... :( 10+ years.
 
As others said it's usually RAM and GFX that slow things down. My last 2 workstations were around 3k each and I get 2-3 years out of them. Both were mid-range Xeons with lower end NVIDIA Quadro GFX when ordered. My home PC is AMD based (see sig) and I don't notice any difference in performance when I'm working from home.

It depends a lot on what you're going to be doing. If it's just 2d line work than a decent desktop PC will be fine but for 3d modelling you'll want either Nvidia Quadro or ATI FirePro GFX.
 
I run "AutoDesk Product Design Suite 2014" in 2 locations (allowable under their licencing agreement)

Location 1 (Office)

HP Z400 Workstation - Xeon W3520 8 Core 2.67Ghz, 6Gb Triple Channel RAM, nVidia FX380, Corsair 240Gb SSD, Windows 7 Pro

Location 2 (Home)

Own Built PC - AMD-APU A8-3870K 4 Core 3Ghz (@3.3Ghz), 8Gb Dual Channel RAM, AMD HD6550 (built into APU), WD Caviar Green 1Tb, Windows 8.1.1 Pro

-------------------------

Running the same 2D AutoCAD drawings between both systems, I've noticed little to no difference in the performance.

But Running the same 3D Inventor Models between both systems throws up some weird performance differences - Basic 3D models with upto 15 components and textured surfaces can sometimes render faster and at a lower temperature on the 'Home Built PC' than on the HP Workstation! I even find that rotating and paning etc a model (with Ray Tracing 'off') is quicker on my Home system!

I believe it's the graphics!, even though the Quadro card is dedicated to CAD, it's onnly got 256Mb RAM, where as the APU graphics has 512Mb as a start but up to the full 8Gb if it needed it!

From my experience, it's not the CPU that shows CAD performance differences, it's the Graphics, as (especially AutoCAD/Inventor) they offload most of their processing to the Graphics card and not the Processor!

Both Work and me are saving for decent Graphics cards and more RAM for both systems (I have to pay for my home system!!) as AutoDesk PDS 2015 is even more of a hog!!

There is little to argue between a FirePRO or a Quadro it's just personal preference! :)
 
bayo000 said:
As others said it's usually RAM and GFX that slow things down. My last 2 workstations were around 3k each and I get 2-3 years out of them. Both were mid-range Xeons with lower end NVIDIA Quadro GFX when ordered. My home PC is AMD based (see sig) and I don't notice any difference in performance when I'm working from home.

It depends a lot on what you're going to be doing. If it's just 2d line work than a decent desktop PC will be fine but for 3d modelling you'll want either Nvidia Quadro or ATI FirePro GFX.
Click to expand...


Please could you list the specs of your current workstation (not home PC (in Sig))

Thanks :)
 
For most 2d/3d modeling your not going to notice a huge difference between the Conroe/core2 generation and the newer IvyBridge/E5 generations. Having enough system and video ram to load the model is more important.

However if you're doing any sort of simulation or computation with the models, such as CFD, then the improvements are huge and you can expect a 100%+ core for core increase between those generations.
 
Evoss said:
Please could you list the specs of your current workstation (not home PC (in Sig))

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Hey, sorry for late reply. I had this PC for about 2 years. It's DELL T5500 with
X5650 @2.67, 12GB RAM, 1 GB NVIDIA Quadro 2000 and some kind of 300GB 15kRpm HDD.

Our current cad spec is Precision T3610:
Processor : One Intel Xeon E5-1620 (3.7GHz, 1600MHz, 10M, 4 Cores)
Memory : 32GB (4x8GB) 1866MHz DDR3 Memory
Hard Drive : 256GB 2.5inch SATA Solid State Drive
Graphics : 3 GB Nvidia Quadro K4000
 
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