i7 system, solidworks.What are the gpu options?

feck199

feck199

feck199

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Hey,

This is a system I'm building for a friend, he was on a budget for the first half of the system. There is will be more money to spend in a couple of months.

The system below has been ordered, so I hope the choices are good enough.

I've been able to google as much to see the hd4000 will atleast let him run solidworks. I'm just wondering what other cheap gpus, and possible decent gpu setups would be best to go for.

Is there any 'good' options other than a quadro cards.

Anyone use this software?

Thanks for any advice !

The budget was £500, with another £500 in 2-3months. 70quid over budget on the first order! (it was slightly cheaper when the order was placed)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM (edit actually it was retail) £253.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5 SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £61.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £49.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) £39.95
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £578.89 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
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How complex with his models on solid works be? Makes a big difference them being small soild components and them being for example jet engines with hundreds or thousands of components?
 
I use solidworks on my PC (spec below, not i5). It runs very well, I can create Big ish assemblies with a few complex peices and it runs fine.

The spec you have got so far is definatly a great step, the CPU, RAM and SSD will give the performance needed and more, like you say the GPU is the important peice.

Are you looking to spedn £500 on just a GPU or on other upgrades too? I would suggest get more RAM and a CPU cooler too, to Overclock the i7.

I have recently done some high quality renders on my PC and it has coped with them a lot better than the PC's at uni which use Fx1800's (i think). Mine did a render in 7 hours where the uni PC took 15 hours, so new(ish) gaming GPU's are obviously a good alterntive.

Is this PC just for solidworks? No gaming or anything?

Ill be more than happy to help you with this area if you have any other questions?
 
3D modelling applications don't use a lot of GPU power, it's mostly CPU and I think solid works is multi threaded so I don't think you will need an expensive GPU
I would recommend something midline with a fair few cores like the 560Ti 448. The cores are most important as it will use very little VRAM
 
MonsterMoshi said:
3D modelling applications don't use a lot of GPU power, it's mostly CPU and I think solid works is multi threaded so I don't think you will need an expensive GPU
I would recommend something midline with a fair few cores like the 560Ti 448. The cores are most important as it will use very little VRAM
Click to expand...

Thats true. Though if you are rendering with solidworks or 3DS max a decent GPU, like the '448' will be more than enough. I have also found that rendering fabric tectures eats 'a lot' of RAM (system RAM not VRAM), so id suggest 16GB if rendering is a priortity.
 
Doomedspeed said:
I use solidworks on my PC (spec below, not i5). It runs very well, I can create Big ish assemblies with a few complex peices and it runs fine.

The spec you have got so far is definatly a great step, the CPU, RAM and SSD will give the performance needed and more, like you say the GPU is the important peice.

Are you looking to spedn £500 on just a GPU or on other upgrades too? I would suggest get more RAM and a CPU cooler too, to Overclock the i7.

I have recently done some high quality renders on my PC and it has coped with them a lot better than the PC's at uni which use Fx1800's (i think). Mine did a render in 7 hours where the uni PC took 15 hours, so new(ish) gaming GPU's are obviously a good alterntive.

Is this PC just for solidworks? No gaming or anything?

Ill be more than happy to help you with this area if you have any other questions?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information, good to know about how other cpus handle it. I've not used the software myself, I think my friend is focused on getting this pc for solidworks. Once he see's how well it runs, he may want to run games on it but he does keep stressing that its just for solidworks.

The 500 is for anything else thats needed. Still will need either a bigger ssd and/or another internal hard drive. Then gpu, ram would be possible.

Main thing was i've read some things about drivers and solidworks, didn't know myself how this would effect which card to buy.

MonsterMoshi said:
How complex with his models on solid works be? Makes a big difference them being small soild components and them being for example jet engines with hundreds or thousands of components?
Click to expand...

I really don't know. He's made rough suggestions on wanting something that could handle a thousand objects.
 
Doomedspeed said:
Thats true. Though if you are rendering with solidworks or 3DS max a decent GPU, like the '448' will be more than enough. I have also found that rendering fabric tectures eats 'a lot' of RAM (system RAM not VRAM), so id suggest 16GB if rendering is a priortity.
Click to expand...

All useful information still, as I've not used it myself. Not sure apart from what I've been able to scour off google.

Ram is an easy upgrade, would have got more to start with but putting the ssd was already pushing it.

Still very interesting to know that a pretty standard gpu would work so well.
 
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