SFF Solidworks VR

Roverno

Roverno

Roverno

Associate
Joined
24 May 2011
Posts
1,790
Location
West Sussex
A colleague of mine is looking for a small PC for running an officially supported Solidworks VR setup.

It needs to be SFF so thinking itx, single gpu, sfx psu. Smaller the better.

GPU will probably be the quadro P5000 as solidworks in VR seems to be quite the monster.

Needs to have usb C.

64GB of RAM is needed due to their use of other application. I did question this but can't reduce unfortunately. Can you run ECC memory on a non ECC cpu? It seems only the ECC server stuff has big enough DIMMS. SODIMMs seem to be larger too which is odd.

Appreciate anyone that can find a good CPU/motherboard combo that will seat 64GB in itx!
 
You can definitely ECC with ITX no problem, but you will be limited to a Pentium, E3 Xeon or Xeon D to achieve this I think.

Xeon-W or Xeon Scalable series would be a good fit for Solidworks, but their socket sizes are massive which is going to make it hard to find an ITX board for them - they might exist, I would check out the supermicro catalogue and the Gigabyte B2B and ASrock rack sites to be sure.

If you can find an ITX board and E3 Xeon is ok, then you it will need it to support the use of registered dimms, as you will be not have enough memory slots on an ITX board to achieve 64gb with unbuffered dimms, as they max size you can buy right now is 16GB - so you would be looking at at 32 gb maximum on 2 memory slot board (registered dimms are available in sizes up to 128gb!)

Solidworks system requirements would rule out the Pentium - to few cores / threads. Xeon D would have the thread count but not the clock speed you need in single thread... E3 Xeon would be limited to 4c8t which might not cut it for the money your going to be spending - and will not be that well balanced for the amount of RAM you need.

The Xeon-W or Scalable use more than dual channel memory - so you will not be making the most of CPU on ITX even if they exist...

I would go back to your colleague and find out exactly how small the system needs to be I think - it will have a big impact on the rest of this spec / build. Do you think theres any chance a super compact ATX build would be ok?
 
BongoHunter said:
You can definitely ECC with ITX no problem, but you will be limited to a Pentium, E3 Xeon or Xeon D to achieve this I think.

Xeon-W or Xeon Scalable series would be a good fit for Solidworks, but their socket sizes are massive which is going to make it hard to find an ITX board for them - they might exist, I would check out the supermicro catalogue and the Gigabyte B2B and ASrock rack sites to be sure.

If you can find an ITX board and E3 Xeon is ok, then you it will need it to support the use of registered dimms, as you will be not have enough memory slots on an ITX board to achieve 64gb with unbuffered dimms, as they max size you can buy right now is 16GB - so you would be looking at at 32 gb maximum on 2 memory slot board (registered dimms are available in sizes up to 128gb!)

Solidworks system requirements would rule out the Pentium - to few cores / threads. Xeon D would have the thread count but not the clock speed you need in single thread... E3 Xeon would be limited to 4c8t which might not cut it for the money your going to be spending - and will not be that well balanced for the amount of RAM you need.

The Xeon-W or Scalable use more than dual channel memory - so you will not be making the most of CPU on ITX even if they exist...

I would go back to your colleague and find out exactly how small the system needs to be I think - it will have a big impact on the rest of this spec / build. Do you think theres any chance a super compact ATX build would be ok?
Click to expand...

To clarify, the solidworks work being done is all in design, no simulation, analysis or rendering so the CPU requirement is just single core performance for this purpose. Perhaps more will help with the Solidworks VR add-in, im not too sure. something like a 8700k seems like a decent choice, but ECC might be needed for the mem capacity.

In terms of the build size, they want portability. Given the addition of monitor and VR kit the tower size needs to be carried in one hand really.(will create a handle for any case that doesn't have one) The Fractal 804 would be too large for example. A more compact M-atx board could work if the case is efficient with its use of space.

Thanks for the help so far :)

Habakkuk said:
What headset will you be using with SolidWorks?
Click to expand...

The headset will be the vive pro.
 
The only reason for ECC as far as i can see is to get 32GB 288pin dimms.

There is there one asrock x299 board that holds 4 sodimm slots though...
 
setting aside the hard drives as i just added them in to the mix to make a complete build and aside from choosing the i7, this is the only class of itx board that will support 64gb ram, dont know how many choices there are but this be the cheapest, i included the gpu i assume you meant. dont know budget, but this is the best i could find in the form factor you asked for. not the cheapest ram for sure, but i couldnt find any in stock or much better priced at lower speeds.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £4,187.62 (includes shipping: £11.70)
​
 
Thanks, that board is the SODIMM one so 288 pin dimms wont work. but that is a build that I'd considered.

There is no set budget right (annoying i know) its more of finding out how much it costs to deliver a machine of this capability. 4-6k is not at all out of the question.
 
Roverno said:
The only reason for ECC as far as i can see is to get 32GB 288pin dimms.

There is there one asrock x299 board that holds 4 sodimm slots though...
Click to expand...

Ah - you confusing ECC with Registered.

Most registered dimms ( rdimms) are ECC, but you can get unbuffered ( udimms ) with ECC as well.

I read your post as if you needed the ECC feature (error correction) not the capacity per dimm that registered brings (they have chips dedicated to parity to allow them to achieve the density, but don't always have ECC - though most do)

You will not find a board for consumer level chips that supports registered dimms - they don't exist at the mo.

That board with 4 SODIMMs sounds ideal for you needs then - it supports 64GB and it doesn't sound like ECC is a must at this point
 
I wrongfully assumed that they always came together. Yes, only need was for 64GB capacity, not to be ECC.

My only apprehension is that its asrock and my experience has not been great.
 
I can't find single non ASrock board that supports 64gb of memory

If you can go Micro ATX there are some really small cases out there like:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £469.50 (includes shipping: £19.62)​
​

Almost any MATX board will do 64gb

I would suggest trying to find a case where the board is flat against the bottom of the case if poss, less likely to cause issues with the weight of the heatsinks on the GPU and CPU if it's going to be moved around often.
 
Might be worth having a look at the HP ZBooks

The 17" models can take 64gb of RAM, support Xeons or i7s

Think the best GFX card you could get for one is a Quadro P3000 with 6GB of memory, but they also do AMD Firepro and other Quadro options.

Or get a regular laptop that can take 64gb and then get one of those USB 3.1 PCIE enclosures you could stick the Quadro in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom