Spec me a CAD machine for £500...

[MoRT489]

Hi PC gurus

It’s been a while since I looked at PC hardware and a friend of mine has asked for a spec but I’m not confident that I’d be picking suitable components any more, so hopefully someone here can help.

He has all the peripherals so it is just the PC that he needs (CPU, RAM, PSU, GPU, Mobo, HDD, case, possibly a third party cooler if beneficial). It will be used to run Fusion 360 and maybe NX Nastran on Windows 10 (which he already has).

Is that even feasible for around £500 ish anymore?! If at this price point a prebuilt is the way to go that’s fine too. If not what should be the minimum spend for the type of machine for professional use?

Please let me have your suggestions.

 

[darael]

Personally I'd aim for an i5 system with 16GB of RAM or more, 256GB NVME, spinning rust for storage. I don't think you'll need an i7 or much in the way of storage - just plenty of RAM and a fast drive for the operating system to be installed onto.

 

[Nevakonaza]

CORE I5-10400F 2.90GHZ (COMET LAKE) SOCKET LGA1200 PROCESSOR - RETAIL
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/inte...ocket-lga1200-processor-retail-cp-680-in.html

B560M PRO4 (SOCKET LGA 1200) DDR4 MICRO ATX MOTHERBOARD
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asro...00-ddr4-micro-atx-motherboard-mb-180-ak.html#

VULCAN Z T-FORCE 16GB (2X8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHZ DUAL CHANNEL KIT - GREY
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...-3200mhz-dual-channel-kit-grey-my-0ak-tg.html

TEAMGROUP 240GB L5 LITE SSD 2.5" SATA 6GBPS 3D NAND SOLID STATE DRIVE
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...bps-3d-nand-solid-state-drive-hd-004-tg.html#

2TB BARRACUDA HDD 7200RPM 256MB CACHE INTERNAL HARD DRIVE (ST2000DM008)
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seag...b3b2a82cf2a-1628342872-0-gqNtZGzNAo2jcnBszQk6

CV SERIES CV450 450W 80 PLUS BRONZE POWER SUPPLY (CP-9020209-UK)
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...nze-power-supply-cp-9020209-uk-ca-25b-cs.html

Zalman T7 MID-TOWER ATX CASE - BLACK WINDOW
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/zalman-t7-mid-tower-atx-case-black-window-ca-09s-za.html

GEFORCE GT 710 SILENT 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-EXPRESS GRAPHICS CARD
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/pali...ddr3-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-03r-pl.html

ALPENFOHN SELLA CPU COOLER - 92MM
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/alpenfohn-sella-cpu-cooler-92mm-hs-043-al.html

A tad over budget at £525,And certainly wouldn't be doing much gaming with that GPU, BUT if its just cad work I'm sure this would be more than good enough.

EDIT- Sorry about the bold writing, it always does this for me on OCUK forums when pasting stuff.

 

[Quartz]

For Fusion 360:

Recommended specs for complex modelling and processing
CPU Type 3 GHz or greater, 6 or more cores
Memory 8 GB RAM or greater
Graphics Dedicated GPU with 4 GB or more VRAM, DirectX 11 (Direct3D 11 or greater)

NX Nastran is part of Femap and the below applies:

Femap v12 and v11.x Graphics Card Requirements
General statement regarding Graphics Cards
Femap has been developed with the intent to support all cards that implement the
required versions of OpenGL. However, AMD® considers Radeon® cards and NVIDIA®
considers GeForce® cards to be consumer cards. Therefore, it is highly recommended
that Femap be used on PCs with AMD FirePro and Radeon Pro or NVIDIA Quadro
cards. Please note that Quadro NVS cards are for business use and are not intended
for 3D graphics.
The Femap development group receives significant support from AMD for FirePro and
Radeon Pro cards and from NVIDIA for Quadro cards. However, basically no support is
received from AMD for Radeon cards and from NVIDIA for GeForce cards.
In addition, the latest graphics card drivers should be used and in cases where the PC
vendor has a graphics driver specific to their computer model number and graphics
chip, the driver certified by the PC manufacturer should be used.
Base Graphics requires an OpenGL graphics card with a minimum of 512 Mb
dedicated graphics memory.

and

Recommended system configuration
64-bit (x64) processor
Any of the above operating systems
Windows 7 operating system
8 GB of RAM or more
Video adapter supporting True Color (32-bit) or 16 million colors (24-bit), Open GL4.2 or higher, and 2 GB of dedicated VRAM
Screen resolution: 1280 x 1024 or higher, widescreen format
Free disk space for Femap installation (including documentation and license server): 1.4 GB for Femap Standalone; 4.1 GB for Femap with NX Nastran; 5.2 GB for Femap with all options
Free continuous disk space for Femap model files, Femap and NX Nastran scratch files: 500 GB

So I think £500 is very optimistic if you're buying new.

 

[Tetras]

[snip...]

Paste it into notepad before you paste it in here and it should fix it.

 

[Nevakonaza]

Paste it into notepad before you paste it in here and it should fix it.

Ohh okay, thanks for the tip

Hope the build list I done is somewhat useful, does leave room for gpu upgrade even with the 450w psu.

 

[Kurgen]

Ohh okay, thanks for the tip

Hope the build list I done is somewhat useful, does leave room for gpu upgrade even with the 450w psu.

if you get stretch budget, what about below, then look for a 2nd hand Quadro P600 on ebay

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS416G360C8K)= £68.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £199.99
• 1 x MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX II (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £59.99
• 1 x WD Blue 250GB SSD 3D NAND M.2 2280 Solid State Drive (WDS250G2B0B)= £37.99
• 1 x Seagate 2TB Barracuda HDD 7200RPM 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (ST2000DM008)= £49.99
• 1 x be quiet! System Power 9 400W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £44.99
• 1 x **B Grade** Phanteks Eclipse P300 Air Midi Tower Case - Black Window= £34.99

Total: £496.93 (includes shipping: £0.00)​

​

 

[MoRT489]

Thanks guys is there any benefit for this type of work for AMD vs Intel?

 

[MoRT489]

Any further thoughts on this please chaps?