System build for Autocad £500 available or thereabouts

The computers at uni are all new as of a month ago and are badged up as Core 2 vPro, so they're running at least a half decent Core 2 Duo.

Either way, running AutoCAD at home on an old single core athlon64 but with an 8800GS (at higher res 1680x1050 vs 1280x1024) is much smoother and more responsive.
 
I take it that they are using vista at your uni as they are in mine, it may be intel integrated graphics at work, making the uni computers feel sluggish
 
guys this is brilliant, thanks. This is a bit of a different request, not about gaming but about good Autocad performance.

Any further clarification on the GPU front would be most welcome.
 
We're converging on agreement I hope. Any response to your post suggesting your card only hardware accelerates one of the available functions Kenai?

I'm thrilled that your computer at home runs better than the uni ones, I'm asking for a less subjective analysis however, or at least for a more complete list of the hardware involved. Otherwise comparison is difficult. Opinion is good too of course, but you're up against Google and a set of controlled benchmarks at the moment so supporting evidence would be good

^not directly I don't think. Gpu temperature is probably a reasonable measure though, as it's roughly proportional to load.

Integrated graphics could be hurting the uni ones, I can believe a dedicated card is better than intel onboard. I think this is because the dedicated card reduces load on the processor more than because the card is doing the calculations itself.

How much ram is there on the uni system/your system? Seems plausible that someone posting on here has rather more than the standard uni box.
Oh, and as more data, the pentium/agp systems here run xp professional, the library computers run server 08
 
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Well, atm I can't compare to the performance tuner logs at uni but I'll be back in using it in a few days so if you can wait I can get a copy of the logs there to see what gets accelerated there in comparison.

Which controlled benchmarks are these? I've not noticed you post any for AutoCAD specifically, unless i'm being blind.
 
user1453 said:
why not get a gamer card and mod the device id to get access to the workstation drivers
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=539&pgno=0

The is virtually no difference between a gamer gpu and a workstation card, just a little flash memory chip that says I am a quadro

it may be that gamer cards are supported as display only, no acceleration, anyone know of any benchmarks that can check this?
Click to expand...

This is very interesting, thanks...
 
I'll still be around in a couple of days, I'd like to see them. Might need help interpreting them mind.

I haven't benchmarked for autocad, do you know a suitable tool for this? I used spec viewperf as it covers 3ds max, catia, ensight, maya, pro engineer, solid works, tcvis, ug nx. This is pretty good for a single application, there's a couple of other benchmarks on their site which I'll run when my system gets back from rma.
Testing tracked here http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17995195
As for controlled, I ran their suite at 1600 x 1200 at two clock speeds with the rest of the system unchanged. Uploaded all the results to rapidshare, but looks like their download limit has been reached. I bothered to reflash the card each time, it's possible changing with rivatuner would have the same effect. I've been meaning to do more extensive testing for ages now, but life and hardware failure keep getting in the way

^note that the article doesn't apply to newer cards mate, changing the bios appropriately is very straightforward however. Second hand 8800gt's go for 50 quid or so, and changes to closely resemble the fx3700 which costs silly money
 
from what I can gather it seems Nvidia are 'optimised' over ATI, although the Autodesk says either will work.

There does not appear to be any guarantees that the softmod will work
 
I can guarantee that the rivatuner method wont work with a new nvidia card :)

Nvidia card seems sensible whether or not you can make the mod work. If you find a 8800gt, which should be in the right price bracket, hopefully my guide will succeed in modding it for you. Otherwise, after confirming you understand the process, email it to me and I'll mod the bios for you.
If the flash goes bad, you get to flash it back without a working display, or put it in a computer as a second graphics card. Important to remove drivers and so forth appropriately. I'll test the bios out on my card before sending it back to you.
 
your a star sir, I take it the 8800gt is the 512mb version. Would a more up to date version help? I see the 9800gt version is available?

Also, I take it this card will still work on the latest motherboard recommendations in this thread?

I would even take a second hand one off someone's hands if they wanted ;)
 
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do the one in post #2

but remove the sunbeam cooler and use the stock cooler that comes with the chip

it is a good/quiet cooler that keeps the chip at low temps up to 3.8GHz

plus it gives you a tasty 20 boys to put towards better memory
 
rjkoneill said:
do the one in post #2

but remove the sunbeam cooler and use the stock cooler that comes with the chip

it is a good/quiet cooler that keeps the chip at low temps up to 3.8GHz

plus it gives you a tasty 20 boys to put towards better memory
Click to expand...

Cheers for that, I think you might be right, although I would change the graphics to an 8800GT which is plenty fast enough for CAD especially if I can unlock the features of the quadro
 
first purchase done, Have an 8800gt on way. Second hand will do just fine

Thanks for other GPU advice chaps, but this machine won't be used for games but autocad and I need to maximise the potential with the softmod and this card will do it so once all is in place I will contact you JohnJ

Everything else I am working my way throgh, father in law coming tomorrow I am going to see if his budget will strech the £80 for a core i7
 
Good stuff. i7 or quad core is probably the way forward here. Which 8800 have you found?

Overclocking the system? Stock q9550 was outpaced by my modded 8800gt during benchmarks, but the system is a dream to work on.
 
Just sourced a Inno3D 8800GT "Wind Edition" 512MB with a Zalman VF-900Cu aftermarket cooler used for 5 months £60 delivered, never overclocked
 
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