CAD hardware

[Maximus]

Is there anyone on these forums who has knowledge on CAD Engineering packages and the hardware they run on. My cousine wants some advice on best price to performance ratios on hardware that will run CAD packages such as Catia very well.

They recently build a WinXP64/AMD/NVidia 7800GTX SLI solution which cost them R30,000. This system can do a simulation in about 3 hours which took their old Unix system about 13 hours to do. They wanted to move away from Unix based systems since these systems are used by individuals who also use the machines for other desktop solutions which runs in Windows. I mentioned to him (and he agrees) that the SLI cards will probably make no difference for CAD packages and that CPU power is answer.

He also wants to know if there are any drivers available for the 7800GTX cards which will further optimize the performance in Catia.

If anyone has knowledge in this field please let me know.

 

[Angellus]

Well I dont know anything about catia but I do use 3ds max 8. From my experience the faster the CPU the better and then taking it a step further adding more than 1 CPU.

If this is for high end engineering type things then I would suggest looking at 4 way or, if they are available, 8 way AMD Opteron systems for the really heavy duty stuff. If you are not going that high maybe just look at a dualcore system.

If memory serves it is cheaper at the moment to run 2 single core opterons than 1 dual core opteron of the same speed.

For engineering I susspect that it will be very similar to 3d work. Catia should be very well threaded so a dualcore will do wonders for it.

I think the SLI cards can be given a skip.

I do fluid simulations which require quite a lot of CPU power and I can tell you now the 4400+ that I run now is pretty much twice as fast as my 4000+ was when doing the fluid sims.

If money is not really a factor then a 4 way dualcore opteron system would be ideal. That would give you 8 cores!

 

[Person]

CAD Engineering packages used to all be Stability based rather than performance. For the Newer systems I would recommend a Dual Zeon or opteron Chip. The new dual cores are simply not supported by the systems at this time, and they tend to chuck out errors once in a while.

I would be more than willing to Quote you on a system but it depends on where you are. These systems need to be maintained by someone who knows what they are doing.

As for the GFX any PCi-e Matrox card will do. Its based on more ram and CPU power than actual Graphics.

 

[Maximus]

Thx for the response guys. I've also posted in another forum, so I'll just post an update here:

The system they currently have has 4GB of RAM, I'm not sure if they have SCSI drives but it's possible.

You see, here is the thing. Both my cousine and I agree that CPU power, RAM and HDD power is the answer here. I can't see that a graphics card will make a huge difference. The simulations they do vary, some are realtime simulations also showing it's results in realtime and others are simulations which run for a while, and then shows the results. I'm not into CADing so I would like to know how the Quadro cards will benefit them. They're simulations are very complex, but I doubt their graphics output has any high res textures or shaders and things, just very detailed models. They create mags for cars and then have to run simulations to see if the casts will work properly, how stress levels will affect the wheel, and weak points on the wheel.

Money is a big consideration since they don't want to spend R30,000 per machine, since they have to get a whole bunch of them. They are willing to let their simulations run for a while since they have already decreased it from 13 hours to 3 hours on the new test machine.

Person, the machines will be running at a factory about 30 or 40 KM's North of Pretoria.

 

[Angellus]

Thx for the response guys. I've also posted in another forum, so I'll just post an update here:

The system they currently have has 4GB of RAM, I'm not sure if they have SCSI drives but it's possible.

You see, here is the thing. Both my cousine and I agree that CPU power, RAM and HDD power is the answer here. I can't see that a graphics card will make a huge difference. The simulations they do vary, some are realtime simulations also showing it's results in realtime and others are simulations which run for a while, and then shows the results. I'm not into CADing so I would like to know how the Quadro cards will benefit them. They're simulations are very complex, but I doubt their graphics output has any high res textures or shaders and things, just very detailed models. They create mags for cars and then have to run simulations to see if the casts will work properly, how stress levels will affect the wheel, and weak points on the wheel.

Money is a big consideration since they don't want to spend R30,000 per machine, since they have to get a whole bunch of them. They are willing to let their simulations run for a while since they have already decreased it from 13 hours to 3 hours on the new test machine.

Person, the machines will be running at a factory about 30 or 40 KM's North of Pretoria.

A quadro card in my opinion is a total waste! They have optimized drivers for 3ds max and I still think it is a waste due to the extreme price increase. I would much rather spend that on a RAID 0 array or in getting another dual core.

I dont know how far their system is being pushed but I would say atleast a dualcore setup or if posible 2 dual core CPU's giving you 4 cores. Some fast HD's like the WD Raptors. I dont like WD but the raptors are great drives. AS much ram as you can put into the system, but only if you are going to be using Windows XP 64. 32bit Windows cant address more than 4GB ram and cant give one app access to more than 2GB if I recall correctly.

So to some up

As much CPU power as posible 2 or 4 Opteron's or 1-2 DualCore Opterons
Lotsa ram if you are using XP 64bit
Fast HD's
NO QUADRO - A high end card like the 7800's will give you very similar performance for much less.

 

[gkm]

I'm not into CADing so I would like to know how the Quadro cards will benefit them.

CAD software etc. often use OpenGL and the Quadro cards are optimized for that, rather than the more balanced capabilities between OpenGL and DirectX for gamer cards. I do not know if Catia is OpenGL based, but would be surprised if it is not. If they ran Catia on Unix before, then it is almost certainly OpenGL based.

Might be worth running some tests with a couple of cards, before settling on which one gives them most bang for their buck.

Edit: Just saw Angellus's post. I also suspect the Quadro's are overpriced, which is why I suggested testing before buying.

 

[Maximus]

Thx guys,

Catia does use OpenGL and they used to run it on Unix before.

Regarding softmods on NVidia cards. Aparently many of the Quadro cards have the exact same architecture as their gaming cousines and can be softmodded to become quadro cards. My cousine found this article: http://www.nvworld.ru/docs/sq4e.html

Any ideas what the potential problems are other than perhaps driver instabillity isssues? Are these soft mods really that good?

 

[Angellus]

Thx guys,

Catia does use OpenGL and they used to run it on Unix before.

Regarding softmods on NVidia cards. Aparently many of the Quadro cards have the exact same architecture as their gaming cousines and can be softmodded to become quadro cards. My cousine found this article: http://www.nvworld.ru/docs/sq4e.html

Any ideas what the potential problems are other than perhaps driver instabillity isssues? Are these soft mods really that good?

I have the 6800GT PCI and afaik you can softmod my card but I have not tried it. I do know the 6800GT AGP softmods very well and give pretty much the exact same performance as the Quadro card.

In most cases the quadro card is the exact same card as the geforce card. Sometimes the memory is different but at its core it tends to be the same.

As GKM said it is optimised for OpenGL but if you can get the Geforce to Softmod properly then the extra R's you would have spent on the Quadro becomes available for other more important upgrades or to simply save cash.

 

[gkm]

Since this softmod does not unlock extra pipes or something like that., I would wonder if it is worth the effort/hassles. But I tend to be very conservative about doing funny stuff to work machines, so I do not tend to take risks with them. Others might be more ready for adventure.