AMD, or Intel?

Time to upgrade again. Anyone running AMD with Solidworks anymore?
Otherwise recommend a Core 2 ASUS P5 motherboard, or equivalent.
(Gigabit/Biostar?)


ca

 

Go with an Intel Core i7 cpu if you want the best SW performance.

Cheers,

Anna

 

here is a good link for reference...

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

...

 

I am using SW maybe 8hrs a week, currently. Performance is not anywhere
as important as stability. (I left behind the bleeding edge years ago.)

Nearly every expert Including SW corp says that Core2Duo will benefit SW
but NOT Core2Quad, so don't waste the money. Same answer for dual CPU,
unless you are doing rendering.

ca

 

I am using SW maybe 8hrs a week, currently. Performance is not anywhere
as important as stability. (I left behind the bleeding edge years ago.)

Nearly every expert Including SW corp says that Core2Duo will benefit SW
but NOT Core2Quad, so don't waste the money. Same answer for dual CPU,
unless you are doing rendering.

ca

 

Anna has done alot of work testing different set ups and CPU's. Odds
are well in her favor that she is correct and you should do what she
says.

 

I dunno. The top end i7 costs $1,000 at NewEgg. The top end AMD Phenom
costs $229. The only benchmark that showed the top end i7 doubling the
performance of the Phenom was in ray tracing. If you don't go with the
fastest i7 the difference with the significantly less expensive Phenom
is also less making the price/performance gain less attractive. By going
with the less expensive upgrade you can plan to to retire the new system
sooner when even faster chips come out in the future. Given that the top
end i7 will be surpassed in a year or less the decision might be as much
about cost as performance, especially with SW improving performance
every year.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3512&p=4


Looks like Intel might be getting ready to throw a curve at SW.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3513

They are going to integrate graphics and CPU effectively cutting out
NVidia and every other graphics chip maker.


TOP

 

i'm not sure what you are using now but for me,... the jump has to be
at least 3X factor for it to be worth while...
sure,.. if you want to be very conservative... go with one of the
E8XXXX processors and nearly any above average mobo will do but ASUS
is pretty good.
but seriously,.. for the cost/performance, the core i7 920 is by far
the best bang for the buck!
you know as well as most people here.. what is very important is a
good motherboard and memory.. and of course the good pro graphics
card.
i have built every computer i have used and getting good components is
key.
which ones... read reviews and base it off what is selling well
overall.
as for the so called professional SW users and SW Corp? you gotta be
kidding, right?? arrgghh... I won't go there.
my personal fav for mobo's is ASUS but,... Giga has been producing
some very good mobo's lately.
my personal fav memory is Crucial but,.. OCZ is suppose to be very
good as well.
and,.. if you making your own system.. get a above average power
supply!
hey,.. even if you were to get the BEST,.. the is a chance you will
have problems... i've seen MANY clients who have bought the very
BEST... it can be the luck of the draw but if you have to be even
more conservative.. buy into mega insurance,... next day repair/
replace,... wipe my nose,.... systems.

AMD... i think they have some really good stuff and ideas. as for
the lastest,.. if you pair their stuff up well,.. it's a very good
bang for the buck as well!
their site has recommended systems so that helps.
also,.. depending on the mobo socket you have,.. you may be able to
upgrade just the cpu and memory to get a good 2X performance jump?

good luck! 8^)

 

Corsair (correction, meant to say,.. heck,.. a lot of them are good
nowadays!)

Just make sure they are paired or throw out what you have and get new
4, 6 or 8 gig bundles of what ever your cpu/mobo is designed for!

...

 

clay,

Head over to my blog at www.solidmuse.com In the right sidebar are
links to several SW Benchmark tests. Try them on your current system
and also check out the results for yourself. From there you can make
your own decision on how much you want to spend for the desired
performance from SW.

When you get your new machine be sure to run the benchmarks and submit
results.

I will be updating the spreadsheets this weekend with some more
results that I have received in the last week or so.

Cheers,

Anna
www.solidmuse.com

 

I'll look at Annas site.

So back to the question. Is anyone running AMD Phenoms & SW? I am
remarkably happy with an AMD dinosaur, but it is time to start over
again. A 3x increase will be easy to accomplish.

 

Paul,

Currently I am thinking Asus P5Q & Intel 8500 will suffice, Or ASUS &
AMD Phenom. Maybe gigabit. The only question that matters is
reliability. I haven't had a blue screen for years. tells you about how
old my system is. My laptop is 2x faster.

The I7 looks good, but considering the benchmark comment by "manager" I
don't see the SW real benefit, for what I use it for. 90% of my SW stuff
is square corners right now.

you have a desktop? Or are you still a laptop will travel guy?

ca

 

Clay,

I have one person who has submitted results for an AMD Phenom system.
It is for the Scooby-Doo surface model. It is well down the list for
Crtl-Q rebuild performance of this particular model. All of the
benchmarks are pretty consistent in their results, so I would expect
the Phenom to perform the same in relation to the other cpu's on all
the Ctrl-Q rebuild tests.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pz7wTpIkC7LAuGJ0evMeWQw

Cheers,

Anna

 

anna, thank you Looks like SW2009 is a shade faster than SW2008.

It would be nice to know what actual motherboard the top Core 2 duo
machines had. (Dell & Xi)

You can also see that SW doesn't really take advantage of more than 2
cores. The higher speed top machines probably perform better due to the
increased ram speed more than anything else.

Also really interesting to see the low cost, lower speed Dell XPS neck
and neck with the top picks, even with the slower ram. Must be the
FX3500 that pushed it to the top.

All the programing geeks (That use SW too) tell me that SW doesn't
really take advantage of 64bit OS, so it is curious that the 64 bit OS
is on all the top machines.....hhmmm....be interesting to see the exact
same machine with OS comparison. (Not exactly a fun task)

ca

 

WHAT "advantage"?
AFAIK A*B takes about the same number of clock
cycles no matter the core precision/word size.
__
Cliff

 

My 2 year old compaq with an AMD processor, runs AutoCAD inventor and
Solid Edge quite a bit faster than my new Dell M6300 with Intel
inside.

I am told that the AMD chip is much friendlier to math and vector
graphics than intel.



its probably worth doing your own research.



Phil scott

 

Strangely the Phenom comes out just a tad bit faster than the other AMD,
an FX60 chip which is quite old. I would think the Phenom would be
considerably faster than a CPU that is at least 3yrs old which suggests
that settings or setup are playing a part.

The comparison with the i7 is also with different graphics cards and the
Scooby benchmark is heavy on graphics. Even so the FX570 is an entry
level card. When comparing CPUs it is better to use a benchmark that is
independent of the graphics card used. Typically when doing a graphics
intensive benchmark there needs to be a standard set of options and
screen resolutions.

TOP

 

The Phenom that is listed is a 2.3 GHz part. It is a first generation
Phenom X4. It performs about the same as a first-generation Core2
Duo running at 2.4GHz. The new Phenom II processors are supposed to
be more competitive clock-for-clock and are available with up to 3.0
GHz clock speed. While not at the same performance level of the Core
i7, the Phenom II *may* be competitive alternatives to the Core2
Unfortunately, there really aren't any published SolidWorks benchmarks
to prove it out one way or the other.

If absolute top peformance is the goal, then the Core i7 is the only
real choice. If price/performance is important to you, then the top
end Core2 Duo 8500/8600/8700 are safe buys. The Core2 Quad Q9550 is
a good choice for animators/analysts on a tight budget, too.

Also, the Scooby-Doo model is a surface model and does benefit *a
little bit* from quad cores. (There is a greater delta in performance
between the Core i7/quad Xeons and Core2 Duo processors on the Scooby-
Doo benchmark than on the Punchholder benchmark.) Rendering and
analyis apps DO benefit from quad cores.

 

If absolute performance is the goal then wait a bit because Intel is
going to speed up their CPU again shortly. For the price of the top end
bleeding edge i7 CPU alone you can buy 2 1/2 AMD Phenom II x4 Deneb CPUs
with motherboard.

To look at it another way, if you are building a balanced system and
don't have infinite resources you take the $800 difference in CPU plus
motherboard price for the i7 and put it into a better graphics card than
you would normally purchase or buy more ram or both. The difference in
speed between the top end Phenom and the top end i7 is nowhere near 2x
to 3x needed to justify paying top dollar.

I hope Anna can dig up some benchmark results comparing the top end AMD
chips to the top end Intel chips because from a price/performance
standpoint the AMD appears to be on top. Unless somebody can show that
having the bleeding edge fastest chip will provide a tangible time
savings in real world performance (read: how much work can be done in a
day).

Spec doesn't have any published results for SW since SW2007 took over
the benchmarking. In addition I was unable to find any current AMD
scores there. There is a distinct lack of competition.

One way to tell how much a fast CPU will help in day to day activities
is to look at the CPU time used by the SolidWorks process in Task
Manager. What you do is look at this number and compare it to how much
real time has passed during a period of heavy SW use. For example, if
you are using SW heavily for 2 hours and Task Manager says you have used
1/2 to 1 hour of CPU time you are probably limited by the CPU speed. If
in the same 2 hours you have used 15minutes of CPU then you are probably
not limited by CPU speed.

======================================
Current pricing from Google search
======================================
Price of a top end AMD processor:
AMD Phenom II X4 quad core 940 3.0ghz black ... $236.50 - EWorldSale.com
NewEgg: AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor $260 shipped

CPU and mobo combo
AMD Phenom II 940 3.0GHz Motherboad Combo (Asus M4A78 PRO) $384.20

=======================================================================

Price of a top end i7
Intel Core i7 3.2 GHz Processor $980 to $1,464 - 123 stores
mobo runs around $300

Memory DD3
6Gb $250.

 

I would be happy to add benchmark results to my Google spreaadsheets
for current AMD Phenom II systems. If anyone has an AMD system run
the benchmarks and send me the results.

Cheers,

Anna
www.solidmuse.com