Best Compaq computer for SW

All, We have 5 seats of SW and run them on machines that vary from PII's to
a PIV. The problem is that they all are slow. We are embarking on a new
project that will be fairly complex (large part files and 100+ part
assemblies) and I do not want my designers waiting on SW like we have been.
Corporate has specified only Compaq computers can be used on our network, so
I'm looking for advice on what to get.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tim

 

Tell the lazy IT people to get there heads out of you know where. HP
stinks and you will forever be troubled with sub-par performance.
Seriouly, Its time for a change. Stop the insanity. On the other hand I
love there printers.
Maybe you should just buy a Dell on your own and take it to work. I
fought the same battle and won.
Good Luck

 

yep, But I'm a SW user too. My computer is the slowest by far. 450 mhz,
PII 512K.

If name was not "important", then what machine should I (we) get?

 

Tim,

Hard to say from a "name" standpoint. A good purpose built "white box" clone
will out perform the best name box. Of the names, Dell gives you the best
customization options. They offer all of the necessary components to build a
screaming CAD workstation.

I've been building ASUS based AMD Athlons for about the last year. Since the
P4 has hit 3ghz, the clock speed has cancelled out most of the CAD
crippleing inefficiencies of the design (like the lousy math core). I'm
going to build a Supermicro based dual Xeon 3.06 just to try it out.

Your IT people should know that it's not the brand of the box, as much as
the NIC's and switches that make a stable network (from the hardware
standpoint). What they never seem to be able to grasp is that the hardware
requirements for 3D CAD, are very different than for accounting. I feel yer
pain

Regards

Mark

 

I was about to buy me new workstation at the end of last year and compared a
Dell to a Compaq because our net supporter sells them.....what ever he did,
he ended ip at least 1 to 2 $K above the dell
And they were configured exactly the same with the exception that Dell had a
dual procsesser and Compaq counldn't come up with that.

Krister

Tim <> skrev i
diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:wzq%a.101044$
dnet.att.net...

 

what would be best? P4. Xeon, or AMD? I know SW will not use 2 CPUs but it
has helped some by off loading the background tasks and freeing 1 whole cpu.

our VAR just said get as fast FSB and cpu as you can get with plenty of
memory (going for a gig). Seems a P4 has faster FSB than Xeon but you can't
go dual. Which would be they way to go?

 

Tim,

It actually does use 2 CPU's. The problem is, that for some operations, the
CPU rescorces nesessary to split tasks between the two, cancells out most of
the benifits.

I need duals for a different reason. If I have a toolpath crunching in my
CAM system, I can still work in SW full speed. Without duals, I wait.

Regards

Mark

 

Thanks all,
ended up with 4 XW4100, 2.8 GHZ, 1GB ram, quadro 980 with IDE HD (have heard
SCSI does not help much and can actually hinder perf).

Will post benchmarks when we get the puters in.