Is RAM the moset important thing in a workstation?

I've always thought id buy a dual CPU workstation...
but lately I've been seeing recommendations to skip on
the dual CPU and instead concentrate money into RAM and
the vide card.

This would be for Inventor use...solids modeling

Agree?

Is a reg ole Pent 4 with TONS of ram and a great video
card better than a dual CPU xeon unit?

 

bob z. tends to lean towards the big ram and big video over the big
processor.

 

Buying a big block Chevy & dumping a Roots blower on it doesn't do
nearly as well, if you don't constantly maintain and tune it up, and
keep the bugs out of it.

 

Go RAM for sure. Recently someone posted for the STAR benchmark a
score that was about 60% faster than me and the only thing they had
different on their system (same brand and model) was another 1GB of
RAM. He had 1 instead of 2.

KM

 

Anyhow, Opteron or AthlonFX is the fastest thing going for SW, and probably

Yeah Id like to stick with AMD above

But I'm kinda on a budget and not sure I can go TWO
CPUs.... hence the question abt sticking with one CPU
and going for more RAM and good vide card

 

more ram than you need is NEVER a waste. set that page file to zero
and let it rock.

bob z.

 

sure, but RAM is somewhat cheap so I say load the thing up. I don't
know why anyone buying a new puter nowadays wouldn't put at least two
1gig sticks in. if you have to compromise anywhere it's CPU and hdd.

 

If you are dealing with large files, having a good amount of RAM is
very important.

Not as important but nice, is a fast hard drive SCSI (15,000 rpm) or
RAID 0 SATA 7200 / 10,000 RPM setup. This helps when you are loading
and saving your large files (200 to 500 MB).

 

"Good point. But that wouldn't be excessive. If you're only using 1.5
GB, a
4GB system is a bit silly."

For sure, since XP can only access 2.7 GB max anyhow!

 

Be careful about conclusions with STAR. There is a spreadsheet with
results in the same thread as STAR. Not sure you can say memory
quantity is the whole story. STAR runs in very little memory, less than
256Mb. There are other things that could happen to make that
difference. My little XP2000+ with 1GB was faster than half the
systems. I have received input and plan to release an updated version
that will be less susceptible to system settings. The big conclusion
the initial release of STAR gives is that there are other things
besides raw horsepower that can effect system performance. In fact one
thing that STAR might show up is the effect of having a lot of
services running.

What I might do in the updated version is leave the old test intact and
add the improved test that doesn't depend so much on your system.

 

My experiences says:

1. Fastest possible single CPU and motherboard/chipset
2. Enough memory so that you never page out to disk. Could be 1Gb,
could be 4Gb. I use 4 with large assemblies or complex parts, my other
machine is just fine with 1Gb. Start with 1Gb and upgrade if
necessary. Street price is $200/Gb for decent RAM.
3. Good video card. Quadros come to mind. I have an FX3000 at work and
a 500XGL in my home office. Get as much as you can within your budget
after meeting 1 and 2 above.
4. Decent hard drive. A WD Raptor is as good as it gets unless you want
to spend big bucks on SCSI RAID. Unless your processor is so fast it
can load and regen your parts as fast as the IO can deliver them this
portion of your system will have little effect on results.

You can make up for a lower quality graphics card by running your
graphics in etch-a-sketch mode. You can't make up for a slower
processor when you have to rebuild a complex mold part with
verification on rebuild turned on.

 

1. Fastest possible single CPU and motherboard/chipset

I'm thinking abt building my own PC

Since I'm NOT up on the hardware end of things...anyone
have good specs on what case, power supply,
motherboard, cpu to buy?

I can handle the rest of the hardware such as optical
drives, ram, drives. etc.... but lost on the above

I'm thinking I want to build around AMD processor as
they are not so power hungry

Also thinking Lian Li case but not sure what model and
why.

Advice?

 

I agree Dale. I have Duel Xeon 2.8ghz and they are slow. My home
machine with a FX-51 Athlon is waay faster. Although one problem is if
I really want to be able to work efficiently while my machine is
processing at work I do like to have duel processors. I just wouldnt
recommend Xeons. I am going with duel Opterons next time.

 

How about wait a few months and get a dual core dual Opteron setup! 4
CPUs!!

 

Tigerdirect has a spiffy Shuttle case for the FX55. Put in a DVD/CD
burner and a decent graphics card and hard drive and you will have a
pretty decent system in a very compact quiet footpring with little to
do other than install a few components. Get an LCD monitor and you can
move it around very easily.

 

Of what specific advantage would that be?

 

"Of what specific advantage would that be?"

If you are ONLY running a single threaded app like SolidWorks or most
other design apps then there may be no advantage to even a dual
core/cpu system.

But most engineers I know run heavy analysis/engineering apps (FEA,
CFD, Matlab) along with their design apps (SW, Alias, VX, Geomagic).
Even some utilities like WinRAR for 200MB+ files often take a
significant amount of single thread CPU time.

The short answer:
1. Run many single-threaded apps at once smoothly or 2. Run
multi-threaded apps faster. But you already knew that

Happy CPU'ing!

 

Tigerdirect has a spiffy Shuttle case for the FX55. Put in a DVD/CD

I've kind of decided to stay with a full size case

But thanks for that advice I will look into it

 

Tigerdirect has a spiffy Shuttle case for the FX55. Put in a DVD/CD

wow

that FX55 is almost $900, right?

 

Well, you wanted a fast machine. Price out the comparable Pentiums and
its a sweet deal.

I have seen these Shuttle systems in action. Don't let the size fool
you. They have excellent cooling, are extremely quiet and take up
little real estate. If you are going to have your head in SW all day
and nothing much else you ought to consider it. They have one
expansion slot, but room for several hard drives and a floppy.