Post SWW2006 Blues

Discussion in 'SolidWorks' started by TOP, Jan 28, 2006.

  1. TOP

    TOP Guest

    Well I benchmarked a bunch of computers on the floor of the vendor
    exhibit and they are faster than mine. But I was soured by the fact
    that SW2004 running on mine is still faster than SW2006 running on one
    of them when working with parts. Not to be disuaded from a planned
    rollout of 2006 I did some more testing. SW2006 did seem to rebuild
    large assemblies about twice as fast as 2004 so this was good news. But
    then I tried the next step in pre-rollout testing on SP3 and created a
    drawing. Oops, SW2006 would cut a section through the same large
    assembly, but if section scope was used the section failed. On the
    other hand, when I just converted the 2004 drawing it seemed to work.

    Conclusion: Parts slower, assemblies faster and drawings quirky.
     
    TOP, Jan 28, 2006
    #1
  2. TOP

    TOP Guest

    Well, yes. Up to the point that the sectioning bug surfaced they were
    faster if not disconcerting. The disconcerting part has to do with the
    background processing going on. Views take time to "develop". Takes me
    back to my darkroom days. I have yet to try this on a dual core AMD.

    I have to come up with a way to benchmark drawings. This is not nearly
    as easy as part rebuilds.
     
    TOP, Jan 28, 2006
    #2
  3. TOP

    Blockhead3D Guest

    It is new hardware time around here. Based on your benchmarking at SWW,
    what hardware worked the best with 2006? We have tried Dell and
    Tri-Star and are willing to try someone else. Is AMD that much better
    with SWX? Can a good prebuilt machine be bought for under $2,500? We do
    very simple parts, no surfacing at all. Some assemblies can have around
    500 parts. Any insight would be appreciated.

    Thanks

    Brad
     
    Blockhead3D, Jan 29, 2006
    #3
  4. TOP

    Blockhead3D Guest

    It is new hardware time around here. Based on your benchmarking at SWW,
    what hardware worked the best with 2006? We have tried Dell and
    Tri-Star and are willing to try someone else. Is AMD that much better
    with SWX? Can a good prebuilt machine be bought for under $2,500? We do
    very simple parts, no surfacing at all. Some assemblies can have around
    500 parts. Any insight would be appreciated.

    Thanks

    Brad
     
    Blockhead3D, Jan 29, 2006
    #4
  5. TOP

    TOP Guest

    In general AMD has always been better than Intel by a significant
    margin the last few years. The Centrino is the only Intel chip that
    seems to naturally do well with SW, but it is only available in
    laptops. The Pentiums make good space heaters though as a consequence
    of their high clock speeds.

    The machines I benched at SWW were for the most part top end. The SUN
    workstation line (dual Opterons), IBM (Dual Opterons) and the HP4300
    (3.8Ghz Intel) were pretty decent. The IBM was probably the fastest and
    most expensive. I can't help much with prebuilt machine information as
    I alway roll my own.

    Since I first penned this thread I installed SW2006 on a couple dual
    core AMD64 x2 4400+ systems and loaded a big drawing (5,000 part
    assembly). SW does indeed use both cores fully about 50% of the time
    which means maybe 25% improvement over a single core. This not only
    happens when loading the drawing, but also when printing as SW seems to
    regenerate everything when printing.
     
    TOP, Jan 29, 2006
    #5
  6. TOP

    matt Guest

    Personally, I'd stay away from Tristars. I would add Xi and Boxx to
    your list.

    All the benchmarks I've seen up to a few months ago show AMD on top.
    Maybe. Not a "really" good machine. For that you'll lay out closer to
    $4k. A top-of-the-line machine would be like $6k (dual PCIe video, 4 Gb
    RAM, raid drive, etc).

    For that you might be able to get away with something that isn't quite
    top of the line. Sounds like your memory requirements are low, 1 Gb
    might do for you, and possibly a lower end graphics card like the Quadro
    FX 1400 or 500.

    I would recommend Xi Computers. They make AMD boxes and tend to be
    cheaper for identical components than some of the others.

    Good luck,

    matt
     
    matt, Jan 29, 2006
    #6
  7. TOP

    Blockhead3D Guest

    Thanks for the advice, Xi looks like a nice machine. What are some of
    the newer technologies that SWX actually uses? I was pretty sure that
    for modeling and drawing dual processors were no advantage but it
    sounds like dual core is. As far as SLI I don't have the budget but
    wonder if it can be utilized. BTW, any experience with Xi product
    support?

    Thank you,

    Brad
     
    Blockhead3D, Jan 29, 2006
    #7
  8. TOP

    TOP Guest

    As I mentioned above, SW2006 does make use of a second processor in
    drawing regeneration and view creation. This does not mean a speed
    doubling, but is a significant speedup.
     
    TOP, Jan 30, 2006
    #8
  9. TOP

    TOP Guest

    And the first big drawing I loaded (made in 2004) had serious
    regressions. Hatch shows, but part outline doesn't on several sheets
    with section views.

    2006 conversion wizard crashes when converting certain folders with SW
    parts.
     
    TOP, Jan 30, 2006
    #9
  10. TOP

    mfgsol Guest

    do you export to autocad much? seems to be some glitches there too.
    with blocks and hatches. sucks for all the customers that want 2d
    intead of native swx. :0(
     
    mfgsol, Jan 31, 2006
    #10
  11. TOP

    TOP Guest

    From time to time we export.
     
    TOP, Jan 31, 2006
    #11
  12. TOP

    Wayne Guest

    You might be able to get another 10% - 12% out of your dual core by
    applying a Microsoft hotfix to XP, reference Microsoft KB Article
    896256.

    I recently purchased a laptop from Hypersonic-pc. AMD64 X2 4800+ with
    2GB ram and 7200 SATA HD and Nvidia Quadro FX Go1400 running XP Pro.

    I ran the SPECapc benchmark for SolidWorks 2005 on it comparing
    results to Dell M70. The only thing that I did that was not documented
    for the benchmark was to convert the files into 2005 format before
    running the test. My I/O numbers are better because of my SATA and the
    fact that I converted the files. Here are the number for average of 5
    test.

    Dell M70

    Total time 488.03
    Graphics 93.3
    CPU 202.83
    I/O 191.91

    Hypersonic Aviator FX7 before hot fix

    Total time 439.48
    Graphics 119.47
    CPU 208.5
    I/O 111.51

    Hypersonic FX7 after hot fix

    Total time 389.55
    Graphics 111.66
    CPU 180.11
    I/O 97.78

    Applying the hot fix made all activity faster, but my Graphics is
    still slower than the Dell M70 and they have the same Graphics
    processor. I have done some research on this and it appears that there
    is an issue with Nvidia 80 series drivers and dual core processors. My
    laptop has driver version 79.xx, but the drivers come from CLEVO, the
    real manufacture of the laptop. This is a brand new model, so there
    are no older versions of the video driver. I have notified them of my
    issue, so I hope that they will get it resolved soon. It is ironic
    that everyone complains about ATI drivers and Nvidia has problems.

    I also found it strange that the hot fix reduced my I/O times. I
    converted the files thinking that I/O times were effected by the CPU
    since it had to convert the files when loading.
     
    Wayne, Feb 4, 2006
    #12
  13. TOP

    Bo Guest

    John, glad to see you for a few minutes in Las Vegas.

    I wholeheartedly agree with you on your note about your primary
    SolidWorks machine not going on the Internet. More people need to hear
    that.

    My Dell M60 has never been on the Internet & it has been a pleasure to
    use. It has no antivirus, Spybot, firewalls activated, etc and the
    machine is ROCK SOLID, and has virtually 100% uptime (not that
    SolidWorks doesn't occassionally die, and have to be relaunched).

    There are plenty of $500-1000 boxes in any form you want to go online
    without worries. Mine is a Mac, and again, no downtime (it downloads
    all my SolidWorks updates, and I Ethernet them over to the M60 in a few
    minutes).

    Bo
     
    Bo, Feb 4, 2006
    #13
  14. TOP

    TOP Guest

    Same here, but replace Mac with Linux box. Same reliability at a
    fraction of the price.
     
    TOP, Feb 4, 2006
    #14
  15. TOP

    Bo Guest

    Mac, Linus, BSD, or other flavors are a personal choice as I see it.
    Like Ethnic restaurants.

    I like the upscale chain that is open 365 days a year which has that
    extensive menu of munchies, & feel like I get my money's worth on my
    Big Macs.

    My applications cost so many more multiples of the Mac hardware cost
    that I don't judge my Mac on just the hardware cost. A good MiniMac
    can be had for $500-600.

    Bo
     
    Bo, Feb 5, 2006
    #15
  16. TOP

    Wayne Guest

    Dale, I did not do the testing on the M70. I was just using the
    information published on the SPECapc website. Here is info published
    for the M70

    Intel Pentium M Processor 780, 2.26GHz, 2MB L2, 533 FSB
    1GB DDR2 533MHz SDRAM

    Their video driver was 6.14.10.7203 and mine was 7931
     
    Wayne, Feb 5, 2006
    #16

  17. I don't put much faith in the separation into Graphics, CPU and IO times. In
    my experience, anything you change can affect any or all of the times.
    Processor speed definitely affects all three. The graphics card can affect
    the CPU and IO times. Memory speed can affect all three.

    Jerry Steiger
    Tripod Data Systems
    "take the garbage out, dear"
     
    Jerry Steiger, Feb 6, 2006
    #17
  18. TOP

    TOP Guest

    SPEC APC is heavily weighted towards graphics. A good graphics card can
    make an anemic machine look stellar. Ship in a Bottle and STAR can
    separate graphics from CPU much better.
     
    TOP, Feb 6, 2006
    #18
  19. TOP

    Wayne Guest

    They now have the new FX60 processor, which is dual core. I think the
    M70 does have faster ram, 533Mhz to 400Mhz.

    I purchased from Hypersonic-pc and was somewhat upset with the
    purchase. It took a little over a month to get the computer and they
    did charge my credit card on placement of the order. They are working
    with Nvidia on the driver issue so I cannot complain about that. The
    actual manufacture is Clevo. Since I bought, I have found a couple of
    other sources. One is Xtremenotebooks. I have purchased from them
    before and was happy with their service. I cannot remember the name of
    the other source.
     
    Wayne, Feb 7, 2006
    #19
  20. TOP

    Wayne Guest

    I knew that the benchmark was high on graphics. They do more spinning
    of the models in one test than I do in an entire day. Also some of the
    spinning they do is through the API and it is much slower than
    spinning with the mouse.

    The reason I choose this benchmark, was that I do not trust
    individual's reporting their times for these other test.s. But after
    looking closer at the posted results from the SPECapc benchmark, they
    did not follow the instructions. The instructions were to run the test
    5 times and post your average times. Some only ran the test once.
     
    Wayne, Feb 7, 2006
    #20
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