Workstation advice.

We are looking at putting together a higher end workstation for working
with SolidWorks and COSMOS.
I am wondering on a couple of things:

Is there any improvement from 32bit to 64bit?
Any advantage of dual core processing? Dual Processor?
Workstation card vs high end gamer card?

Sorry if these quesitons seem obvious but I am not a user of
SolidWorks, just the one qouting the systems. I would just like to
know areas to target improvement rather than just upgrading something
that wont help.

 

If you have large files and run into memory issues, then 64 bit
theoretically should help. I don't have any real experience to back that up.

SolidWorks itself doesn't get much use out of multiple cores or processors,
although it does get a little. PhotoWorks will use multiple cores or
processors and speed up quite a bit. Having another core or processor to run
other applications while SolidWorks is tying up one is nice.

You can often get adequate performance out of a good game card, provided you
don't have too many windows open at once. That might or might not be a big
hit for your people. Your VAR will blame any problems on the game card,
whereas they are liable to be more responsive if you have an approved card
and drivers.

Faster processors always help. Personally, I find middle of the pack
workstation graphics cards to be good enough, with very little gain from the
high end cards, but other people swear by their very expensive cards. Faster
memory is good. Faster disk drives are nice too, but how much they help
depends on your work style.

In all cases, my own bias is to aim a couple of notches below the newest and
fastest, where the bang for my buck has a sweet spot.


Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"