Workstation Mother Board and Graphics Card Options

Hello Everyone,

I am in the process of specing out a new workstation for SolidWorks
CAD. I have settled on using the AMD XP 2700 processor (I know its
questionable whether or not the chips are actually faster than Intel,
but its still cheaper for the same performance) What I need to know
now is, what are the best motherboards and graphics cards to mate to
the application. I did a few searches, but the info I found seemed to
be a bit dated.

I have been looking at ASUS or AOPEN for the mother board. They both
seem to be based on the same chipset. Is there a significant
difference between the two? I have an AOPEN box in the office and it
has been a reliable performer. Is there another motherboard I should
consider?

I am looking at something like the nVidia Quadro4 750XGL or nVidia
FX500 for a graphics card. Which one gives better bang for the buck?
Is there another low cost performer I should consider?

Thanks in advance.

Bob.

 

I am currently using an ASUS A7N8X Motherboard with an Athlon 2700.
We are curently using 980xgl's which can take advantage of the 8x AGP
bus on the motherboard. I believe the speed of the two graphics cards
you are looking at are similar to each other. However, I would pick
the 500 because 1) I haven't seen anybody having problems with them
and 2) it will provide better compatability with future programs which
use things like DirectX 9 etc. Also I would agree with the comment
about memory. We have had issues with generic memory causing BSOD's
due to memory corruption when using SWX's.