PC build primary for SolidWorks 2013?
I am helping a family friend who needs a new PC primary for SolidWorks 2013.
I have little knowledge about a workstation/CAD type PC as the only thing I can help with is the building process and I'm more acknowledged about gaming orientated/spec type builds. Short story, they were using an old laptop and the GPU must have fried out as they were running work type/CAD programs (mainly SolidWorks 2013). I believe it had a Geforce 8000/8600 series GPU.
Main requirements they wanted was a dedicated GPU, 2x display outputs (vga/hdmi or else converters could work), 64 bit preferably W7 but W10 could be fine. They don't game. They do basic web browsing/usage and MS office programs.
I'm just wondering what GPU, CPU, PSU, Mobo would be suitable for this?
From my POV/price wise;
Geforce GT 1030 (Quadro could be better suited but idk which model suits/how demanding SW 2013 is?)
400 or 500 watt PSU
DDR4 Ram
W10 OS
Will this be sufficient enough? I'm unfamiliar with CPU but a stock cooler i7-4790 or I7 6th gen? Or are some i5 good enough as well (eg i5 2400) or even i3?
Again SolidWorks 2013 is just the main application and I’m looking for the build price to be inexpensive/fair that match the specific needs. I'm from NZ so some prices/availability may be different compared to Western countries but am open to your guys recommended build plans/specs.
4 Answers
i5, i7, it won't matter much since crunching SW models is by nature a single threaded operation and doesn't take proper advantage of multiple cores. Rendering and analysis operations, OTOH may benefit from more cores.
In general, you're better of paying for processor speed, the faster the better, and
as much quaddro card as can be afforded. Also, max out the ram since it's cheap these days.
You might be more limited by OS, SW2013 is getting on the old side and they phase out support after some time. Not sure where it stands as of today.
Consider buying a used Dell M6600, or M6800 laptop off of eBay. For under $1,000 (US) you can get an excellent workstation.
Windows 7 might be a "safer" option for SW 2013, but it might also run on Windows 10, it is hard to say.
How much video and Ram is needed largely depends on the complexity of parts, and the size of assemblies being worked on. The PC is going to be waiting for the user 80% of the time.
I'd get 16 Gb of RAM as a minimum, but 8Gb would almost certainly work fine for most tasks.
Put any money you save on other components into SSD hard drive(s). Those will make everything seem faster all day long.
SOLIDWORKS will run on a geforce based video card. It is not really supported, but neither is SW2013.
A Quadro based video card is the better option, but it is hard to suggest how new/powerful the card/computer should be without seeing the type of models they are making.
If they are going to be doing something like rendering images, then there would be more of a need for a faster CPU, or one with more cores.
Hi Nathan L,
As Robert H. has said SW uses one core for most of the operations inside the CAD module.
But besides what others could say it's more complex than buying any i7 or i5, there are two important bits for evaluating the performance of a CPU in single threaded applications, Frequency, and IPC, Frequency it's in GHz but the IPC (Instructions per clock) is not given by the manufacturer.
In order to get a real orientation of the performance of each CPU, I suggest you check benchmarks in Cinebench for single core, SuperPI, Cpu-z (don't use geekbench as it's not reliable).
If as said he is only going to work with SolidWorks and only in cad, a good i5 4th gen or more should be more than enough, if you have an unlocked version you could overclocked to a safe number to improve the overall performance.
Another suggestion is trying to find a used workstation on eBay as FredSWUG says, but get a tower not a laptop if he is trying to get the best value.
Search for an E3 Xeon inside paired with DDR3 ECC ram, he will save a lot of money there as RAM is really expensive nowadays, and DDR3 ECC second hand is the cheapest now.
Some of those workstations will be paired with an old Quadro that probably will be more than enough but it will depend vastly on the workload, the amount of RAM will be too.
An SSD improves programs loading times and OS booting time, also latency is lower, he would get a much better experience.
An example would be the next machine paired with an SSD and a new GPU:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z230-Xeon-E3-1241v3-3-5GHz-QC-16GB-2TB-FX3800-Win-10-Workstation-PC/401524291193?hash=item5d7cb67679:g:rzAAAOSwiqFagkNA
That's 16GB of ram, a proper 4 cores 8 threads, the 2TB could be used as a secondary storage unit, with a 250/256GB SSD for the OS and programs. Get rid of that old Quadro and get a GT1030 or a Quadro K4000 if he doesn't have much money.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-NVIDIA-Quadro-K4000-3GB-GDDR5-Video-Graphics-Card-713381-001-700104-001/302715007429?hash=item467b3871c5:g:e~kAAOSwE3ha3iXN
Cheers for the suggestions and discussion guys! I learnt a bit more from this. I have a general idea of what components and build to go for now + my friend's needs.
Only thing to consider now is either W7 or W10? I've never used SW but will there be any compatibility/support issues? I thought W10 could be good since it's the latest and still supported updates OS but SW2013 was meant to run in W7 correct?
