What would you build for CAD / solid modeling?

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Hypothetically, if you were going to build a system to work with software like catia, inventor, solidworks, etc, and you wanted it to be a best bang for the buck, what would you build?
 
Are you referring to a comprehensive, all encompassing software product to do everything, or are you asking what kind of object or product would I build?
 
I would use a SPARC or better WS running Unix or a Mega PC.

Better yet, I'd run it on the New IBM distributed computer.
 
Originally Posted By: tom slick
Hypothetically, if you were going to build a system to work with software like catia, inventor, solidworks, etc, and you wanted it to be a best bang for the buck, what would you build?



I *think* all of these run on *NIX, meaning you may have to start by narrowing down which hardware is compatible with openSolaris, or use Vista.

I'd also investigate the possibility of creating a rendering cluster of commodity hardware instead of a massive, expensive behemoth.

Your main workstation'd have to be loaded with RAM and have a ridiculous video card... Like one of those $2500 ATI V8650's or this monster. Again, it depends on your OS and what drivers are available.

Depending on what kinda of work you're doing, you may also need to look at a color matching monitor. They're expensive, too.

You *might* might might even think about scoring a used SGI workstation. It'll probably only be able to run IRIX, and I don't know if the software you listed can run on IRIX, but I used an Onyx waaaaaay back and that thing screamed holy heck at graphics rendering and throughput in 1998. These days they're not too terribly expensive. Plus, some of their machines look like beer fridges from the 31st century.
 
Issue settled: Just grab a IBM Sequoia

From the article: "IBM reckons its 20-petaflops capable Sequoia system will outshine every single current system in the Top500 supercomputer rankings combined in terms of raw computing power."
 
Quote:

d also investigate the possibility of creating a rendering cluster of commodity hardware instead of a massive, expensive behemoth.


We have a winner; our recent compute server replacement came with the following requirements: Buy the fastest Dell server with dual cores and 64Gb memory; 5 year maintenance plan

Five years later, it gets thrown away and, no, it in't running Windoze.
 
Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Quote:

d also investigate the possibility of creating a rendering cluster of commodity hardware instead of a massive, expensive behemoth.


We have a winner; our recent compute server replacement came with the following requirements: Buy the fastest Dell server with dual cores and 64Gb memory; 5 year maintenance plan

Five years later, it gets thrown away and, no, it in't running Windoze.


What, no dual quad-cores?
wink.gif
 
We just got Inventor and AutoCAD 2009 at work, and I'll tell you get as much RAM as possible. We have 4GB installed and often run out of RAM on large assemblies and drawings. AutoCAD now seems to have memory issues as well, mine was at 240megs at startup this morning.

I'm not sure about the others, but Autodesk software is available on 64 bit now, so that would be the way to go for more RAM.(32 bit is limited to 3GB)

BTW Inventor 2009 still has lots of incomplete features and bugs and AutoCAD is maybe worse then ever.
 
I'm not sure what model, but it's an ATI openGL card. It seems to work fairly well, we haven't had a lot of video card related problems.
 
from what I've read most performance issues are tracked to video card performance.

my computer at home runs does not meet any specs for solidworks and it certainly shows up.
 
Like I said, most of our problems are bugs and broken features not performance or video card related.
 
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