Prebuilt CAD PC for Students

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profoundnoah

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May 12, 2015
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Hey Guys,
So I'm a sophomore in high school, and I'm taking an Engineering course that utilizes drafting software such as Inventor '16 and AutoCAD. We're taking a look at upgrading the outdated PCs in the lab (I'm talking '07 Dell Precision Series PCs running Vista,) considering that nearly 10-15 students have been working on Laptops for the past 2 weeks, and those laptops were confirmed to be moved out of the classroom. My question to you guys is, do you have any recommendations for a new PC for the school to buy? Of course, since it is a large organization, the PCs should be from a large prebuilt company such as dell, or HP. I was looking at Dell's XPS series, but saw that they only had GT 730s in there, which kind of voids the purpose, since AutoCAD supposedly has some graphic acceleration built in with discrete GPUs.

Our plan is to find a prebuilt, and then throw in something like a 750 ti, so I'm just seeing what your thoughts or recommendations for a prebuilt are. Thanks!
 
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JackNaylorPE
Dells business model is to sell you something that will have to be upgraded / replaced in 18 months. There used to be dozens of specialized CAD shops but then everyone realized that AutoCAD loved GTX Gaming cards and the CAD guys couldn't compete with the mass market gaming vendors

AutoCAD 2D / AutoCAD 3D / Inventor all run great on GTX cards
Maya runs poorly on GTX, loves Quadro ... Solidworks doesn't run on GTX, only Quadro

The problem with buying pre-built CAD boxes is that :

a) Everybody wants to throw in a Quadro or Fire GL which does nothing for you with the software you named.
b) Everybody has a base model, ad when you upgrade to something that cost $20 more, they charge you $90
c) If the word "Gaming" in any model name...
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why_wolf

why_wolf

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What were the specs on the old ones? What kind of per machine budget do you have to work with?

Do you guys have to buy brand new or can you utilize refurbished systems too? If you can check out Dell Outlet, lets you shave a few bucks off the price that way.

Side note do you not have some sort of pre-established IT purchase system already that forces you to choose from a few limited models from a vendor/rep you have a contract with?
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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Dells business model is to sell you something that will have to be upgraded / replaced in 18 months. There used to be dozens of specialized CAD shops but then everyone realized that AutoCAD loved GTX Gaming cards and the CAD guys couldn't compete with the mass market gaming vendors

AutoCAD 2D / AutoCAD 3D / Inventor all run great on GTX cards
Maya runs poorly on GTX, loves Quadro ... Solidworks doesn't run on GTX, only Quadro

The problem with buying pre-built CAD boxes is that :

a) Everybody wants to throw in a Quadro or Fire GL which does nothing for you with the software you named.
b) Everybody has a base model, ad when you upgrade to something that cost $20 more, they charge you $90
c) If the word "Gaming" in any model name, the stuffed shirts will dismiss it out of hand.

I'd suggest having a local PC shop handle it for you; a decent hop would have no problem delivering 15 boxes in a week. (If you were near me (NY), we'd be happy to do for free). This way you would have local support, buying local always goes over well with the residents / administration and the school will save a ton of money. I chose components that would be easily identifiable (white) in a school environment and thereby less likely to go missing.

Case ($150) - Phanteks Enthoo Evolv White Aluminum / Steel mATX / MicroATX Tower Computer Case (I chose something suitable for some rough treatment, frequent moves etc (1/4" aluminum panels) and could be locked down (kensington lock / bolted to desk) if desired that wouldn't be easily overcome.

PSU ($62) - Seasonic S12-620
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=PSS12II620

MoBo ($90) - MSI B150M Mortar Arctic LGA 1151 Intel B150 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Micro ATX Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130939

CPU ($305) - Intel Core i7-6700 8M Skylake Quad-Core 3.4 GHz LGA 1151 65W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117560

RAM ($62) - 2 x 8 GB DDR4-2133
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313701

Storage ($90)- 2 TB SSHD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178380

GFX Card ($430) - MSI 1070 Armor
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1260392-REG/msi_gtx_1070_armor_8g_oc_geforce_gtx_1070_armor.html

Monitor ($125) - ASUS VS Series VS247H-P Black 23.6" 2ms LED
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236174

School will / should already have a line on OS licenses.

Of course in our engineering office, I spend a bit more on the hardware .... Started toying w/ AutoCAD in the 80s, been using it every day and building boxes for CAD users for 23 years
 
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profoundnoah

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Thanks a ton for your recommendations. I'm not sure if the school has a dedicated contract, I'll have to ask about that. As for a budget, we are looking into getting around 10-15 machines, so I'd like the systems to be within the $1000 price range per unit. Of course I'll draw up some different specs since we're not quite that in depth with our programs, but I'll definitely give buying local some thought. Also, the old CAD machines were running a core i2 duo, 4 GB of RAM, and something along the lines of a Radeon 3450 if I remember correctly
 
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