CAD System

Depends on the budget.

A basic i7 build with a workstation card might do the trick, or you could go for a serious workstation build with a couple of Xeons.

https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/ [...] D=10633792

With that budget, it would be foolish to not go with the i7 path. Since you are not doing a lot of 3D application, you do not need much GPU horsepower, and can therefore afford the better CPU.

For a system thats not going to be used for 3D rendering almost anything will do .

We ran Solidworks on a 2.8 GHz dual core pentium 4 with 1 gig of RAM . OS was XP . Gfx was a 7300 series nVidia card

It was an off the shelf Dell that we bought because it had an LCD as part of the system .

It was fast and responsive .


Any $70 processor from 2009 would spank the p4

You will not need the latest and greatest .

Id suggest a system based on an e8400 , 4 gig of RAM , and a nice quiet case and psu , a budget gamer gfx card and a large monitor

To be fair system specs even for solid works have doubled in the latest generation of software .

Now they have a 1 gig minimum and recommend 2 gig or higher

I would probably build a machine like this with a basic quadro or equivalent ATI gfx card . It does give you some advantages , mainly stability and driver features .
It wont need to be an expensive card ... maybe even passively cooled

I like quiet work environments . Thats one of the reasons I suggest the e8400 . Its a very low power consumption cpu and will likely be quieter . In a quiet case like the antec sonata or p182 it will be almost silent

Have a look at the website for the CAD program you want to use . There will be minimum recommended specs for hardware

Thank you. What about the workstation gpu?

I don't think Batuchka actually read the entire thread