Best CPU for AutoCAD

[kitemap]

Hello,
I know this question gets asked all the time but I'm getting very confused.
I need to upgrade my CAD workstation to 64bit as I keep running out of RAM. I don't do any rendering so graphics card doesn't need to be super fast but which CPU?
As far as I can find out AutoCAD will not utilize more than one core as it is not a multi-thread aplication, but all fast CPUs seem to be 4 or more cores now.
What is best for vanilla AutoCAD?

Thank you

D

 

[warmon6]

Hello,
I know this question gets asked all the time but I'm getting very confused.
I need to upgrade my CAD workstation to 64bit as I keep running out of RAM. I don't do any rendering so graphics card doesn't need to be super fast but which CPU?
As far as I can find out AutoCAD will not utilize more than one core as it is not a multi-thread aplication, but all fast CPUs seem to be 4 or more cores now.
What is best for vanilla AutoCAD?

Thank you

D

EDIT: opps. misread the post. Never heard of vanilla autocad before. I'll research it before commenting further to understand it.

EDIT 2: someone just slap me now, my brain must not be working right as it took me a few mins to notice that it means plain autocad. >.<

Ok, question. which autocad year do you have?

The 2011 autocad i have is multi threaded and the past few autocad that im aware of is multi threaded.....


Next question, do you already have some parts like motherboard and just want a cpu upgrade or are you wanting to do a new whole system build?

If it's a whole new system build, from what i seen when i used autocad 2011 use on my computers, i would say an Athlon ii x4 will do just fine if your need cpu power but not needing very high demands of it.

If you need high cpu power then i would say a core i7.

If you have an old cad that can only use a single thread, i would recommend Core i3 as there pretty much the one of the fastest cpu's to do single threading (at stock speed) that im aware of. (although i haven't really looked at the newer 2nd gen core i5 and i7's seeing if there faster in single thread apps or not.)

Hope this helps.

 

[kitemap]

I meant just plain AutoCAD, no add-ons except the MEP object enablers.

 

[warmon6]

I meant just plain AutoCAD, no add-ons except the MEP object enablers.

Yeah i corrected my self on the post above. [:aford10:1]

If you want to, you can slap me with fish, steel beam, or what ever. :lol:

 

[saaiello]

Well really for basic AutoCad a dual core is all you need and if you will be doing any 3d stuff a decent Nvidia video card will help too. Autocad is not to demanding and I used to run it on my E8400 & a 9800GT without a problem. So basically any modern CPU and GPU that fits in your budget will do just fine.

If you want you can give us your budget and we can put together a build for you to use as a reference when purchasing your hardware.

 

[kitemap]

Thank you for your replies.
It will be a whole new system. Basically my old workstation is grinding to a halt with various projects as I have to pull in so many Xrefs. I have AutoCAD 2005 and 2008LT and shall be upgrading LT to 2011.
When opening drawings and watching windows taskmgr my RAM gets eaten up after half a minute or so then starts caching. Sometimes, if AutoCAD doesn't crash, it can take upto half an hour to load a drawing and quite a few minutes to change from one viewport to another.
Once actually drawing it works fine and is not slow at all.
So the main thing I need is to be able to address more RAM so I need a 64bit system. My current CPU is an x86 and I have 4gb of RAM.

Are you sure AutoCAD 2011 is multi-thread?

 

[kitemap]

See here?
Is this out of date?
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15224826&linkID=9240617

Edit : Mmmmmm, looks like it will use multi cores but only for redraws and regens which is exactly what I needs anyway. Only problem is that the 'whipthread' variable does not work on LT and I can't afford to upgrade my full blown 2005!!!
Doh!

 

[Wisecracker]

See here?
Is this out of date?
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15224826&linkID=9240617

Edit : Mmmmmm, looks like it will use multi cores but only for redraws and regens which is exactly what I needs anyway. Only problem is that the 'whipthread' variable does not work on LT and I can't afford to upgrade my full blown 2005!!!
Doh!

Your graphics card may be holding you back on your Regens if your hardware acceleration is not properly configured.