[Buying Advice/Expertise needed] Value CAD System /w WC

[3RS_Vienna]

[Buying Advice/Expertise needed] Value CAD System /w WC


This is the Prototype Configuration for a Value CAD System.
Main Application: Solidworks 2011 / Catia [Productive Level]
OS: Windows 7 Ultima
Est .System Lifetime: 4 Years
Waiting for soon to be released Vaporware/Paperlaunches is not an Option ( Bulldozer).
System must be configured with Parts that are reliable available in 100+ pcs quantities in Europe.

If you have any nice additions / alternatives let me know.
M A Y O R contributions that improve the System at the current Price Point OR will yield the same Reliability+Performance at a lower Price Point will be rewarded.
(Cash via Paypal or Rapidshare/Filserve../../ Accounts whatever you prefere).

Configuration Overview:

262 -Intel 2600k @ 4.1 GHZ
120 - P67 Rev 3.0 uATX
€64 - 8GB PC3-10667
220 - HD 5870 @ FirePro 3D V8800
350 - RAID0 2xSSD 120GB
€65 - CacheHDD 1x 2 TB
€67 - 500W PSU Semi Passiv

100 - Pump + CPU Block

-----------------------

CurrentBudget: 1300€ (for Parts listed above)

If you have any nice additions / alternatives let me know.
MAYOR contributions that improve the System at the current Price Point OR will yield the same Reliability at a lower Price Point will be rewarded.
(Cash via Paypal or Rapidshare/Filserve../../ Accounts whatever you prefere).

Case: Custom Case Enginered by Austrian Aerospace (RUAG)
2x 140 mm Casefans (Airduct) > Plenty Airflow for all Passiv cooled Components
240MM Radiator custom Milled & integrated into Top of all Aluminium Body Case
=> G1/4 inlets max
Requirements for Pump:
Needs to be virtually sielent after decoupeling (no 220/110v solutions > 12v Only)
Only the CPU will be Watercooled.( No need for NB / GPU etc)



Pretext:
I am not blinded by Intel/NV/AMD Marketing. I will accept what ever offers best Performance & a Certain Pricepoint.

Current Draft for Hardware Configuration:

CPU: Intel 2600k > Planned Clock Level: 4.1 GHZ
Hint: Solidworks scales very badly with the amout of Cores built into a System but very decent with Clockrate
High Performance per Clock/ High Clockrate seems to rule out any AMD Configuration

|| 262€

CPU-Waterblock: May restrict Waterflow / Loop consists of AGB + Pump + Cooler.
|| <50€

RAM: G.Skill RipJaws DIMM Kit 8GB PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333) (F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL)
My Research hast not yieled any evidence that "Premium" Ram is of importance for a Sandy Bridge Configuration
These can be considered fair price @ 8,113 € per GB with Life Long Warranty
Can these be run in 4x 4GB Configuration without Trouble?

|| 64€ / 128€


Motherboard: ASUS P8P67-M Pro Rev 3.0
The Case has been engineered to support a uATX Board in TOP_DOWN Configuration. Full Size ATX is not an Option
Case will NOT be equiped with SLI or CFX.
This seems to be the cheapest Solution with Solidcaps ( mind the 4 Years of projected System Lifetime)

GPU: Gigabyte Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition @ ATI FirePro 3D V8800
My knowledge is that no current Generation Nvidia Card can be modded into a Quadro
This makes this Card a Steal @ 220€.

*****
My Customers do not care about Details( Real Firepro vs Modded). They buy a Solution and not just sourced Parts. IE: System comes preinstalled and tested.
*****
Card will not be Watercooled(Due to the High cost of a Waterblock for this GPU and the Warranty Issues such a Procedure creates)
Infact it will be downclocked to ensure 4 Years of Service Life.


|| 220€

System Disk: [Raid 0] 2x OCZ Vertex 2 120GB, 3.5", SATA II (OCZSSD3-2VTX120G)
Price per GB : 1,442 €
Read 285 MB/s Write 275 MB/s
SSDs seem to scale rather well with Raid 0 on an Intel onboard controller
Targetet Performance Point: 400 MB/s R+W

||2x 174€

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green 2000GB, 64MB Cache, SATA II (WD20EARS)
This Disk will Cache/Backup any data on the SSD Raid.
Will also contain a System Image to restore Station to Productive State after SSD-Raid Failture.

||65€


|| FSP Fortron/Source Everest 85PLUS 500W ATX 2.3
Semi-Passiv PSU with 86%+ Efficency. Super Sielent at Low Loads. Japanese Solid Caps. Fair Price.

|| 67€

 

[Guest]

NVIDIA have traditionally had better drivers than AMD for their professional (Quadro) graphics cards.

Soft-mods are a dicey affair, IMO. I would strongly suggest the Quadro 2000 or 4000 instead, unless you need 3 monitor Eyefinity support with a single card.

What you could do is try out the Quadro 2000, and if your client finds it to be inadequate, you could return it for a minimal restocking fee. Then you can switch to a soft-modded card or a higher specc'ed one. Or you could do it the other way around.

Don't take FSP power supplies. They aren't very good. Stick with Seasonic or Corsair, or maybe an Antec. I use www.jonnyguru.com for PSU reviews. Maybe you should allow some overhead for expansion - SLI / Crossfire in the future. You can use this to calculate your PSU requirement.

Just how do you plan to implement this HDD caching plan?
AFAIK, RAID 0+1 and RAID 1+0 both require a minimum of 4 disks.

The WD Caviar Green is one pathetic HDD. Strongly suggest a 7200RPM WD Black or a Samsung Spinpoint F3. Shouldn't need more than 1TB. IMO, the HDD would probably not be able to keep up with the SSD's in RAID and probably bottleneck them to a significant extent. I'd suggest you use the 2 SSD's as the boot drives in RAID1 with a two regular HDD's meant for data in RAID1. You might consider waiting for the Intel Z68 chipset which willl enable SSD caching.

I don't think there is a need for a water cooling circuit. There are some pretty good coolers out there (like the Venomous X and Prolimatech Megahalems) which would allow you to do 4GHz+ on air easily. On a budget, the Scythe Mugen 2, Zalman CNPS 10X Performa, CM Hyper 212+ and the Xigmatek Dark Knight offer value that's hard to beat. AFAIK, you shouldn't have a problem OC'eing with any of them up to 4GHz.

I second the choice of motherboard.

If you're going to be overclocking, you should get RAM clocked at-least @ 1600MHz or higher. The principle is that the faster your CPU works, the more data it needs, so a higher bandwidth RAM is necessary to prevent bottlenecks. Here's a link.

Hope this helped.
Adios.

 

[Guest]

Hey...

Just as an after thought, you might want to convert the currency into dollars. You might get more responses that way.
BTW, I don't think you needed to offer us money - we're perfectly happy to help each other out at Tom's - anyone, anytime.

Cheers.

P.S.: Do let us know how your build's progressing.