Budget CAD system?

I'm sorry but you really need more money. Go sell your plasma, sperm, anything you can to increase your budget. I just built an entry level CAD computer at work and it cost about $1k. You don't wanna cheap out on video cards. I'm using a GTX 580 (3GB). The GTX 560 ti (1GB) I had in there before was crap.

Not possible, the CPU I would recommend would be half your budget, and the graphics card is the other half

Ok well I guess no computer for me then.

and a 580 isnt even close or in the same lightyear as a good workstation card.

Yes, I know. The owner didn't like the price of the Quadro FX card I spec'd out. I originally spec'd out dual socket xeons with 32gb ram along with it, but ended up only with an i7 2600K and 16gb ram. Once the users start complaining about how slow it is, he'll want me to get some dual xeons and quadro fx.

utter drivel. an i5-2500k and a cheap graphics card will run these programs fine, especially for educational purposes. if you need an OS, buy it through your school.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?I...

So if I can get my budget up to around $1200 will I be able to make something work?

So after some more research I have come up with this system. Does not include monitors at this stage.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite...

My only concern if it is one is if the GPU card will work OK with games?

thats very ignorant to say. i dont do any professional cad work and i can max out gpu usage easily on my laptop and i dont have a cheap laptop.

if your going to build a workstation for even mild cad and photoshop work do it right and get atleast a 2600k and a 200+ firepro or quadro gpu. money spent now is money saved later on not having to upgrade.

also i highly recommend maxing out your ram. with high poly counts your ram can go bye bye extremely quick.

A 580 on a CAD machine? Unless you're using full Revit and rendering programs you don't need it. I'm getting by with my Radeon 5800 and an i3-2120, I use a lot of Autodesk products and on most, if not all occasions, I don't come anywhere even remotely close to using an 80% CPU/GPU load.

This is what I'm using right now:

- Cooler Master HAF 912
- Corsair TX-750
- Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P
- Intel Core i3-2120
- Cooler Master Hyper 212
- 16GB Corsair XMS3 1333MHz RAM
- Sapphire Radeon 5830 (will upgrade to Sapphire Radeon Flex series either 6850 or 7---)
- 64GB Crucial M4
- 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3
- Pioneer BDR203
- Acer H243 24" HD monitor

first he's using photoshop to so i assume he will have to render out images therefor an i3 = not enough. also the point about a 580 is that for the several hundred spent on that you can spend the same amount on a workstation gpu thats twice as good. thats what they are designed to do, cad programs.

ill stick to my 2600k and workstation gpu never have the problems you will. if your doing beginner or light assemblies or animations then that will be ok but anything above that a workstation is extremely handy.