PC for Civil Engineering/Architectural Design

[chrismath]

Hello all,

My father who's a civil engineer is planning to build a new PC and asked of my advice. Now if it was a gaming PC I could help him out but since he needs it for bussiness/work and for very specific tasks I thought actually of asking for more help from the pro. Appart from his work on Civil Engineering, Architectural Design,3D animation and video/imagie editing he's got a 3d monitor and is running on some old Nvidia gpu(440 gs I think) for 3d vision so the new GPU has to be Nvidia else I would have opted for ATI all the way.

1)Should he go for i7 or i5?
2)what MB should he use?(He won't do any OC)

Up untill now I think he should get

GPU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130825
RAM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231557

For the abovementioned tasks should he go for an i5 over an i7? And if he opts i7 should he go for the LGA 1155 or and 2011? The question arises beause I'm not sure if the money is worth the extra features obviously there are deminishing returns so I'd like to have a balance between power and cost. Depending on the CPU he'll get the MB and I've got no clue wich one will be good for it's price.

Thank you for reading this and any help you could give me I'd appretiate.

 

[zdbc13]

I7 is best for workstation class computers. 1155 is fine unless he runs really high powered computing stuff like models. I'd go for 670 or 680 for the graphics intensive programs. 670 is more bang for buck. A good Z77 motherboard would be best. Asrock or Asus. Good luck.

 

[chrismath]

Thank you very much it was really helpfull!

 

[StrangeInstance]

I would go with a 7950, its got 3GB of ram so you can use it like a CPU and abuse it.

 

[emperor piehead]

i would agree on a amd card they are better for rendering and non-gaming purposes. Also the z77 motherboard is only if your overclocking just get a h77 or b75 motherboard. the ram i would get 1600mhz sticks.

 

[JohnA]

bad advice so far.
Anybody doing CAD on a serious basis with serious software NEEDS a quadro or FireGl card. Period. Top of the line gaming cards are about even with bottom of the line pro cards. It's the drivers. Yes they deliberately handicap the gaming cards. Rendering and other tasks will often crash on gaming cards. Spend 200 - 300 on a proper card, you wont regret it. The card you pick should be based on the software you use. I use Solidworks mainly, but I've got Inventor and Catia around when I need them. FireGL cards kick but over Nvidia on that software, but Nvidia has better drivers for many rendering apps. Do some searching on forums for the intended software
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/workstation-graphics-2012/benchmarks,139.html