Solidworks cad build. $400-500

[ohyouknow]

Hello errbody. Putting together a solidworks cad build for a friend and am deciding on what Proc and to a lesser extent which Mobo to go with. Budget is realistically $400-450 tops including an OS. Thinking of using Microcenter to buy an i3 3225 for $119 and $50 bucks off of a mobo there. Here is a preliminary build, not including a case and hard drives as those will be taken care of. I would also like to learn more about what makes solidworks/cad builds tick in terms of hardware requirements. I.E. graphics card requirements in comparison to mainstream cards. Thanks so much guys!



PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-3225 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($136.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($48.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Antec Basiq Plus 550W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $440.94
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-12 22:02 EST-0500)

 

[ohyouknow]

oh whoops yea misclick on that ram stick

 

[Gundy]

SolidWorks is continuously very computationally intensive, with intermittent load/save events. Best processor possible, good amount of RAM, good hard drive, OK graphics card in order of priority. It's not at all the same as gaming.

One last things: SolidWorks hits one CPU core for a disproportionately high percentage of its computations (most parametric modeling is not able to be multi-threaded). So a higher clock speed with fewer cores is the way to go if that's an option.

 

[camohanna]

You can do so much better

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ddw3
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ddw3/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ddw3/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($149.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($39.98 @ Outlet PC)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $389.93
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-12 23:58 EST-0500)

 

[ohyouknow]

Best answer selected by ohyouknow.