AutoCad workstation

hey guys! I'm asked to upgrade 6 AutoCad workstations for a company my relatives own. I'm not sure what they have, but they want an improvement

I think their running P4 3.0s with Radeon 9250s

I'm thinking I keep the 3.0s, pumped up the ram to like 2gbs, setup RAID for each computer, get a new videocard for them.

The problem is.. they're computer idiots, if anything happens.. then its a 1 hour drive for me. Once you setup RAID, will there be problems popping up once in a while? or can you just leave it running with no problem?

RIP Block Heater....HELLO P4~~~~~
120% nVidia Fanboy+119% Money Fanboy
GeForce 6800 Ultra--> The Way we thought FX 5800Ultra is meant to be played
THGC's resident Asian and nVboy

i see...I'm using the Diamondmax 10s right now...they don't work too bad....might just get them those

RIP Block Heater....HELLO P4~~~~~
120% nVidia Fanboy+119% Money Fanboy
GeForce 6800 Ultra--> The Way we thought FX 5800Ultra is meant to be played
THGC's resident Asian and nVboy

I thinking building RAID 1 or those 0+1 or 1+0 things.. do on-board raid have those options? and how many hard drives would you need?

RIP Block Heater....HELLO P4~~~~~
120% nVidia Fanboy+119% Money Fanboy
GeForce 6800 Ultra--> The Way we thought FX 5800Ultra is meant to be played
THGC's resident Asian and nVboy

Whats that RIP BLOCK HEATER that you have in your sig all about?

READ THE STICKY AND WIN A PRIZE! ALL PRIZES CAN BE CLAIMED IN THE SECTION TITLED "THE OTHER"

I think you should identify the bottleneck first. For autocad, it shouldn't be the harddisks, if it is, add ram until it is no longer. IF they are getting lousy framerates, check out the videocard, and get a decent OpenGL rendering card. If its 3D rendering/shading, you might want to give them a dedicated rendering server/"farm" on which they can do the rendering.

I've not seen Autocad being very harddisk dependant very often, models just aren't that big (in disk size). Further more, real world benefit of ATA or SATA Raid is very, very low. SCSI is another story, but again, I doubt that will be the answer to their problem.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

I cant afford SCSI for me either. But for performance and longevity, it's hard to beat them. They are better at command queing as well.
They have a room at work with about 300 drives just sitting in boxes. They are never going to use them all. Too bad I'm so honest.
The way things work around here, I could probably do a favor for someone, and get a couple, but, that just seems wrong.

RAID 1 would give them reliability, which is extremely important for CAD workstations.
2 gigs of RAM is perfect, it is what I use.
I am using an ATI X800XT PE for vid and is great!

The P4 3.0 is fine, and Archetictual drawings do consume alot of RAM, 3D graphics and do hit the disk access quite a bit using database access and file access.

You could do without the RAID, but do not skimp on RAM or Video card.
As for RAID, I would either suggest the onboard RAID for 1 only if cost is issue, to upgrade I would go with a PCI-X RAID 5 or in my case I am going to the NetCell RAID <A HREF="http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1049660&CatId=1454" target="_new"> PATA </A> or <A HREF="http://www.bestpricedv.com/Detail/27314" target="_new"> SATA</A> card with 3 or 5 disks based on RAID 3.

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

>okay let's just say i have to rebuilt 6 AutoCad stations
>They're used to make models of building etc.
>What should i use?

I have to buy 6 cars for my company to replace the old ones. Which should I buy ?

Seriously, without knowing what they currently use, how well (or bad) they perform, what is the bottleneck (wireframe redraw/manipulations ? real time shading/rendering ? off line rendering ? Scripting/calcs ? loading the meshes ?), there is no sensible advice anyone can give. Well, maybe one, make sure your budget has room for a huge and good quality monitor.. and mouse

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

ya i got the specs now
they don't have 3d models but they have very large file and it takes forever to load them

they got P4 3.0 Prescotts with 512 (one socket) ram and Radeon 9250s...

suggestions please...

RIP Block Heater....HELLO P4~~~~~
120% nVidia Fanboy+119% Money Fanboy
GeForce 6800 Ultra--> The Way we thought FX 5800Ultra is meant to be played
THGC's resident Asian and nVboy

He us keeping the CPU...

Two gigs of RAM I would say should be right for CAD, and the X800 is a good choice (comprimise) for graphics, unless your guys need high end, which does not seem they do. And I already gave my suggestion for RAID

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

I am using 4x512, but I don't think you will get much benifit going from ATI 9250 to nVidea 6600's.

If CAD drawings are simple, then 1 gig RAM is enough, so is current video card.

I would hold off upgrading just for the sake of upgrading, till I could afford premium jumps.

You use CAD to make money, and I don't mind putting money into premium machine since I get returns.
That said, RAID 1, 3 or 5 is critical, since data reliability is where the money is, so I treat it as precious.

AutoCAD costs about 4-grand, My version of AutoCAD, Land Desktop w/Civil Design costs about 8-grand per seat. So 5-grand per workstation is reasonable. I bill out at $65 per hour for drafting.

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

I used a Fire GL for years. It was a great CAD card with good quality graphics and openGL...
That being said, it sucked for games.

There is a premium charged for pro cards, and I find for the money a high end gaming graphics I get the best bang for the buck.
I am using the ATI X800XT PE and does cad 3D graphics great, and only cost $469, verses $1,000 for my Fire GL

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

hey what kind of cad work do you do?

does 2GB or 1GB of ram have a large difference?

RIP Block Heater....HELLO P4~~~~~
120% nVidia Fanboy+119% Money Fanboy
GeForce 6800 Ultra--> The Way we thought FX 5800Ultra is meant to be played
THGC's resident Asian and nVboy

okay I'm about to purchase some ram...here's a question

does latency matter in terms of CADing? or can i just get Corsair Value selects? Also, what can i use to test in terms of AutoCAD that can determine if there's a speed improvement?


RIP Block Heater....HELLO P4~~~~~
120% nVidia Fanboy+119% Money Fanboy
GeForce 6800 Ultra--> The Way we thought FX 5800Ultra is meant to be played
THGC's resident Asian and nVboy