Autocad requirements

[Big Jim]

Had a customer come in recently with a 6 year old Dell workstation, not booting, we fixed that and he mentioned how slowly it ran.
Sandybridge based Xeon, 8GB RAM, RAID card but now only running 1 drive as the other one died few years ago, 1TB Spinner, old Quadro 600 GPU, W7 Pro.
Takes a good 4 -5 minutes to boot up

We were discussing his options going forward (upgrade to SSD and W10 or buy new) and I said i would do a little research.
Not fully understanding CAD and the full use case for workstations I am unsure if I need to recommend that if he were to buy new he should get another.
The actual main program in use is this one
https://www.autodesk.co.uk/products/robot-structural-analysis/overview

System requirements are very low.

Does he actually need a workstation for this ?
My limited research on CAD is that it is not well multithreaded so going for the latest 9900k/ 9700k etc probably would be a waste of time, I am also not sure if he really needs ECC RAM. I actually don't know if he is running ECC RAM as he only asked about upgraded/new PC when he came to collect.

 

[Sky-Knight]

2D CAD work requires next to nothing. 3D CAD work, very different! But I've always just built decent gaming systems to fill that role and my users haven't complained.

But, I've run into this several times too where CAD guys have server grade insanity for a "workstation". I'm not sold on the value, but if they're waiting for the thing to process at all, that gets expensive.

 

[thecomputerguy]

I'm going to be supplying a couple of systems to an interior design company in the near future. Pretty sure they will do just fine with

i5-9400
12GB RAM
500GB Samsung NVme
GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

We do a lot of graphics design workstations.

I always strive to quote systems that are "ISV Certified". Basically this cert means all hardware (and required supporting drivers) are tested on industry standard graphics software to be compatible, stable, etc.

Stick with AMD FIre or nVidia Quadro graphics cards.
These days...huge resolution monitors are common place..and dual, triple, and quad monitor systems are also common. Having quad super huge monitors requires some high end graphics cards...these graphics cards cost most than several computers total! I stay away from gaming cards, they don't have the ISV drivers. I've spent hours..and hours..trying to troubleshoot weird quirks from non ISV certified drivers.

Stuff the system with RAM (like 64 or 128 gigs...pretty common), put in multiple spindles...1 for the OS and programs, and for some clients..if their software supports it..like many higher end video editing programs such as Pinnacle....a second one for the "scratch space". These days..SSD.

These days a 10 gig NIC is good too...if their workplace doesn't have a 10 gig switch yet...it will likely soon.

 

[Big Jim]

In this case he said that he originally spoke with Dell and advised them what he would be doing and they talked him in to a workstation.

I'll check if that program requires any 3D work but even if it does a £200 - £300 card should do him fine shouldn't it ?

 

[Big Jim]

We do a lot of graphics design workstations.

I always strive to quote systems that are "ISV Certified". Basically this cert means all hardware (and required supporting drivers) are tested on industry standard graphics software to be compatible, stable, etc.

Stick with AMD FIre or nVidia Quadro graphics cards.
These days...huge resolution monitors are common place..and dual, triple, and quad monitor systems are also common. Having quad super huge monitors requires some high end graphics cards...these graphics cards cost most than several computers total! I stay away from gaming cards, they don't have the ISV drivers. I've spent hours..and hours..trying to troubleshoot weird quirks from non ISV certified drivers.

Stuff the system with RAM (like 64 or 128 gigs...pretty common), put in multiple spindles...1 for the OS and programs, and for some clients..if their software supports it..like many higher end video editing programs such as Pinnacle....a second one for the "scratch space". These days..SSD.

These days a 10 gig NIC is good too...if their workplace doesn't have a 10 gig switch yet...it will likely soon.

Given the system he is working on currently that is still doing the job, I am pretty sure that would be massively overkill and he would likely go for an upgrade to his current system instead.

Also note that the software I linked to makes no mention of certified cards, like autocad itself does.

Apologies if the thread title was misleading but I knew that autocad is far more well known that the piece of software he is using.

 

[Rosco]

Stick with AMD FIre or nVidia Quadro graphics cards.

This is the best piece of advice on this thread. Thse cards are meant to dothis stuff. I have a construction company that does a ton of 3d rendering to show client what it will look like. I would only use quadro in these machines. They can be very pricey though.

 

[Markverhyden]

You need to understand his workflow. I've got a customer running Turbocad, M$ version. Because he only does 2D and just line drawings he runs fine on a W7 Pro VM in Parallels on 5 year old iMac.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I bet if he sat down and used a "current" computer that I'd do for just 1x hour..he'd be sold!
I've had plenty of clients in the past that used computers such as you spec...really not much more than a typical desktop with a slightly bumped up graphics card...and they get used to that. And then they get a new system that's stuffed with RAM and a good Quadro or Fire card...and multiple fast disks..and they're in heaven!

Time is money to those people too! To spend a little more on something that will last them ~5 years...that's good ROI when your work is based on this system from 9-5 every day.

Sometimes people don't know what they're missing out on..because nobody with a good consulting/sales hat every showed them!

 

[Big Jim]

So had a conversation with him again.
He does do 3D modelling and it does slow down quite a bit on larger projects.
Although he mentioned his current card is far better than previous machines which would crash etc.

So I'm just specing up a replacement for him, how good of a GFX card does he actually need ?

 

[Rosco]

So had a conversation with him again.
He does do 3D modelling and it does slow down quite a bit on larger projects.
Although he mentioned his current card is far better than previous machines which would crash etc.

So I'm just specing up a replacement for him, how good of a GFX card does he actually need ?

Really any of the nVidia Quadro should be able to handle this sort of thing.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Autodesks website (as well as most other design softwares) has a FAQ section where it has "Certified Graphics Hardware". This isn't "recommended systems requirements" section..where, as usual, minimum system requires are listed quite low. Nobody follows the minimum system requirements for any other software do they? "Oh..this game will run on a Pentium 4 Northwood H/T 1.6 with 512 megs of RAM....I"ll get it!" How well do you think it will run?

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/certified-graphics-hardware
Above link has drop down menus for which AD app you're running.
I usually go for middle specs.....unless it's a high budget client I know demands the best. A 4 or 6 gig card should suffice, don't need a 12 or 16 gig card.

A lot of design people don't know any better, they've been running on barely above average computers, home builts, gaming computers, etc. But trust me, one of them visits another office and see how nice of computers that office might have, real solid purpose built professional graphics workstations with proper components..and they sit down and use it, see how FAST things run..they come back to you "Why couldn't you get me one of THOSE?"

 

[Big Jim]

Autodesks website (as well as most other design softwares) has a FAQ section where it has "Certified Graphics Hardware". This isn't "recommended systems requirements" section..where, as usual, minimum system requires are listed quite low. Nobody follows the minimum system requirements for any other software do they? "Oh..this game will run on a Pentium 4 Northwood H/T 1.6 with 512 megs of RAM....I"ll get it!" How well do you think it will run?

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/certified-graphics-hardware
Above link has drop down menus for which AD app you're running.
I usually go for middle specs.....unless it's a high budget client I know demands the best. A 4 or 6 gig card should suffice, don't need a 12 or 16 gig card.

A lot of design people don't know any better, they've been running on barely above average computers, home builts, gaming computers, etc. But trust me, one of them visits another office and see how nice of computers that office might have, real solid purpose built professional graphics workstations with proper components..and they sit down and use it, see how FAST things run..they come back to you "Why couldn't you get me one of THOSE?"

I saw that site already but the software my customer uses is not on it for some reason

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

You can still get a feel for what cards would be optimal.

Back when I took the next step in this career...doing business computer support, the senior engineer that trained me said "Build your computers and networks to be application driven...that is...design them around the software they're running day to day. Don't shoehorn software into generically setup computers/networks". Or something to that effect.