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PC Specs for Civli3d 2011

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SwampPeopleRule:
I'm in the market to purchase a new PC and would appreciate any comments on the following specs and price. I'll mainly be running Civil3d 2011 with dual monitors. I don't have much knowledge regarding the latest technology and appreciate any advice.

CD:24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR)

CPU:Intel® Core™ i7-960 3.20 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1366

FAN:Intel LGA1366 Certified CPU Fan & Heatsink [-20]

HDD:1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (Single Hard Drive)

MEMORY:12GB (2GBx6) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module [+84] (Corsair or Major Brand)

MOTHERBOARD:(2-Way SLI Support) Asus Sabertooth X58 Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Mainboard Triple-Channel DDR3 FCLGA1366 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III, SATA-II RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI [+24]

MULTIVIEW:Non-SLI/Non-CrossFireX Mode Supports Multiple Monitors

NETWORK:Onboard Gigabit LAN Network

OS:Microsoft® Windows® 7 Professional [+31] (64-bit Edition)

OVERCLOCK:No Overclocking

POWERSUPPLY:950 Watts - CyberPowerPC Gaming 80 Plus Power Supply [+57]

SERVICE:STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT

SOFT1:Microsoft® Office® 2010 Home and Business (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook + OneNote) [+159]

SOUND:HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

USB:Built-in USB 2.0 Ports

USBX:NZXT Internal USB 6-PORT Expansion Module [+19]

VIDEO:AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB GDDR3 16X PCIe Video Card (Major Brand Powered by ATI)

VIDEO2:AMD Radeon HD 6770 1GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card [+128] (Major Brand Powered by ATI)

_PRICE:(+1426)

sinc:
I would go with an i3-2120, i5-2500, or i7-2600 over that CPU.  All three will yield very similar performance for C3D, and the i3-2120 is the most economical.  If you do much rendering (or like to play high-end video games, or are into overclocking), the i5-2500 or i7-2600 might be better (get the K-series, such as the i5-2500K, if you're into overclocking).

For C3D, you won't get much value from the dual graphics cards.  You'd be better off going with a higher-quality single card, with more on-board memory and faster clock speeds.  But the impact of graphics card on C3D is often not incredibly significant, so it won't have a whole lot of impact.  A faster hard drive - e.g., 10K RPM Velociraptor, SAS drive, and/or RAID0/RAID10 array - would have more impact.

If you go with one of the CPUs mentioned above, I'd recommend 16GB dual-channel RAM.  8GB would work as well, but RAM is relatively cheap, and the 16GB will give you lots of RAM headroom, which is nice on a 64-bit OS.

That 950W power supply is overkill.  Even if you go with the dual AMD graphics cards, a 700W power supply is probably more than you need.  Components these days use a lot less power than they used to.

Atook:
I don't know much about C3D, but I know if I was building a workstation right now, it would use a Solid State Drive instead of one with moving parts. The performance boost is significant.

sinc:
I got a little bit turned off of SSDs when I got one recently, built my system with it, and the SSD died three months later.  I have a couple of other systems with SSDs and they work well, though, so that was probably just bad luck.

SSDs are still a bit pricey.  I like them for laptops, which also benefit from the fact that they use less power and run cooler than mechanical drives.  The cost/benefit ratio is not as significant for desktop systems right now, but I suspect that as they drop in price and increase in size, reliability, and lifespan, they'll become a lot more standard.

butzers09silverado:

--- Quote from: Atook on May 27, 2011, 05:12:28 pm ---I don't know much about C3D, but I know if I was building a workstation right now, it would use a Solid State Drive instead of one with moving parts. The performance boost is significant.

--- End quote ---

I agree, well 50% agree, I'd get a ssd drive and a 10,000 rpm spinner drive.  Use the SSD for transfering data cache' etc, and use the spinner drive (my nickname for mechanical drives... because they spin, lol) for cheaper storage... hope i have that the right way, there are good reads about this online.

We are actually using core-duo i5 machines for our workstations, they are cheaper and they actually perform better IF you are doing 1 thing at a time... i.e. just civil 3d.  I also have a quad-core setup that cost twice as much, can multi-task you into the ground but it just isn't practical for mass deployment where most users do 1 or 2 programs at a time.

don't buy a dell.... the bios are locked and it's just a pain to deal with them unless you're a company looking for warranty, bang for buck, etc.

I'd actually recommend, getting a mac pro or even just an imac and installing windows 7 on it, my 3 year old mac book pro runs windows 7 and subsequently Civil 3d 2011 BETTER than our pc's.  I treat windows 7 on the mac book like a "throw away" setup :) it's down and dirty with no clutter and it's designed to do 1 or 2 things neither of which require the internet... which saves you a ton of resources.

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