Topic: New PC's for Autodesk® Civil 3D® 2007

[Craig Davis]

With the impending release of Autodesk® Civil 3D® 2007 I'm looking at upgrading our PCs.

I have to deal with our IT Dept so I make a request and they supply the hardware. We currently have Win2K OS, P4 1.7GHz with 512GB RAM and single 19" CRT.

We have a number of directions we can head.

The base PC will consist of:-
2GB DDRII-SDRAM 533MHz
80GB SATA 7200RPM hard drive
ATI RX800XL-VTLD256E with Dual DVI monitor output

We have a choice of the following:-
P4 3.4GHz
or
Dual 3.0GHz

I'm also heading the way of dual monitors, which is an area I've never been before (yes dual monitor virgin). IT have suggested a number of possibilities. I'll list them in the order of MY preference.
Dual Samsung 19" LCD Monitor 940B
Samsung 19" LCD & 19" CRT
Dual 19" CRT
Samsung 19" LCD & 17" CRT

Processors
The OS will be XP Pro to allow for the HT if we go down that route. I've read quite a bit on various sites to do with AutoCAD and HT and understand that AutoCAD doesn't utilise the HT unless using rendering. However we will have a number of applications open (we're a government organisation and as always tend to have a lot of various programs open due to core programs that we require). I'm assuming that they could share the 2 CPU's across the applications. I wouldn't think that a 0.4GHz difference in clock speed would be much between the two different systems.

Keeping in mind that it will only cost us an extra $20Aus to go the dual processor route which would you choose?

Monitors
My main question is can you run dual monitors at 2 different resolutions keeping in mind if one is an LCD which have a native resolution this may adversely affect the secondary CRT especially if it's a different size. I was thinking of getting some simple wooden stands made up to support the dual displays.

Which monitor setup would you opt and if any which wouldn't work.

These machines will need to last us for about 3 years like the current ones have.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Regards

Craig

[Jim Yadon]

Personally, I'd go with the dual LCD's on the monitors. I've had them before and wish I could afford to go back to them. The color balance is hard enough with two of the same type, let alone a CRT and LCD.

As far as the processor goes, I'm not sure what to recommend there. I'm not up on the latest stuff there.

[Chuck Gabriel]

You can run the monitors at different resolutions, color depths and refresh rates, but I agree with JAY.  I think you'll be a lot happier with the two LCD's.

[ronjonp]

Rather than getting PC's with HT Technology go with the Pentium D series (dual core). I noticed a huge diffrerence in speed when loading large photos and regen times. Here is some reading...

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/pentium_D/index.htm

I would go with LCD's too especially if your normal resolution is 1280X1024. From my experience...the LCD's are much nicer on my eyes.

You might wanna get the 10000rpm HD if you are only going with an 80 gig. I know at Dell, this is only a $100 dollar upgrade. From what I've been reading about the new workstations, is seems that many of them have 2 high speed Hd's that are configured in RAID 0. I'm not exactly sure what the price difference is, but it may be worth looking into.

Ron

[Mark]

You should check the Rapter from WD, very fast drive!
[ http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=65&Language=en ]

[Craig Davis]

Rather than getting PC's with HT Technology go with the Pentium D series (dual core). I noticed a huge difference in speed when loading large photos and regen times. Here is some reading...

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/pentium_D/index.htm

I'll run this up the flag pole with them and see what they think. Is the D series similar to a dual processor except that all the programs can use the virtual processor where as the dual processor only certain programs can use the dual processor? To tell you the truth I didn't even know of the D series chips. Thanks for that.

One of the IT guys suggested to me maybe a wide screen monitor may be good for our work. I was thinking it wouldn't be as good as dual monitors as when using Civil3D we would use the second monitor purely for longitudinal sections. We use a product called ARD which is an add on to Civil3D which allows you to open 3 long. sections at once which takes up quite a bit o real estate.

Wide screen monitor not as good as dual monitors?

Thanks for all the replies so quickly.

*gets his wrestling gear on ready for IT discussions*

[Dinosaur]

Dual monitors are not absolutely necessary with Civil 3D, at least until you have tried using two, but it is quite close to it.  I can squeak by with a single 17" at home by being a little creative (thanks MJFarrell).  Even dual 17's makes a huge difference by letting you put toolspace and properties along with any other flyout pallets on the second monitor and always available instantly.  Thus configured, there should still be plenty of room left for your other application.
I second that Raptor suggestion by Mark.  They made a huge difference in performance for us.  I doubt if you would see any benefit from putting two in Raid 0, at least not significant enough to justify the expense of two drives.  Ours are 72gb and are only about 25% of capacity.
One thing to think about is RAM capacity on the motherboard.  It does not matter currently as 2gb is the limit, but that may well change over 3 years.  The new specs for vanilla 2007 call for 2gb and right now 2006 eagerly gobbles all 2gb we are throwing at it.  I can see 2 years out C3D needing more if the OS starts allowing it.

[Craig Davis]

I forgot to mention that our data resides on a server. That is a problem in itself that I'm trying to correct.

I'd prefer putting the possible extra $100 from the faster HD into a Pentium D processor. I've got a limited pool of funds and need to put it where it will do the most good.

I've been told by our software supplier to go check the Autodesk website for recommended graphics cards. Is this important or can most higher end graphics cards do the job relatively the same?

So far the prices of some of the cards recommended are quite expensive and out of our reach.

[Dinosaur]

It doesn't matter if the data is on a server or local . . . after the drawing is loaded, most of the activity is on the local drive especially in the swap space.  We tried a dedicated drive for the swap space and if anything, performance suffered.
You might suggest your IT guy build one or twos prototype machines first to compare different components such as hard drives and video cards.  Video cards, by the way, is one place you can get by a bit cheaper than you might expect if you are not rendering.  We are using both ATI and Quatro cards with 128 mb and probably don't need that much card.

[Chuck Gabriel]

... Is the D series similar to a dual processor except that all the programs can use the virtual processor where as the dual processor only certain programs can use the dual processor?

The Pentium D actually has two cores on the same chip, much like AMD's Athlon 64 X2.  I don't want to turn this into an Intel vs. AMD flame war, but you owe it to yourself to at least look into AMD's offerings.

Wide screen monitor not as good as dual monitors?

Strictly opinion here, but I think the ability two have two distinct desktop spaces makes two monitors superior to one very big one.

[Maverick®]

  First let me say I don't use Autocad or any of AD's products so take this FWIW...

  Once you use two monitors you will never go back. The program I use for residential (Softplan) has another program (or module depending on how you think of it) that takes care of the 3d views and rendering.  So as I am laying out and drafting the floor plan on one monitor I can see the effects on the 3d model in the other monitor. This works great for window/door placement, wall and header hts., etc.  And if I'm not doing that then I can have my email open in one monitor and whatever else open in the other.  Pretty dang awesome.  I am getting greedy and thinking about going with 3 soon.    I run 2 19" lcds BTW.  Not that they are cheap but they are alot less expensive than they were and the savings in desk area is huge. At least for me.


  I just got a new setup here about a month ago.  A Dell with the pentium D 930 dual core.  It is fast but the only place I really see a remarkable improvement is in the 3d rendering.  The new version of Softplan that was just released a couple months ago takes advantage of the dual chip processors. (I'm not a techy I just read alot)  So for instance one chip is running softplan (as I draw the floor plan) and the other chip is running softview (the 3d module I talked about earlier) which of course makes the generation of the 3d views much faster.  I will say though that everything I read about dual processors leaned much more towards AMDs for everything except 3d rendering.  For whatever reason it was better for that. Which I do alot of so this was the way I went. 


  I have no clue about AD products but in Softplan all the 3d (again from what I've read) is much more reliant on processor than video card.  Even the renderings.  The only advantages of having an awesome video card are for 3d model animations (walk throughs or panoramas of the model).  Otherwise it's best to put the money in the processor.


  This is probably the longest semi-coherent post I've ever had here. Woot!
 

[Craig Davis]

It doesn't matter if the data is on a server or local . . . after the drawing is loaded, most of the activity is on the local drive especially in the swap space.  We tried a dedicated drive for the swap space and if anything, performance suffered.
You might suggest your IT guy build one or twos prototype machines first to compare different components such as hard drives and video cards.

I'll ask IT if we can build a prototype. Don't like my chances. I'll check out some prices for the faster HD. Our network is very slow and I was thinking this was where the bottle neck was, maybe it's only the bottle neck in loading and then the lack of speed is with our current HD which is only a Maxtor 20GB 5400rpm.

  Video cards, by the way, is one place you can get by a bit cheaper than you might expect if you are not rendering.  We are using both ATI and Quatro cards with 128 mb and probably don't need that much card.

Can I ask which ATI card you're using? I think I'll pass over the list of supported graphics cards to the supplier and see what they have available in our price range.

The bulk of our work is purely 2D with some 3D rendered object viewing.

I had a quick discussion with our software supplier and it seems that regens and layer manager would use hyper threading, so it sounds like regen operations are more CPU based than graphics cards which I was surprised about. Maybe the money is best put into a Pentium D series chip rather than the graphics card.

I'll have to look at that if it comes down to $$,

Thanks for the help.

[Craig Davis]

The Pentium D actually has two cores on the same chip, much like AMD's Athlon 64 X2.  I don't want to turn this into an Intel vs. AMD flame war, but you owe it to yourself to at least look into AMD's offerings.

I'd me more than happy to look at the AMD, but IT would never look at it.

Strictly opinion here, but I think the ability two have two distinct desktop spaces makes two monitors superior to one very big one.

That's what I was thinking also.

Thanks for the suggestions and advice.

[Craig Davis]

  I just got a new setup here about a month ago.  A Dell with the pentium D 930 dual core.  It is fast but the only place I really see a remarkable improvement is in the 3d rendering.  The new version of Softplan that was just released a couple months ago takes advantage of the dual chip processors. (I'm not a techy I just read alot)

I'll be looking at the Pentium D processor for the purpose of future software upgrades as you've noted. We would like to keep the new PCs for 3 years if possible.

  I have no clue about AD products but in Softplan all the 3d (again from what I've read) is much more reliant on processor than video card.  Even the renderings.  The only advantages of having an awesome video card are for 3d model animations (walk throughs or panoramas of the model).  Otherwise it's best to put the money in the processor.

I'm going to see what graphics cards I can get for a reasonable price and put less emphasis on that and more on the processor.

  This is probably the longest semi-coherent post I've ever had here. Woot!

 

And very much appreciated. 

[Dinosaur]

There might be some bottleneck in your network but I know that hard disk is a problem.  the capacity of a hard disk is a major factor in its performance . . . the higher the capacity of the disk, the faster the data transfer. SATA interface also gives a performance boost and the 10000k rpm of the Raptor will really move data fast.  The current price at newegg dot com is about $160 with shipping for the 74gb Raptor with 4.5ms seek time compared to $60 for your specified drive with 8.8ms seek time . . . write time differences are similar.  The extra c-note for the Raptor will return you more in performance than any other $100 you can put into the machine.
I can get you the model of the video card tomorrow, but I can tell you that just about any 64mb AGP card will perform about the same as the ATI 128mb in my work box for Civil 3D.  I can tell you though that they are PCI Express cards chosen mostly because of the available slot in the main board.  We were using 32mb Matrox cards prior to these and there was very little performance increase.  If you are not doing the rendering and walk-throughs, I think a high end card is just for bragging rights.  What seems to slow Civil 3D down the most seems to be commands that force regenerating several viewports and constant parsing of the project mdb files.  We have tries both network and local locations for the project mdb files and have found no difference between the two.