Advice on hardware for CAD machine

[Ecliptic]

I am helping a friend build a computer for school. Primary usage will be Maya, rhino, 3d max, photoshop, illustrator and autocad (all of which I dont have experience with). I would like to know how graphics dependent are these applications. The buddy is on a tight budget and we've decided on a core2duo and 2GB ram. His budget allows for a 7600GS graphics/E6400 cpu or a 7600GT/E6300. Also, he does not want to overclock. So would these applications benefit from a faster graphics or faster cpu?

 

[Matthias99]

PS/Illustrator are all CPU/RAM (mostly RAM, especially if you work on very large images and/or keep many files open at once.)

Maya/Rhino/3DSMAX rely on the video card for doing realtime previews, but if you are doing 'real' rendering/raytracing, that's all CPU. These programs may run significantly better on a 'professional' video card (Wildcat/Quadro/FireGL) which has optimized drivers and firmware for 3D modeling applications. However, such cards are considerably more expensive than their 'gaming' brethren (although sometimes you can change the BIOS on a 'gaming' card to turn it into a 'professional' model).

For specialized applications, it's best to consult with people who have used them and have experience with what kind of hardware is actually required for different workloads. If your friend is doing smaller/less complex models, you may not need much of a video card. If he wants to work on things with hundreds of millions of polys, you'll need something quite powerful or it will run very slowly.

 

[AtlantaBob]

One more vote for CPU/RAM. (Although 2GB should be decent in my experience -- mostly using Autocad 2007). Besides, it's always easier to upgrade RAM than a CPU.

 

[Ecliptic]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Maya/Rhino/3DSMAX rely on the video card for doing realtime previews, but if you are doing 'real' rendering/raytracing, that's all CPU. These programs may run significantly better on a 'professional' video card (Wildcat/Quadro/FireGL) which has optimized drivers and firmware for 3D modeling applications. However, such cards are considerably more expensive than their 'gaming' brethren (although sometimes you can change the BIOS on a 'gaming' card to turn it into a 'professional' model).

I've looked at professional graphics cards and it is way out of his budget. Keep in mind this is a poor college boy


So the consensus is that better performance is achieved by skimping on the graphics for a faster processor? I was worried that a 7600gs wouldn?t be able to keep up with a E6400 in these applications and the extra horsepower would be wasted.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Another thing to bear in mind, what resolution(s) will he be working at ?

 

[Ecliptic]

Originally posted by: Midnight Rambler
Another thing to bear in mind, what resolution(s) will he be working at ?

20" widescreen LCD 1680x1050