AutoCad hardware configuration

[explrsport]

Hi, I am purchasing a system for a friend who needs to run AutoCad 2008. Would this configuration work? Anything I should change? Thanks!

PROCESSOR Intel? Core®2 Duo E6550 (2.33GHz/1333MHz/4MB L2) 525W

OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Business, with Media

VIDEO CARD 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro FX570, Dual Monitor DVI Capable

MEMORY 2GB, 667MHz, DDR2 SDRAM Memory, ECC (2 DIMMS)

HARD DRIVE 320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ and 16MB DataBurst Cache

 

[PurdueRy]

Unless he has very high end needs a normal "gaming" video card works just fine for autocad. You'll save some money that way.

 

[ForumMaster]

PurdeRy is correct. Although AutoCad is multithreaded, it is not accelerated by the graphics card. AutoCad does, however, have a 64-bit version, and it eats up RAM like no tomorrow. I'd lower the graphic card and instead focus on getting a faster CPU. AutoCad like that.

 

[bruceb]

I would agree. The faster the CPU and the most RAM your system can use would make
that program work at it's best. And in my view a video card with a high amount of Video RAM
would be a good idea.

 

[heyheybooboo]

AutoCAD Services & Support
Graphics Hardware List

I think Quadros use conventional Forceware drivers these days - pretty much the same with ATI FireGLs though they may still have some application-specific accelerators.

OpenGL support in AC2008/Vista is non-existent as far as I know for both nVidia and ATI - haven't heard of workarounds - so it's Direct3D all the way

Ram always help, might want to bump it up to at least 3gb - but tuning for optimal app settings is just as important. Probably the best thing you can do is place a page file on a separate hard drive and the Vista Super Page File Thumb Drive Thingy (or whatever they call it )

Is this pretty much line drawing or modeling? AutoCAD can render across multiple cores but with multiple layers, big tables and such I'm not so sure. That comes down to clock speed and I/O so the extra $100 for a E6850 might be well spent.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: explrsport
Hi, I am purchasing a system for a friend who needs to run AutoCad 2008. Would this configuration work? Anything I should change? Thanks!


OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Business, with Media

I would not recommend vista for autocad.
While 2008 is the first shipping version with "official" support for vista, its still untested in the workplace. If someone is using autocad for their work then it would be a bad idea to use vista at this time. Its up to the user if he wants to install vista now and work through the problems they may have, or use a proven os with autocad and switch to vista in the future.
Winxp x64 is a time tested os for autodesk products.


Save the money spent on vista and double the ram.
I would not build a new workstation with less than 4GB memory.


If you want support from autodesk you have to use a quadro card.
If you use a regular gaming card and have display issues, autodesk will not help.