- Jan 11, 2000
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I'm trying to advise a smallish architectural firm here in Dublin, Ireland. They've been screwed for years by their licensed AUTOCAD distributor, which has annually sold them slowish, basic computers with the Autocad version du jour at immensely inflated prices. I do system maintenance and upgrading for friends and was called over (the Director is the father of a pal) to advise them about upgrading their system this year. They were recommend by their Autocad supplier to junk all the computers they'd bought (from the same supplier) over the last seven years and invest in a brand new £16,000. system that would depreciate to less than half that in a year's time. True, they've got slowish computers, but I upped the ram and reinstalled Win98 SE, and they seem to be fine for the moment running AutoCAD Pro V.14. They do virtually no 3d rendering -- everything is architectural drawings.
Here's the problem. They've got 5 Cad stations with 4 licensed full copies of AutoCAD V.14 and 1 station with WIN2K and AutoCAD Lite 2000. They would like to upgrade the V.14 AutoCAD computers to a more recent version, but even the price of $750. (Cost is Irish converted to US) is steep for four upgrades of AutoCAD Light 2002. The best price I can source in the US for AC Lite 2002 is around $640. ArchiCAD just seems like over-kill given its price and the fact that they're reasonably content with the old Verion 14. Are there any other CAD programs like TurboCAD that are respected in the Design community as worthy substitutes for Autocad -- or is Autocad really the only CAD program that matters for professionals? Thanks!
Here's the problem. They've got 5 Cad stations with 4 licensed full copies of AutoCAD V.14 and 1 station with WIN2K and AutoCAD Lite 2000. They would like to upgrade the V.14 AutoCAD computers to a more recent version, but even the price of $750. (Cost is Irish converted to US) is steep for four upgrades of AutoCAD Light 2002. The best price I can source in the US for AC Lite 2002 is around $640. ArchiCAD just seems like over-kill given its price and the fact that they're reasonably content with the old Verion 14. Are there any other CAD programs like TurboCAD that are respected in the Design community as worthy substitutes for Autocad -- or is Autocad really the only CAD program that matters for professionals? Thanks!