AutoCAD, TurboCAD or Other? -- What CAD program is best BUDGET workhorse for 2D Architechtural Design

tristramshandy

Senior member
Jan 11, 2000
556
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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!
 

Crazymerlin

Junior Member
Jul 30, 2001
24
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i would say that in your situation you would have to pay to play with the CAD liecense. I use Cad 2000
for work and when sending files to other people it's usally in release.14. for 2d drawings v14 should be fine if it does what you want it to do. as for the other programs u spoke of , I cannot comment on them due to the fact that I have not used them.

I hope I was in some sort of way helpfull;)