need video card advice for Solidworks 7

[boeckelr]

Hi,

Ive been a longtime visitor of the forums but I dont think I have ever posted before.

Anyway I am trying to help a friend of mine who has recently returned to teaching several university level CAD courses...he wants to build a new PC that can run the newest Autocad and Solidworks 7.

Please note: I am not a CAD/engineering person myself; but I do build PC's...Also, since I have only built PCs for gaming, I know next to nothing about Quadros, FireGLs etc...

His requirements are that he wants to be able to run Solidworks with the "Gold Dot" or "Gold Star"...(I hope someone knows what that means).

Since I am planning on moving, I dont want to build it for him because I wont be around to support it if something goes wrong...so I went with him to a local computer store and told them what he wanted...

Essentially he wants a Quad Core Intel 2.4GHZ CPU, 4GB RAM...but the video card is where I am stuck - the computer store put together a system with a 128 MB Quadro (dont know the model)....

I have looked and know that the most inexpensive Quadros are 128 meg Quadro4's....and then for a little more money there are FX350's and FX540's....some have 64bit memory interfaces...some 128bit....

And then he could go with a 256 MB card....

I dont want him to build a first rate Quad Core PC with 4 gigs RAM and skimp on the video card...that would be stupid....so any advice that anyone with Solidworks experience can give would be greatly appreciated.

So my main questions:

128MB, 256MB, which model of Quadro will do a good job without spending a fortune.

Thanks in advance for your help,
Mike

 

[Laminator]

Get a GeForce card and flash the BIOS to turn it into a Quadro.

 

[mode101wpb]

You can use SolidWorks with a non-certified card with decent results.

If you want RealView (gold dot) you will need a card that meets the requirements listed here:

http://solidworks.com/pages/se.../VideoCardTesting.html

MB size depends on part count, large assemblies require a more powerful card. Also might want to think about XP 64 bit, quad core Xenon go 64 bit XP Pro, SW works much better.

 

[LightningRider]

When does Solidworks 2008 come out by the way. Anyone know?

 

[mode101wpb]

Originally posted by: LightningRider
When does Solidworks 2008 come out by the way. Anyone know?

You can download SP0 now if you paid your maintance for 2008, I have had the pre-release installed for a couple of weeks.

The official boxed DVD should be arriving to customers shortly.