Will you guys help me, please?

[blade47]

I've posted a question in The General Hardware Forum about building a cheap computer for a friend to do autocad on. And as usual got very little response there. If some of you guys don't mind could you please help me out here, thanks.

I'm going to try to get him to run seti on it, if he decides to purchase a system. Right now he just wants me to price him one, but I've got my fingers crossed.

 

[JWMiddleton]

Hi blade_47, On both AnandTech and Sharky's they have a feature each month with high and low end system recommedations. One, or both, includes office systems and gaming systems. You might check those out.

Because AutoCad is a 2D program you don't need a high-end 3D card. So, you might look for a Matrox G-200, or one of the other cards that are a generation or two old. Since you didn't give a budget it is impossible to give specific advice other that fast HD, 133MHz FSB for fast memeory access, lots of memory, etc.

Give me some more specifics and I'll give you some more help.

 

[blade47]

Thanks, I checked out the guides and they had about the same system I had in mind.

You must have missed the budget it's in the thread $1000-$1500 (I know it's very tight for such a system). I think I'll be able to squeeze a suitable system out of it for him, maybe.

Right now I'm thinking of:

P3-550e or 600e oc to 133mhz fsb
Asus Cusl2
256mb PC133 Ram
IBM 75GXP 15.2gig HD
CD-RW drive (no idea which yet)
Floppy Drive
GeForce2 MX
PCI Modem (don't know which one yet but want HW modem)
Generic Case
iiYama VisionMaster Pro 450 monitor
Keyboard & Mouse
Speakers

I think that's everything. I know I'll have to cut a few more corners or get him to up his budget a little to build this thing. He's got the OS and can get autocad from the school.

 

[JWMiddleton]

Hey, I didn't notice your link the first time I responded. You did get some responses from the other guys, but they don't think you can do it for the budget you purposed. A little over a year ago GM considered a PII-450 w/128 MB RAM to be an Engineering Workstation. You would not believe some of the drawings they have on those systems. They will put a whole assembly plant with all utilities, tooling, conveyors, etc. on one sheet.

My only concern is OCing his system. 1st he must understand that you can't guarantee 133 MHz FSB on the chip you buy!!! 2nd I would suggest an i815 based mobo since you can run it at higher FSB settings without OCing the AGP or PCI slots. For the price I might get a PIII-733EB and not OC it so that he does not come back on you. It isn't worth the hassles! With the i815e you will need "approved" memory to work at 133 MHz and CAS2 settings. You can get it from www.crucial.com. 128 MB will get him by, with plans of adding more later. Oh, the i815 limits memory to 512 MB, which I don't see as an issue, but some ACAD enthusiast might.

Good luck!

 

[luvrambus]

some tips on your system: the Asus CUSL2 is an 815 chipset and runs at 133mhz, so you won't be overclocking at 133 you'll be right at spec. if you still want to over clock that board to say, 150mhz, you can clock down the agp to 1/2 so you don't have any probs with your video but you can never be sure with overclocking, I agree with JW, try not to overclock it. Plus 128 ram is not enough, it will work, but when you start accumulating alot of data, wich you always do in CAD, it will start swapping to the hard drive and wee all know how much of a slowdown that can be. I recommend at least 256 ram, plus you can probably find a matrox g400 for around $100 if you look real hard; try e-bay. Personally I don't like PCI modems they always give me some kind of trouble, you can get a good USB modem for $80 or maybe less. Another thought that might help alot is if you try to find used parts, things like video cards and ram and modems don't really deteriorate with use so it's pretty safe to buy used; you'll save alot of money that way. try to save as much money as you can on the CPU because you'll wan't to get a large monitor (21" seems to be popular for CAD design), and they run quite expensive.

 

[blade47]

Thanks guys, I was only talking about overclocking the processor. Nothing else in the system, but you guys may be right about it not being worth it.

He wants an internal modem and the cusl2 only has pci slots so I don't have much choice on this one unless I go with a different mobo. There's no way I'm trying a winmodem in it, because the phone lines in the area we live in are terrible. I've tried winmodems in here several times to no avail.

He says he wants a 19" monitor so that's what he'll get I guess. At least it makes fitting the rest of system in the budget easier.

Would a Via 133a mobo do just as good as an Intel 815e for autocad?

With all the input I've gotten I have alot to consider.

 

[JWMiddleton]

Would a Via 133a mobo do just as good as an Intel 815e for autocad?

The Via 133a is a decent chipset. I have a Soyo 7VCA mobo with a PIII-700/910. To get the best performance I have Micron 256MB CAS2 RAM with the BOIS set to 4-Way Interleave. This gives me about 3/4 hour better time than a 128MB Crucial (Micron) CAS2 RAM module on processing a SETI WU. Putting the 128MB RAM module in a CUSL2 mobo I better my WU time by another 1/2 hour. So, the CUSL2 has faster memory access than the Via 133a, but it would not be noticable (but measurable) with AutoCad as long as your memory will support 4-Way Interleave and CAS-2 settings.