M said:
One of our users will be using Pro-Engineer, 3D CAD software, so we need to
buy him a good computer on a limited budget. If you go to the
manufacturer's websites it seems as though you end up looking at $10,000 so
I'm looking for advice from someone who bought something for far less, under
$1000, that is doing the job well. Building from parts is not an option, it
must be purchased from Dell, HP, etc, and running WinXP 64bit.
Any advice, and or warnings about what might be missed but is necessary?
Mich
You can see some comments here.
http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=141366
This document has some links for various computing solutions.
http://www.ptc.com/WCMS/files/77552/en/proewf5.pdf
This is the first link, for HP. One model of computer
is the Z400, with an FX580 video card. Using the HP
configuration page for the Z400, I got $1200 as a
starting point, with the FX580 installed in it.
Maybe you could buy more RAM from other than HP,
to save a few dollars. More RAM would help. (I.e. Buy
the computer with minimum RAM, and add more yourself.)
http://www.ptc.com/WCMS/files/77550/en/hp_wf5.pdf
The FX580 video card is about $170. Judging by the
cooler design, and the lack of PCI Express Auxiliary
power input, this is a low end card with OpenGL certification.
http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_lrg_images/785/210998785.jpg
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...s/SPECopc-Viewperf-10.0-Pro-Engineer,132.html
So you won't be able to buy a solution for $1000, but
maybe with some luck, the basic computing box could
be $2000 or so. You really need to work through the
various vendor specific files on the PTC site, to
see what you can manage to do.
Pro-Eng eats computers for breakfast. Our mechanical
engineer a number of years ago, was working on a design
that took seven hours to load, before you could rotate
it in 3D. And I believe at the time, he had about as
expensive a computer as we could give him. His
project had a couple hundred thousand references
to some database on the network, which may have accounted
for the speed. So don't be surprised, if some expensive
talent is sitting around most of the time, twiddling
thumbs.
If the mechanical engineer makes $100K, has a loaded labor
rate of $200K, then a $10K computer doesn't sound so bad, if
you get more real hours of work per day from him/her.
Perhaps you need to find more benchmarks for projects
similar to what your mechanical engineer will be working
on. Otherwise, you could end up spending $12000 -- $2000 for
the first computer, and $10000 for the second computer.
Paul