Planning New Machine

[Elliot]

I have been out of circulation for a while and have lost touch with the new CPU's.

 

We are starting to plan and budget for a new machine. Main use is 3D max, Revit, AutoCAD, SolidWORKS and most of the Adobe programs.

 

Last week I read on this forum that there is a new XEON about to be released. What is going to be the name and model number. Is it what I read something like the "7400" with 16 cores. Is this correct? Is it true that it will required special memory...?

 

Are there any motherboards being manufactured for this new XEON. Over the last 10 years I always hear about these new glorious CPU's but once they come out they seem to be only slightly faster than the previous ones. Is this really going to be that much faster..... or is it marketing fluff....?

 

What about video cards..... Are the Quadro's still the best way to go.... I heard AMD has come out with something better.... Is that true..? and what is it....?

 

I am a fan of AMD. My fastest machines here are two years old and they are Dual Core Opterons. They are getting slow..... I know they have to be replaced. About 8 months ago I purchased a Sager Intel Dual Core 2.6 and that thing is ultra SLOW. I am so mad..... I don't want to make another similar mistake with the big computers...

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.....

 

 

Thanks

Elliot

[AJLynn]

There's no 16-core Xeon announced. Next one will be a 4-core based on the i7 but the release date isn't nailed down, and you could go crazy trying to plan around the next round of CPUs.

 

Currently the best rendering machine you can get is a dual Xeon with the i7 being close behind (and a lot less expensive) and better in single threaded performance. For Revit use, get ATI (AKA AMD) video cards. The latest FireGL v5xxx should satisfy most people.

[Elliot]

Hello Andrew

 

Thanks for the information. Interesting.... Why is it when I go to the Apple Stores they refer to their XEON unit as an 8 core unit.... I am confused....!

 

Do they have motherboards for dual i7 ?

 

I thought that Adobe products are multi threaded. Is AutoCAD single or multi... Same for 3D Studio....

 

 

I am tempted to buy an Apple but I am scared of running all these Window based programs one the Apple. I may end up buying an Apple as well. I have heard Adobe runs good on the Apples.

 

Thanks again for the information..... I am in no super hurry to build the new unit. I know these dual Opteron's 285 are reaching an advance age..... I have of these workstations and one with two Opteron's 280. They still work OK but on AutoCAD 2009 they have a tendency to run slow. I have heard that Revit - AutoCAD 2009 MEP is not the best for these machines. The old AutoCAD runs much faster. Probably it is not the machines and it is the program the reason for the speed issues.

 

Lately I have had a lot of Power Supply failures. Last week I installed a 1,000 watts PS on each machine to replace the 850 watts. Let see what will happen now.

 

Thanks for the information.

 

Elliot

[AJLynn]

Dual 4-core chips = 8-core Mac. There's no dual i7 yet. Adobe products are mostly not multithreaded and mostly do not benefit from 8 cores. The 16 thread reference was to upcoming (don't know when) dual-quad i7 with hyperthreading (each of 8 cores pretends it's 2 cores and gets bit of a speed boost). Autocad is not multithreaded. 3DSMax is not, but most of the renderers for it are.

 

An Apple running Windows is a good looking PC. An Apple running OSX is a Mac. If you want OSX get an Apple; if you want Windows, maybe you don't get an Apple.

 

Newer Autocad and industry specialized Autocad run slower on any hardware than old regular Autocad because they are bigger. Revit is always slow no matter what you run it on.

 

Large capacity power supplies do not necessarily fail less often than lower capacity power supplies. 850W is large capacity.

[Elliot]

Andrew

 

Thanks for the very interesting information. My double dual opterons are OK. It is just that the new AutoCAD is slower than the older versions, specially the MEP flavor.

 

It sounds like I should wait for the XEON....... since the Opterons are just a tad slower with the new AutoCAD.

 

Thanks

Elliot

[ihabkal]

Dual 4-core chips = 8-core Mac. There's no dual i7 yet. Adobe products are mostly not multithreaded and mostly do not benefit from 8 cores.

 

That is not true anymore, since I upgraded to Adobe CS4 Master Collection, Premier, after effects and encore are using 2 to 4 cores, sometimes at 99% efficiency, especially when encoding frames.

[Fran]

Hi Elliot.

 

Since I got my son an iMac for Christmas, I'm considering a Mac Pro for my next workstation. It comes with Bootcamp, and maybe some here can share their experiences using AutoCAD or 3ds Max with that setup.

[Elliot]

Hello Fran

 

Happy New Year.....

 

After I started this thread I saw your posting about the new i7 chip. I am confused...... I have assembled my computers for the last 10 years. During these last 10 years it was easy reaching a conclusion about the chips to use. Now it is a very different story.

 

I have local friend who is also an amateur radio operator. He is an electronic engineer for a big company designing very interesting communications state of the art hardware. He switched about 4 computers at his house from PC to Mac's. He runs AutoCAD and the Adobe products. Last night he told me he will never go back to a PC.

 

He mentions that when he uses the Mac's with XP the computer will act as a regular PC including the crashes.

 

I am going to keep reading. On the other thread there is a couple of guys starting to measure the use of these machines as a measure of technological advances. Better to build a fast plain vanilla machine that will not be painful to throw away 2 years later. That makes sense to me.

 

On the cameras it has become the same issues. Nikon and Canon keep launching a new camera every 8 to 10 months and people keep buying cameras. I have purchased 5 Nikon's in 4 years. The computers and software are in the same mode. Perhaps the present state of the economy will slow down these marketing man made technological cycles.

 

I will keep reading and remain on the planning mode until I understand what is going on. Your posting was extremely simple and down to the point with your comments. Andrew's comments are simmilar....... why to buy these expensive Xeon's if the regular i7 could be enough or even better if overclocked. I will keep trying to learn before I make the new machine, I still have not abandoned the idea of a MAC.

 

All these considerations because the new AutoCAD 2009 MEP is too slow.... Perhaps the change should be made to the AutoACAD 2009 and SolidWORKS.

 

Thanks

Elliot

Edited January 5, 2009 by Elliot

[Fran]

Happy New Year!

 

If the iMac had an i7 and an upgrade to 8 gigs of ram, I'd have one for my workstation because it would suit my purposes better. The Mac Pro is a bit too much and my son's iMac is not quite enough. It's enough to test Rhino OSX right now though.

 

I considered upgrading my son's old PC (which I had built last May) to i7, but decided to hold off. I call it the Dust Bucket. In a week, it gathers 6 months worth of dust because of all the case fans. I got him the iMac because I got tired of hearing, "Mom! The computer shut off again!" Maybe I shouldn't be building my own stuff.

 

The Core i7 is what's available now. The Xeon version isn't out yet (AFAIK). If I get a Mac Pro, I will wait until it has the new Xeons and Snow Leopard (full 64-bit). I would also like to know from anyone here who has experience with both Mac Pros and PC servers, if the Macs are quieter. I have two "All Intel" servers with dual-quads (5300 series?) for render slaves, and they are like wind tunnels. I had them built for me and my consultant was worried about the noise level (intolerable). Replacing the case fans helped a lot, but they are still noisy, and the motherboard has no rpm control for idle and load. I'm stuck with them for at least 2 years. So I'd be interested in anyone's experience with Mac Pro noise levels.

 

My current desktop (with a Q9450) is very quiet, and so is John's old computer (when it's actually on ).

 

That's too funny about the Mac acting like a regular PC on XP - including the crashes. LOL.

[Elliot]

Fran

 

About two years ago I assembled a big desktop on an MSI motherboard. It was so noisy that for a day I used ear muffs to bring down the noise. At that point I threw away the motherboard and went with Supermicro. That solved the noise problems but with 11 fan on the machines it collects a lot of dust. I just exchanged a high frequency noise for a low freq hum.

 

I have noticed the cooling technology has improved and there has to be some noiseless way of cooling. I have a small computer dedicated as a control panel for an external machine. This computer is on all the time. The low noise drove me crazy and 14 months ago I disconnected the fans. The unit is still working. A few months ago I even disconnected the LED lights. Now nobody knows if it is on or off.

 

The pilots in the cockpit of a Boeing can barely hear the engines, they just trust their instruments. That's how our computers should be.

 

Thanks for the names of the new Xeon's I was looking for that information.

 

Elliot

[Fran]

The Xeon version of the i7 will be the 5500 series, from what I've read. I haven't seen an official name.