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The Killer Video Card for SolidWorks?

Started by Josh M · 10 months ago

At Siggraph this year, ATI announced its line of super-powered, new generation, 3D whooping, FireGL™ graphics cards. With features that lends itself to perform better with 3D applications, you would think it’s what everyone with slow graphics performance would ... Continue reading »

20 comments

  • Devon Sowell

    1 year ago

    Hi Josh-

    I've been bitten twice in the past 5 years by crappy ATI cards. I've found their support to be terrible.

    Devon
    reply
  • Josh

    1 year ago

    I agree Devon. They're gonna have to soup up more than the tech. I'm staying optimistic, but will look for results others are getting before dumping that kind of cash.
    reply
  • John

    1 year ago

    I'm looking at getting the FX-4600 - anybody using one? How does it compare with the ATI's?
    reply
  • Josh

    1 year ago

    reply
  • John

    1 year ago

    Thanks Josh - much appreciated. I am looking to order a Dell 30" monitor with dual quad-core CPU's... since I'm not paying for it - I went all out. I suspect my assemblies may get rather large in due time and I want to be ready....

    John
    reply
  • Josh

    1 year ago

    RIGHT ON. that is a sweet deal. I did a benchmark with quad-cores on SWX 2007 and XP and didn't get any performance gain in solidworks, but depending on your setup you may get some really good results. I'd love to see a benchmark on your machine.
    reply
  • Chris

    1 year ago

    I have to agree with your hesitation. I know in the past there have been issues with ATI cards so I have always stuck with nVidia and everything has worked fine. Until I see some improvements with their quality then I think I will continue that route.

    I do have a question though: Does anyone have any suggestions for a mobile graphics card? I currently have the nVidia GeForce4 440 on my laptop and while it does alright with one SW window open it really starts to bog down with multiple windows open. Granted, the card only has 64Mb of Ram on it so am sure that has something to do with it.
    Has anyone done any testing or can recommend an upgrade to what I have?
    reply
  • John

    1 year ago

    Thanks Josh. Is there a standard benchmark I could run using SW2007? Is there perhaps an EXE that uses SW to provide a benchmark?
    reply
  • Josh

    1 year ago

    here

    John - There's a standard benchmark created by spec.org for SolidWorks 2007. It's the first one I use. SolidWorks 2007 Benchmark

    Rob Rodriguez also just posted about his upgrade to a Nvidia Quadro FX 3500. He does a lot of rendering with PhotoWorks.

    The Nvidia Quaddro 4600 and 5600 are pretty high priced for most users/companies so I'm thinking that Nvidia will have something coming out spring/summer '08 to bury ATI mid-range, although it could be argued that they already have. :)
    reply
  • John

    1 year ago

    Just ran the SPEC test and here are the results for my current computer - could you post yours so I can see how much better a quad-core CPU would be:

    1 12.50 14.60
    2 12.50 10.70
    3 12.50 10.70
    4 12.50 9.84
    5 12.50 24.90
    6 12.50 18.70
    7 12.50 35.70
    8 12.50 15.00
    Weighted Geometric Mean = 15.91
    reply
  • Josh

    1 year ago

    Can you look at the APCResults1.txt in the Benchmark folder and look at the overall results. That's what these are below. I've posted three configuration that I've done.

    1. FX-60 Dual-Core (2.61 GHz) - 2Gb RAM - XP
    2. FX-53 (2.41 GHz) - 2Gb RAM - XP 64
    3. Quad-Core AMD Opteron (2.0 GHz) - 2.10Gb RAM - XP

    (Total , Graphics, CPU, I/O - in seconds)
    1. 161.31, 46.68, 52.68, 61.95
    2. 175.23, 43.14, 58.39, 73.70
    3. 205.41, 53.91, 72.22, 79.22
    reply
  • John

    1 year ago

    Thanks Josh - I can't find that file (nor the Benchmark folder). All I ran was the Solidworks test - should I have ran ALL TESTS? I have these files:

    viewperflog.txt
    viewperfresult.txt

    No biggie. I would like to, though, compare what I have now to the computer I will be getting so I need to do a complete test.... thanks.
    reply
  • Josh

    1 year ago

    Oh I see, you downloaded the SPECviewperf® 10 benchmark.

    I would just download the "SPECapcSM for SolidWorks 2007™" near the bottom of the page.It will install into a folder like
    C:\Program Files\SPECapc\SolidWorks Benchmark 2007\

    Sorry for the confusion! :)
    reply
  • John

    1 year ago

    Here you go:

    Model : Precision WorkStation 380
    OS : Microsoft Windows XP Professional
    OS SP : Service Pack 2
    CPU : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.60GHz
    # of CPU : 2
    Memory : 3582

    Test Averages for 5 tests(s).
    Test Total = 286.07
    Graphics = 106.61
    CPU = 78.82
    I/O = 100.64
    reply
  • Tom

    1 year ago

    E6600 (2,4GHz) 2 GB Fx1500 WinXP 32bit (Precision 390) and my 18k elements assembly takes 7 minutes to load! Rebuild time also too long :-/

    Any idea what to upgrade to cut rebuild times?

    BTW: A 30" HP monitor turned out to be a good companion ;-)
    reply
  • Josh

    1 year ago

    That's a pretty good system. You may consider upgrading to a Fx3500. What you have should be able to push pretty good though. It may be the complexity of your parts. With large assemblies I work in, I will typically create simple configurations of parts and open those to save on load times. You may want to make sure that you don't have circular references (parts referencing each other), complicated patterns or a lot of items in the design binder. Those are the three main things I see that slow down assemblies.

    That 30" would be nice. I have the 24" and that would just be incredible, although it wouldn't fit under my desk shelf.
    reply
  • Tom

    1 year ago

    I'll try and do that Josh! About parts referencing to parts - generating 2D from large assemblies takes ages as SW2007 loads all the parts. Is there a way to reduce this effect or is it just a "feature"?
    reply
  • Josh

    1 year ago

    Are you referring to creating Drawings? If so, it may help to used simplified assemblies in the drawings and split up the assemblies into easier to detail sub-assemblies. Hope this helps.
    reply
  • Tom

    1 year ago

    I'll try to use simplified assemblies Josh!
    reply
  • Amd

    1 year ago

    I searched for \'What Cpus Were Made By Amd\' at Google and found your post named \'ATI FireGL the Killer Video Card for SolidWorks? | SolidSmack.com\' in search results. Quite interesting to read.
    reply

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