New CAD pc 2015

[s3ds]

Hello I have been asked to build another PC based on the 2013/2014 CAD PC in the following link
Please check http://forums.hexus.net/review-my-bu...ml#post3066769 for a similar build

Case/Windows 7 Ultimate Retail/Fans unimportant.

240GB SanDisk Extreme PRO SATA III 2.5" SSD 550MB/s/ 520 MB/s 100K Iops
or 256GB Plextor PX-256M6P M6 Pro SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal SSD 545mb/s Read, 490mb/s, 100k IOPS
x2 in raid 1 (OS and Cad Program)
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black WD2002FAEX Hard Drive x2 in raid 1 (Archived Jobs and Backup)
Intel Core i7 4790K, S1150, Haswell, 4 Core 4.4GHz Turbo, 5 GT/s DMI, 1.2GHz GPU, 40x Ratio, 84W, Retail *C0 Stepping
Asus Z97-K Intel Z97 Socket 1150 Motherboard ATX
16GB kit (8GBx2), Ballistix 240-pin DIMM, DDR3 PC3-12800 memory module
PNY Nvidia Quadro K600 Low Profile Graphics Card - 1GB (Quadro drivers are needed by cad program )
be quiet! BN225 PURE POWER L8 80+ Bronze with Silent 120mm Fan - 700W


Please Note the Quadro is needed all other bits are taken from the other thread if still available

Any comment ? ( Thank you in advance )

[Biscuit]

Is there a budget to work too?

I personally would actually disagree with DDY on the other thread, and suggest that Xeon based chips would be more appropriate for CAD work. The stability and reliability of i7 chips is excellent, but Xeon chips are designed for exactly your purposes so they have that extra notch of stability. They also support error correcting RAM. Given the suggestion of heavy consistent workloads for long periods, I feel this could be a factor worth considering.
There may be potential benefits to be had with going for Haswell-E based chips (Socket 2011 v3), but that comes with a significant price hike in both the chip and motherboard, but also the requirement for (the still very new) DDR4. The large benefit here is that you are opened up to 6 and 8 core chips. With hyperthreading, that gives you 12-16 threads of processing power!

[s3ds]

budget = 1k-2k
The software is old and unsuported, all but the last version only run on single core (32 bit)( last version is not popular (removed menus) but runs 64bit and multicore)
A high speed duel core would work better than a lower speed 4/6/8 core chip

[s3ds]

Just a thought would the Asus Z97-WS or Asus Z97-PRO be worth the extra ?
Asus Z97-C Socket 1150 would only be a £10 addon but give sata express

What would be a good CPU cooler for the 4790K No O.C. but it will be running long hours

[scaryjim]

How much write load does CAD put on an SSD? It might be worth looking at the degraded performance section of recent Hexus reviews as the "fastest" SSDs aren't always the ones that work best when they've been hammered for a while (my audio PC is basically unusable for audio editing nowadays because the (old & cheap) SSD is so badly degraded....). Check out this SK Hynix review for some ideas (Hexus have more consistency figures in other reviews).

If the software is genuinely poorly threaded then why bother with the i7? The i5 4690k would save you money and be almost as effective, particularly if you get an overclocking-capable motherboard and notch the multipliers up yourself (I'd be amazed if there's a 4690k out there that can't run at 4.0/4.4). You could even consider the Anniversary edition Pentium with a substantial overclock (although I'd personally advise against that if this is for a proper commercial workstation).

[s3ds]

The cad software (Strucad) uses a lot of IO with small files In the past I have always use SCSI or SAS drives.
What would be a beeter quality SSD ? or would it be better to go back to SAS ?

The Idea behind the i7 is the other software it will be running ( AutoCAD , Tekla ( another CAD program ) + VM's ) They will make use of the extra CPU and memory power.
With the PC running not at my location I do not want to overclock.

Chart from Tekla Specs

Best performance
Windows 8.1 (64 bit)
Memory 16+ GB
Hard disk 500+ GB, SSD
Processor Intel® Core™ i7 CPU 3+ GHz
Graphics card OpenGL support
two monitor support
e.g. NVIDIA Quadro series
30” 2560x1600 or two 27” 2560x1440
Mouse 3-button wheel mouse, cordless &
optical + 3Dconnexion SpacePilot
Web browser internet Explorer (32 bit)
Backup equipment External hard drive with scheduled
backups
Network adapter
(multi-user funct.) t/s 1 Gbit/s full-duplex

[s3ds]

Revised

Highpoint RocketRAID 2710 4 Port SAS+SATA PCI Express Adaptor Card - £109
Seagate Cheetah 300GB 15K.7 SAS Hard Drive SAS 3 15000rpm x2 - £230
Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black WD2002FAEX Hard Drive x2 in raid 1 (Archived Jobs and Backup) £210
Intel Core i7 4790K, S1150, Haswell, 4 Core 4.4GHz Turbo, 5 GT/s DMI, 1.2GHz GPU, 40x Ratio, 84W, Retail *C0 Stepping £256
Asus Z97-C Socket 1150 VGA DVI HDMI 8-channel Audio ATX Motherboard £98
16GB kit (8GBx2) DDR3 PC3-14900 Unbuffered NON-ECC 1.5V 1024Meg x 64 £143
PNY NVIDIA 2GB Quadro K620 Graphics Card - VCQK620-PB (Quadro drivers are needed by cad program ) £147
be quiet! BN225 PURE POWER L8 80+ Bronze with Silent 120mm Fan - 700W £70

£1263

+Case + Fans +CPU cooler
http://www.ebuyer.com/265400-coolerm...se-rc-550-kkn1
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/therm...l-and-amd-cpus
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm...0mm-fan-blades
Win7 Retail is already purchased

[abaxas]

If the cad program uses lots of little and oftne changed files, why not run that from a small SLC SSD?

Something like the old intel 32gb x25-e (if you can still find one) is almost impossible to wear out. Something silly like 2 million read/write per cell.

Maybe someone can pipe up with whatever current SSDs still use SLC.

[s3ds]

Jobs can reach 2gb and I have about 30-40gb in my work folder
and I only archived at chrismas
200 gb would be a min for OS and CAD
In the past I have tried with lower capacity SCSI's and its a pain as you are forever copying Jobs

[scaryjim]

Fair enough if you have other software that will utilise the multiple threads better: obviously that wasn't covered in your original post so I just thought I'd raise the option

I don't know about SLC SSDs, and to be honest I'd doubt they're actually necessary given the longevity of modern SSDs - techreport have been running endurance tests on ~ 240GB SSDs (http://techreport.com/review/27062/t...in-after-1-5pb) and their first SSD didn't give out until 728TB of writes: that's almost 400GB written per day if you're looking at a five year replacement cycle.

Doing a quick peruse of the hexus reviews, the SK Hynix SH910A (256GB version at ebuyer) is pretty consistent when degraded although not amazingly fast. It has the advantage of only being £78 though The Corsair Neutron XT, Sandisk Extreme Pro, and OCZ Vertex 460 are all very good but edge up to the £110/£120 bracket. The Samsung 845 DC Evo is phenomenal, but it's a data centre focussed drive so it should be (and it's also over £150). I'm probably going to go with the Hynix when I rebuild my audio PC but I'm not working professionally so the performance isn't so critical to me.

[s3ds]

Sorry I listed the worst and most difficult to please ( due to no updates for 3 years )
2 sas drives and a cheap controller will go £339 so 2 @ £150 would be cheaper

from this link http://www.scan.co.uk/products/240gb...s-rw12000-iops

Samsung's 845DC EVO Data Center Solid State Drive (SSD) is designed for read intensive, <10% write content and streaming servers
I would say the software will need equal read/write ( I know it was better/faster on a SCSI that can read and write at the same time )

The SK Hynix seams good

[abaxas]

The EVO is a read centric drive, not a write one.

you want the 845DC PRO if you are writing lots.

[s3ds]

Any comments on the other items ?

[abaxas]

Just a thought raid10 + 4x 7200rpm disks might be a better idea than 2x 15k sas. More redundany, more spindles and cheaper.

[Marcvs]

Consider also an 850/840 Pro for writing to - they are super solid and with rapid mode pretty damn quick too!

[s3ds]

abaxas - but only read or write SAS can do both at the same time
Marcvs - Yes I am http://www.ebuyer.com/657563-samsung...FSoKwwodZz0AFw @ £142