3D Modeling & Design – Do you REALLY need a Xeon and Quadro??

[AlexTheGreatish]

What exactly makes Solidworks work.. solidly?  We test a whole bunch of hardware to give you the answer.

 

Buy a Quadro
On Amazon: http://geni.us/KP3OPR
On Newegg: http://geni.us/rVEAB

 

 

[bimmerman]

Awesome video. As a full time solidworks user, thanks for doing this, and your findings mirror my experience over the years pretty much exactly. This would have been amazing information to have had back in undergrad when I was piecing together a gaming+workstation rig (Pentium D days...).

 

I've found that FirePros (or whatever they're called now) have performed a bit better than Quadros in Solidworks, but either solution is far better than any consumer card I've used during school or on my non-work computers.

 

As a followup suggestion, how about reviewing some of the mobile workstations on the market in mixed pro/prosumer/gamer use, such as the Precision M5520, Lenovo P50, or similar? I'm a bit biased, since my main rig is one of the Xeon/Quadro M5520s, and also because at most of the client sites I visit, the days of the desktop workstation are waning in favor of mobile workstations for the majority of tasks. The mobile ones aren't as powerful as the desktops but the portability and collaborative benefits from hunkering down in a conference room to bang out design changes, or travelling to the factory, or meeting with clients/contractors are pretty substantial. Then, once travel is done and you're back at the office you can use the desktops for the big assembly work, or offload to the cluster for overnight simulation runs.

[IIrmantass]

Don't know about Solidworks, but when it comes to Autocad it runs fine on Pentium N3530 4 gigs of ram with no SSD. Bump ram up to 8 gigs + SSD then you will have quite good machine. This is tested in real world when we had to do some tasks for uni. But as mentioned in video s**t may get real when you try to create blueprints or models for shopping centre or something else.

[ERM64bit]

So I was a bit confused that the Quadro cards were never compared to the Radeon Pro WX series. I would have liked to see the difference since there is a pretty big difference in price between a Radeon Pro WX 7100 and a Quadro P4000, especially after the chart showed that the Vega cards were better than the GeForce cards. 

[GrayTech]

Are these recommendations also the best choice for Solid Edge?

[Progressor]

Come on guys.. when i read "3D Modeling & Design" I imagine software like 3dsmax, Maya, Blender, etc, software used by 3D artists and designers.. not cad/cam software for engineers. Very misleading title and therefore, video.

[Egg-Roll]

Actually what I'm wondering is if the K/M4000 would be a better option for a budget build for those on a tight budget... Because you can pick up those PC's fairly easily fully loaded for around $500-1200USD/CAD. It would be nice to see a comparison with one if possible, esp M4000.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T3600-Tower-PC-Xeon-E5-1650-6C-3-2GHz-32GB-2x-500GB-Quadro-K4000/263378310356

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T3600-Tower-PC-Xeon-E5-1650-6C-3-2GHz-32GB-2x-500GB-nVidia-Quadro/253392622165

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Dell-Precision-T5810-workstation-16GB-Ram-used-for-3-weeks-MINT-CONDITION-/112560170503

 

Linus's suggested build is at least $1400 USD w/o case fan motherboard additional equipment etc.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/44n48Y

 

To a uni student time isn't a problem really but to save a few hundred extra bucks where possible is what they usually want. The issue is trying to find a M4000 used w/o paying as much as a P4000 for outdated equipment  They exist, just really hard...

 

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-Quadro-K4000-vs-Nvidia-Quadro-M4000/m250990vsm37687

[bimmerman]

45 minutes ago, Progressor said:

Come on guys.. when i read "3D Modeling & Design" I imagine software like 3dsmax, Maya, Blender, etc, software used by 3D artists and designers.. not cad/cam software for engineers. Very misleading title and therefore, video.

I disagree-- neither 3d visual arts nor engineering owns those terms.

 

As an engineer, I design solid models, thus am doing both 3d Modeling and Design (and simulation and....). In my industry that is what those two terms refer to, and is how my services are described when billing clients. CAD is the field, modeling and design is the activity. The video content was exactly what I expected based on my usage of the terms in the video title.

 

In the 3d visual arts industry, I would expect modeling and design to refer to the programs you mention, so you're right in that sense; however, the terms 'Modeling' and 'Design' are not exclusive to either visual arts or engineering fields.

[bimmerman]

44 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

Actually what I'm wondering is if the K/M4000 would be a better option for a budget build for those on a tight budget... Because you can pick up those PC's fairly easily fully loaded for around $500-1200USD/CAD. It would be nice to see a comparison with one if possible, esp M4000.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T3600-Tower-PC-Xeon-E5-1650-6C-3-2GHz-32GB-2x-500GB-Quadro-K4000/263378310356

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T3600-Tower-PC-Xeon-E5-1650-6C-3-2GHz-32GB-2x-500GB-nVidia-Quadro/253392622165

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Dell-Precision-T5810-workstation-16GB-Ram-used-for-3-weeks-MINT-CONDITION-/112560170503

 

Linus's suggested build is at least $1400 USD w/o case fan motherboard additional equipment etc.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/44n48Y

 

To a uni student time isn't a problem really but to save a few hundred extra bucks where possible is what they usually want. The issue is trying to find a M4000 used w/o paying as much as a P4000 for outdated equipment  They exist, just really hard...

 

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-Quadro-K4000-vs-Nvidia-Quadro-M4000/m250990vsm37687

Those will be fine if you're on a budget and aren't able to buy new. They'd be a great option actually, especially for a part time use machine.

 

Older stuff won't perform as well as new stuff, but not orders of magnitude worse.

[Egg-Roll]

6 minutes ago, bimmerman said:

Those will be fine if you're on a budget and aren't able to buy new. They'd be a great option actually, especially for a part time use machine.

 

Older stuff won't perform as well as new stuff, but not orders of magnitude worse.

Based on what I found online the K is about 4x worst than the P where as the M is only 1.2x worst. Once again that's based on userbenchmark. the K4200 is actually only 2x worst than the P.

 

Still be nice to see real world numbers if possible tho. There is a video comparing M Vs P using blender on youtube.

[sdzen]

Feeling a distinct lack of Radeon Pro's Here Alexander, The Nvidia Tech Tips commenters are out in full force.

[dalekphalm]

6 hours ago, ERM64bit said:

So I was a bit confused that the Quadro cards were never compared to the Radeon Pro WX series. I would have liked to see the difference since there is a pretty big difference in price between a Radeon Pro WX 7100 and a Quadro P4000, especially after the chart showed that the Vega cards were better than the GeForce cards. 

I suspect that was simply because they didn't have any on hand.

 

Why didn't they ask AMD to send some professional workstation cards? Dunno (maybe they did and AMD ignored them, replied too late, or denied the request).

 

Why didn't they just buy one or two? Probably decided it wasn't worth the investment.

 

You'd have to ask @LinusTech, @nicklmg, @AlexTheGreatish, etc.

 

It would have been nice to see a proper workstation AMD card compared to the Quadro's, but it's not the end of the world either.

[dennishalimz]

7 hours ago, AlexTheGreatish said:

What exactly makes Solidworks work.. solidly?  We test a whole bunch of hardware to give you the answer.

 

Buy a Quadro
On Amazon: http://geni.us/KP3OPR
On Newegg: http://geni.us/rVEAB

 

 

Needs more maya, max,zbrush,vray, substance painter

[Kyatto]

Can anyone recommend a decent, yet affordable build for the next 2-3 years?

I just started diving into game development and so far i plan on working with Unity 2D-3D, Blender, Ren'Py and Game Maker Studio 2.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Kyatto said:

Can anyone recommend a decent, yet affordable build for the next 2-3 years?

I just started diving into game development and so far i plan on working with Unity 2D-3D, Blender, Ren'Py and Game Maker Studio 2.

There's really only one important question:

What's your budget.

 

Affordable to you may not mean the same thing to anyone else in this thread.

[Kyatto]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

There's really only one important question:

What's your budget.

 

Affordable to you may not mean the same thing to anyone else in this thread.

 

Good question, my potential budget is 1k USD, i know it's not much, but still is the best i can do right now; plus my current laptop is probably gonna die soon, so i kinda have to buy another one ASAP.

[Nazly]

Awesome video! I wish there were more like it. As my company is a small engineering company, I often act as an IT, marketing, engineering departments all in one day. This information will help when it come time to upgrade our aging CAD computer. Thanks for the video and testing. 

[redShoe]

I'm disappointed that Solidworks was the only piece of CAD software they focused on. I hope they make another video about the other major programs like CREO, CATIA, etc. Also leaving out the AMD workstation cards was kind of a big flub. Regardless of anything else, a follow up video seems necessary.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Kyatto said:

 

Good question, my potential budget is 1k USD, i know it's not much, but still is the best i can do right now; plus my current laptop is probably gonna die soon, so i kinda have to buy another one ASAP.

I would suggest making a new thread, so that you can get the proper attention you deserve. Make sure to include all relevant facts, software you'll likely be using, whether you want Laptop vs Desktop, etc, things you find important, things you don't find important, etc.

 

$1K USD can get you a pretty decent Desktop build. It can get you a decent laptop too, but a $1K laptop will be significantly underpowered compared to a comparably priced desktop.

[Kyatto]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I would suggest making a new thread, so that you can get the proper attention you deserve. Make sure to include all relevant facts, software you'll likely be using, whether you want Laptop vs Desktop, etc, things you find important, things you don't find important, etc.

 

$1K USD can get you a pretty decent Desktop build. It can get you a decent laptop too, but a $1K laptop will be significantly underpowered compared to a comparably priced desktop.

Thnx, i'll do so.

[Maslofski]

the 8700k is glorious in blender, substance, and toolbag

[JamieSinn]

Which version of SW was this done with? Did SW Electrical get accounted for?

 

 

[Streetguru]

13 hours ago, AlexTheGreatish said:

 

Did AMD just not want to send a WX card? Because like, that's a pretty necessary comparison for you guys to make any kind of recommendation? Like that's "half" of the professional card market.

Also are you guys going to check out a Radeon SSG for 8K RED footage? They're available for purchase.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1369905-REG/amd_100_506014_radeon_pro_ssg_video.html

[B1gChief]

I've Done 3D "hard surface" "high poly" work up to 5 mil. polys with a little lag but nothing that stop you from working at a productive rate on a Surface Pro. Its the rendering that will kill a laptop or low end pc.

 

But.......

With the help of cloud rendering like Red Rocket, Autodesk cloud rendering and Google even offers up a cloud render farm, that solves all your problems when it comes to rendering and you cant discredit these since a lot of movie VFX companies uses such render farms to do a fair bit of there render for big budget films.

 

So it really doesn't matter what pc you have unless it below the required specs for the 3D software you are using, then major problems will occur.

[ERM64bit]

10 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

I suspect that was simply because they didn't have any on hand.

 

Why didn't they ask AMD to send some professional workstation cards? Dunno (maybe they did and AMD ignored them, replied too late, or denied the request).

 

Why didn't they just buy one or two? Probably decided it wasn't worth the investment.

 

You'd have to ask @LinusTech, @nicklmg, @AlexTheGreatish, etc.

 

It would have been nice to see a proper workstation AMD card compared to the Quadro's, but it's not the end of the world either.

I didn't think about AMD not giving any of their cards, but I know they're pretty proud of the Radeon Pro SSG (which I would still like to see a real-world benchmark against the GP100, because high end cards are pretty cool).

 

I didn't think about not having a WX on hand, probably need one of those to set benchmarks.