New CAD Workstation

[Mark_L_BIM]

Hi All,

 

I am very new to this PC Building concept (always bought Mac's & Dell, realised both are not great) 

 

I have come across Linus via YouTube and feel confident that building a PC is within my skills (just will need to take my time and rewatch few videos)

 

I am looking for a good quality CAD Desktop but feel like you can get carried away with everything, I am trying to keep around £1500 UK inc. Windows Pro.

 

I will be using the following software / setup;

 

- AutoCAD 2D & small 3D protects

- Microsoft office suite

- Navisworks Manage

- Revit MEP

- 2 monitors (27" high res but no needs for fast refresh rates)

I don't game, so only want this to be a work PC

 

 

I would really appreciate any advice on this process and where I could improve my kit selection without increasing my current spend, also have I gone over the top in some areas?

 

Kit list I'm planning is as follows;

 

CPU		Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor	£353.99		FREE		£353.99	Newegg UK		Buy
CPU Cooler		Noctua - NH-L9x65 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler	£40.90		£14.50		£55.40	Alza		Buy
Motherboard		Asus - Prime Z370-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	£155.99		FREE		£155.99	AWD-IT		Buy
Memory		Kingston - HyperX Fury 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3466 Memory	£142.90		£14.50		£157.40	Alza		Buy
Storage		ADATA - XPG SX8200 480 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	£99.99				£99.99	Amazon UK		Buy
		Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	£55.86		FREE		£55.86	CCL Computers		Buy
Video Card		PNY - Quadro P2000 5 GB Video Card	£405.18		FREE		£405.18	CCL Computers		Buy
Case		Thermaltake - Core V31 ATX Mid Tower Case	£61.99				£61.99	Amazon UK		Buy
Power Supply		Choose A Power Supply
Optical Drive		Pioneer - BDR-209DBK Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer	£55.76		FREE		£55.76	Box Limited		Buy
Operating System		Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro Full 32/64-bit

 

Also should I consider a RAID setup for backing up my storage, or is cloud storage the better option?

 

 

Thanks to anyone who can help me here,

 

King Regards

Mark

 

 

[Emanbaird]

Looks good, the only thing i would change would be MAYBE the cpu/mobo, not sure if cad can take advantage of more threads, or if it is better with single core speeds, but the 2700/2700x may be cheaper and offer better multicore performance 

[YaBoiWill]

I would recommend I p4000 as a minimum for professional cad, and most defiantly 32 gigs of ram, the CPU is good, and probs a 550/600w psu, although check what a p4000 consumes. Its only a single slot card, but I have no idea how much heat it produced. 

For could storage, it really depends on how much crap you need to store, as you only have two drives I personally find its easier to keep them separate, i.e keep Autodesk on the SSD and other stuff on the HDD. 

[Mark_L_BIM]

I mainly had the 8700k in as a friend said that is best for Revit, is this true?

 

 

As for the P4000, that is another £350 on my total build.

 

 

Currently I have a team of lads working on CAD and revit, on quite crap Dell machines in comparison to this spec.

 

What will the P4000 do over the P2000?

[Mark_L_BIM]

By the way thanks for the help!!!

[YaBoiWill]

18 minutes ago, Mark_L_BIM said:

What will the P4000 do over the P2000?

A p4000 is the best price for perforce card for CAD, I cant comment on the CPU as I cant remember what I used when I did some work for a company, but the system had a p4000 and 32gb of ram and 2 27" 1440 displays. They focused on SLD works and sketchup as they pretty much only did 3d work. 

They system I got to use by their standards was low powered tho, the main CAD guy there had a 7980xe, gv100 and 128gb of ram, but no offence that's way out of your price range

 

 

see a quick pcpp list I made, some stuff could be changed out, and bare in mind this doesn't have displays, windows, keyboard or mouse, and its 170 quid over budget....

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor	£353.99 @ Newegg UK
CPU Cooler	Noctua - NH-L9x65 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler	£55.40 @ Alza
Motherboard	Asus - Prime Z370-P ATX LGA1151 Motherboard	£106.97 @ Laptops Direct
Memory	Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory	£177.09 @ Amazon UK
Storage	Kingston - A400 480 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	£49.97 @ Amazon UK
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	£55.86 @ CCL Computers
Video Card	PNY - Quadro P4000 8 GB Video Card	£755.29 @ Box Limited
Case	Thermaltake - Core V31 ATX Mid Tower Case	£61.99 @ Amazon UK
Power Supply	Cooler Master - MasterWatt 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply	£53.36 @ CCL Computers
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£1669.92
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-27 22:17 GMT+0000

 

[YaBoiWill]

@Mark_L_BIM The p4000 also has about 600 more CUDA cores then the p2000 which has around a 1000, the p4000 has 1700

[mrmoyer]

I would also consider getting a water cooler that noctua cooler may be decent, but with an i7 and very cpu demanding tasks like CAD water cooling would help your pc stay cool (and quiet) .

[brob]

It would have been helpful to post the pcpartpicker Permalink found above the build list. Better yet, click the [bb] button above the build list and paste the contents of the window that pops.

 

RAID is not backup. It is useful in minimizing downtime when a drive fails, but it does not protect against any number of other issues that can impact data. For decent backup I'd suggest an external drive or NAS with an automated backup utility.

 

Consider going the eight core i7-9700K. For your use case it should offer slightly better performance.

 

Unless you have a particular use for an optical drive I'd suggest omitting it from the build. 

 

Consider getting a single 2TB ssd. It simplifies storage and provides better overall performance.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  (£384.40 @ Alza) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler  (£64.64 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Asus - PRIME Z390-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£166.33 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£105.27 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Crucial - MX500 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£254.58 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: PNY - Quadro P2000 5 GB Video Card  (£405.18 @ CCL Computers) 
Case: Fractal Design - Define S ATX Mid Tower Case  (£67.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Power Supply: Corsair - RMx (2018) 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£77.39 @ CCL Computers) 
Total: £1525.76
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-28 04:46 GMT+0000