Build Upgrade for CAD workstation

[Steve2090]

Budget (including currency):  UD$400 not including graphics card

 

Country: USA

 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Solid Works, AutoCAD, some gaming (MTGA, AOE2, maybe AOE4 soon, Warframe), D&D with friends over discord and roll 20 so there will be multiple applications open at the same time but none of them too demanding like chrome multiple windows with multiple tabs, discord, excell, occasionally other random things like paint and snipping tool.

 

Background

I lucked out and got a new graphics card for close to msrp and plan to start a business doing freelance engineering, drafting, and maybe 3d printing.  My previous company is hiring me to do some work and we have signed a 1 year contract they use Solidworks primarily and it is what I know best.  They do rather large assemblies with a lot of parts but don't use any of the extras in Solidworks like animations and such.

 

My Existing Build

• CPU 
  • AMD A10-6800K 4.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor
• Motherboard        
  • ASRock FM2A88X PRO3+ ATX FM2+ Motherboard
• Cooler
  • Stock that came with it
• Graphics Card
  • Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 4 GB Video Card
• RAM
  • Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1866 CL10 Memory
• Storage
  • Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB
• Case
  • Cooler Master Elite 430 ATX Mid Tower Case
• Power supply
  • Antec Basiq 500 W ATX Power Supply
• Notes
  • I have decent monitors, case fans, coolers and other periphrials that will be reused

My New Build

• CPU (Reused) 
  • AMD A10-6800K 4.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor
• Motherboard (Reused) 
  • ASRock FM2A88X PRO3+ ATX FM2+ Motherboard
• Cooler
  • Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED 66.3 CFM Rifle Bearing CPU Cooler
    • $34.99
• Graphics Card
  • AMD Radeon Pro W5500 8 GB Video Card
• RAM (1/2 Reused)
  • (Reused) Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1866 CL10 Memory
  • (New) Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1866 CL10 Memory
    • $162.66
• Storage (Reused) 
  • Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB
• Case 
  • Phanteks Eclipse P350X ATX Mid Tower Case
    • $54.99
• Power supply
  • Gigabyte P GM 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
    • 119.99
• Notes
  • I know that the power supply is more than necessary but I like for things to be upgrade proof.  My main question is about my CPU, is it enough?  It advertises as a quad core but in 2 phisical modules so is it enough to do the computing I need for Solidworks? I can sell my old graphics card for a decent price If i need to upgrade the CPU.

Thanks for your help

 

[curiousmind34]

I’m not going to upgrade the case/power supply because honestly it doesn’t provide more performance. Same thing with a CPU cooler, for the most part performance won’t change that much if it’s the same cpu. The CPU is definitely aging and it’s probably time for an upgrade.

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/xXVhNP

CPU: Intel Core i5-10400 2.9 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.99 @ Best Buy) 
Motherboard: ASRock B460M Steel Legend Micro ATX LGA1200 Motherboard  ($117.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 CL16 Memory  ($61.99 @ Corsair) 
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($59.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $389.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-04-12 15:07 EDT-0400
 

I included an SSD as it generally makes basic computer tasks much faster, and makes accessing stored files much quicker.

[Steve2090]

7 minutes ago, curiousmind34 said:

CPU: Intel Core i5-10400 2.9 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($149.99 @ Best Buy) 

The Solidworks website has the System Requirements as 3.3 GHz will it be ok if I drop it to 2.9?

[curiousmind34]

17 minutes ago, Steve2090 said:

The Solidworks website has the System Requirements as 3.3 GHz will it be ok if I drop it to 2.9?

It will boost up to 4.3 ghz under load