Xeon Budget Drafters PC

[Nonco]

Hey guys,

 

My friend is in the market for the cheapest powerhouse for computer drafting (Mainly Revit software)

 

She isnt exactly rolling in cash so the cheaper the better, I know a bit about the best parts but not about the best budget parts haha.

 

She will probably need a basic GPU, but the CPU is what I need to be the best, so thats why I thought a Xeon instead of an i7 as theyre pretty powerful and a bit cheaper?

 

Hope you guys can help If theres an i7 build which suits better let me know.

 

Also its not for gaming at all, purely workstation PC.

[msvelev]

There are a few people here building really cheap really powerful workstations with dual second hand xeons, that kick ass at multithreaded workloads. I can't remember the username of the person that I saw to do it first. I think it was Octa-something.

 

EDIT:

Found the post : http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/388744-dual-xeon-build-lga-1366-r9-295x2/

the user is @Octavialicious

[Guest wodorost]

Many of my friends are Architects and they working on very cheap computers. The only thing they buy from the top shelf is the GPU. Mainly Quadro but some do have a FireGL. For drafting and building is the consumer 4core/6core CPU more than enough. RAM is very important! Revit is relational and very memory hungry.

 

Of course if Your friend wants to render some visualizations... Yes then he still does not need a double Xeon and might look up some biased renderers (like Vray or Octane) - they use the CUDA cores for rendering - and leave those old precise but very slow unbiased CPU renderers (like mentalray) be.

 

<edit>

if Your friend is rendering some precise light simulations for his client - like illuminance maps for office interiors - to meet up with some work environment standards - THEN yes he needs those slow and CPU dependent unbiased renderers 

http://sustainabilityworkshop.autodesk.com/buildings/measuring-light-levels

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[Nonco]

Many of my friends are Architects and they working on very cheap computers. The only thing they buy from the top shelf is the GPU. Mainly Quadro but some do have a FireGL. For drafting and building is the consumer 4core/6core CPU more than enough. RAM is very important! Revit is relational and very memory hungry.

 

Of course if Your friend wants to render some visualisations... Yes then he still does not need a double Xeon and might look up some biased renderers (like Vray or Octane) - they use the CUDA cores for rendering - and leave those old precise but very slow unbiased CPU renderers (like mentalray) be.

 

Do you think she would need a workstation gpu? like a really cheap one? or would it be better to get a cheap gaming gpu?

[Guest wodorost]

Do you think she would need a workstation gpu? like a really cheap one? or would it be better to get a cheap gaming gpu?

First the Pro cards (like Quadro and FireGL) are extremely precise with the content on screen (which You don't need in games) - so You have no artifacts and display errors (mostly Z-culling errors)

Second those cards come with drivers optimized for Revit or any other 3D modeling or architectural software.

And Yes they are much more expensive than the gaming counterparts (with the same chip) but if You have a chance to see the difference You would not hesitate for a moment. At the end Your friend will spend HOURS watching the screen and believe me there is nothing more annoying then not seeing what actually should be on the screen.

 

So of course if he has to choose between Quadro K2200 (which I would recomend) or a GTX 980 which costs about the same I would think about those other things he's doing in his spare time. But if he's very dedicated to 3D modeling/drafting then the choice should be easy for the Quadro

Cheers 

 

<edit>

for the rendering

Quadro has only 640 CUDA cores and the GTX980 has 2048 so rendering wise the GTX is faster

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