Need some advice for a Workstation

[kazuma]

Hey guys! 

 

I need some advice for a Autocad Workstation. My boss gave me the green light to build my own work station. We mainly use AutoCAD MEP. My currently work station is just killing me, I got into so much shit and hate because of that work station. Anyway, here is the list/spec of the workstation that I had in mind. I didn't pulled back when it came to the GPU, but I am contemplating on changing it to a bit cheaper quadro card.

 

i7 6700k

Gigabyte G1 Gaming GA-Z170N Rev. 5

G.Skill TridentZ Series 16gb 2800Mhz

PNY Quadro M4000-PB

EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GS

Mushkin Enhanced ECO2 512GB

Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX

 

 

The reason why I am going with a mini ITX system is because I really dont have much space in my work area. And for the cooler, I am thinking of either getting the CM Hyper 212 Evo or just go with an AiO (Corsair H110i I guess). I wont be overclocking too. I just want to get the fastest consumer level processor. I mainly do 3D Piping, Duct work, some 3D detailing of mechanical equipment.  I read somewhere that the M4000 is a overkill card for what I do, so I was contemplating of switching down to a K2200 or M2000. Any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

P.S.

My boss is expecting for me to get everything ordered by the end of next week Monday.

[BlargKing]

I agree with switching down to a M2000. When I was in college a few years back I did similar stuff (3D modeling in Maya and a bit of CAD for 3D printing) on a laptop with a GeForce 750M with 2GB of VRAM and it never let me down, even doing some really complicated physics stuff. If that little mobile GPU could handle it, I'm confident an M2000 will be just fine. If I were you, I would consider using the money saved on the M4000 towards putting 32GB of RAM in your machine. A lot of 3D design stuff is still heavily CPU dependent so giving your CPU more thinking space could be helpful in the long run. 

[GDRRiley]

how much do you got to spend 

[GDRRiley]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/sLrMbj that should do well. got a fast boot drive a 6 core cpu and that quadro card you wanted 

[kazuma]

2 hours ago, BlargKing said:

I agree with switching down to a M2000. When I was in college a few years back I did similar stuff (3D modeling in Maya and a bit of CAD for 3D printing) on a laptop with a GeForce 750M with 2GB of VRAM and it never let me down, even doing some really complicated physics stuff. If that little mobile GPU could handle it, I'm confident an M2000 will be just fine. If I were you, I would consider using the money saved on the M4000 towards putting 32GB of RAM in your machine. A lot of 3D design stuff is still heavily CPU dependent so giving your CPU more thinking space could be helpful in the long run. 

When I was putting up the list, I already knew that the M4000 is an overkill for the build. In my head, I just want to make my workstation kind of "Future Proof" just so I don't experience the kind of sh*t that I did the past 8 months with my current work station. Our "IT" (a junior mechanical engineer project designer/project manager who loves technology) guy basically screwed me over with my workstation. He uses AutoCAD Mep, but he is on the "lighter user" (light user = someone who only do 2D process flow diagrams and some very light 3D piping) side, compared to me who is more on the "heavy user" side since I am dealing with massive industrial piping system. When he built my workstation, this was the specs (keep in mind, i do 3D drawings everyday no matter how huge the job is):
 

i5 4670

DDR3 16gb

Gigabyte 787-HD3

AMd FirePro V4900

120Gb SSD

1TB HDD

 

And a week later, he built 2 more workstation (for him and for one of our senior project manager/designer who was same as him, they're both on the "light user" side when it comes to CAD). They never had any issue opening up drawings, but when I try to open up the same drawing, all kinds of issues just start to appear, which I brought up to them, but basically was told to "shut up you aren't an engineer, you don't know what you're saying" kind of thing. This was the specs for their workstations:

 

i7 4790

DDR3 16GB

Asus 797M-Plus

AMD FirePro W4100

M.2 SSD 240GB

500GB HDD

 

When we asked him why he gave me an i5 processor (the first few weeks after he built my work station, my only concern was the processor since I was using and i7, sandy bridge i think, before), he said because an i5 is faster when it comes to multi-threading (face palm). And then a few minutes after that, I guess he googled it and said "sorry, I got it wrong.". I was kinda okay with that but I was already experiencing some major issues with the new work station but kept quiet since I already knew they will just shrug it off. So when I was putting up the list, I kept in mind to kinda make the new work station "future proof" and just get the fastest components that seems to be reasonable to me. 

 

My boss knows me well (I have been working for him as a drafter for the past 5 years now, and our "IT" guy came in 2 years after I started) when in comes to my work. I never complained to him even once when it comes to my work station. So when I brought up the issue, he said "make a list of what you think will work, and consider it done.". I wanted to go with the M2000, but I am afraid that after a few years, it wont be able to handle heavy workloads anymore so  I went with the M4000. But thank you for the advice and I will do some more reading and comparisons between the 2 cards.

 

 

[kazuma]

2 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/sLrMbj that should do well. got a fast boot drive a 6 core cpu and that quadro card you wanted 

Thank you for the reply. My boss didn't mentioned any "budget" for the work station but I set one for myself which is around CAD$2500. And the list that you gave me was almost the exact same list that I first made except for the motherboard and the computer case. I listed a Asus Maximus Rampage V and a Corsair case, but then quickly realized I dont have enough room in my work area for a full tower system.

[Alec M]

You need a CPU cooler http://pcpartpicker.com/list/HTtzPs