topic Re: Workstation advice please in Installation & update

Workstation advice please

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:40:48 GMT

Our IT consultants have suggested the following system for myself. I know nothing about computers, they know about as much about Archicad. As a comparison to what I have now (see signature, this will be passed down to a colleague the currently has an abacus) is this a significant step up, or could more be suggested that would further enhance the system for me, at an affordable price (I am not the one with the money).
Most of the work we do is bigger than a house, but smaller than a shopping mall, mostly construction drawings but a bit of rendering / presentation too.
Advice (in plain English please) is much appreciated....

HP Graphics workstation
HP xw4300 (which apparently has...)
Proc: Intel P4 - 640 (3.2GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB, single core) Proc SUPP Hyper-Threading Tech
Mem: 2GB 533MHZ PC2-4300 DDR-2 upg to 8GB
HDD: 160GB SATA 3.0 GB/s HDD (7200rpm) with Native Command Queuing + 80GB OS drive
Graphics: ATI FireGL V3100 PCI Express (128MB)
Controller: Intg 4 channel SATA Cntrl with RAID 0, 1, 10, 5 functionality
Comms: Intg Broadcon 5752 10/100/1000 for HP (PCI Express i/face)

As a comparison they have offered an HP 7200 P4 Standard PC 2.8GHz with 2GB RAM at about 75% of the price of the workstation.

Thanks

Re: Workstation advice please

__archiben — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:46:50 GMT

s2art wrote:
Advice (in plain English please) is much appreciated....

get. one. of. these.

Re: Workstation advice please

__archiben — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:50:39 GMT

but seriously - you need a bigger graphics card than that. 128MB will work, but it will be slow: 3D window work will be quite painful. very minimum go for 256MB but 512MB (or above!) would be better . . .

wouldn't hurt to put as much memory in as possible (or that you can afford) too . . .

the single-core is a bit of a worry - although archicad itself doesn't take advantage of multi-processors yet, lightworks rendering does. and surely it can't be long before all apps are multi-processor aware, eh? (come on GS!)

~/archiben

Re: Workstation advice please

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:53:36 GMT

~/archiben wrote:
s2art wrote:
Advice (in plain English please) is much appreciated....
get. one. of. these.

The only Mac I've ever had came with fries and a coke.

~/archiben wrote:
the single-core is a bit of a worry

That's what I thought, hence the highlight.

Thanks for the (lightning fast) response, ~Ben, I will pass it on.

Re: Workstation advice please

__archiben — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 02:16:13 GMT

s2art wrote:
The only Mac I've ever had came with fries and a coke.

heathen trog.

~/archiben wrote:
the single-core is a bit of a worry
That's what I thought, hence the highlight.

increasing the graphics card performance is probably the more important of the two in that set up . . .

~/archiben

Re: Workstation advice please

__archiben — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 02:20:43 GMT

s2art wrote:
The only Mac I've ever had came with fries and a coke.

again more seriously - the xeon quad will be a hell of a workstation to run XP on too!

~/archiben

Re: Workstation advice please

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 02:59:21 GMT

Thanks for all that. Would there be any compatability issues having a single Mac (running XP or not) in a 4-seat office, all others running the same configuration as my current setup? On a Linux server (I think)? What are the key differences (in 1000 words or less) with Mac/PC systems if I was to consider moving over to the light? Can't see it happening myself, but never say never.

Re: Workstation advice please

__archiben — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:18:22 GMT

s2art wrote:
Thanks for all that. Would there be any compatability issues having a single Mac (running XP or not) in a 4-seat office, all others running the same configuration as my current setup? On a Linux server (I think)?

if you're running XP? none at all - it's just different hardware running the same system as you currently are . . .

running mac OSX? not much. OSX can handle all types of network traffic. and it's going to be more akin to your linux server than the windows machines are: OSX and linux are both different unix flavours at the end of the day.

there are some character-usage differences - but windows is stricter with character usage than OSX anyway, so as long as you keep your file naming conventions the same as the windows boxes (and as you currently are) there won't be an issue there.

What are the key differences (in 1000 words or less) with Mac/PC systems if I was to consider moving over to the light? Can't see it happening myself, but never say never.

you know the sound an expensive car door makes when it clunks shut? that's the difference . . .

(not to mention pleasure, efficiency, stability and things that just ... work)

come down to chch. i'll give you an OSX demo . . .
~/archiben

Re: Workstation advice please

Aussie John — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:49:57 GMT

Price comparison between Apple mac pro and like configured Dells and HP has the mac much cheaper. You can run it in boot camp mode so you can run windows

Re: Workstation advice please

Eduardo Rolon — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:52:44 GMT

Not to discourage a possible switcher, but aren't the xeons 64 bit forcing you to run WinXp 64 and having all the lack of drivers and software problems?

Anyway AutoCAD is to Windows as Archicad is to Mac OS X (hidding under the desk)

Re: Workstation advice please

Aussie John — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:30:09 GMT

All the more reason to use it with OSX

Re: Workstation advice please

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:52:02 GMT

. . . besides, OS X is quite a bit faster than XP on the same equipment* . . . and that's with Tiger . . . Leopard is going to be MUCH faster . . . Vista on the other hand is supposed put even more of a load on the system . . .

*Not because Windows runs slowly on the Macs (as some have suggested). The tests I have seen show the MacBook Pro running XP a bit faster than the equivalent Dell Inspiron.

Re: Workstation advice please

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 23:54:20 GMT

I appreciate all that has been said so far, thanks guys, but Tigers, Leopards, Vistas, Rosettas, Boot Camps... ... it all makes my head spin (not that that's hard). Still, all will be considered.

Back to the original question though, can anyone suggest the best economical upgrade to the suggested spec. I suppose I am mainly looking at Graphics card and Processor.

Thanks

Re: Workstation advice please

Dwight — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:14:45 GMT

I am certain that we can find a white cowboy hat in your size.

Re: Workstation advice please

andrewzarb — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 10:50:00 GMT

s2art wrote:
Our IT consultants have suggested...
Proc: Intel P4 - 640 (3.2GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB,

Man that is so outdated. If you're getting a Pentium go for a 900 series say a Pentium D 960 3.6GHz Dual Core with 2 2MB Caches.

But wait, there's more, the new Core 2 Duo processors are frying the Pentiums and AMD Athlon 64s and they're now becoming available.

Sorry for the lack of English

But the most important question is What's the budget? $:shock:$

Re: Workstation advice please

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 21:08:23 GMT

Thank you Andrew Zarb, common sense at last

I'm interested to know, what were you called before ArchiCad 4.0?

Re: Workstation advice please

andrewzarb — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 21:52:43 GMT

s2art wrote:
I'm interested to know, what were you called before ArchiCad 4.0?

I could tell you but then I'd have to...

Re: Workstation advice please

ci-JoshOs — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 23:14:54 GMT

Seriously, unless you can find a really good reason to switch, stay with what you have now. In most cases, the perceived advantages will be heavily outweighed by the time and effort it takes to learn the new system.
The system that you detailed on the first post is a very nice Archicad box. The video card could use a bit more RAM, but it is a workstation card, so it is not really necessary. It would be better to swap out the FireGL for a Radeon X1600 with 256 MB. It will probably be quite a bit cheaper too.
As for the CPU, definitely go for something a bit bigger. Dual core is not going to help you very much before you want your next upgrade anyway, so don't bother. Don't settle for anything less than 3.2Ghz though.

Re: Workstation advice please

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 04:57:17 GMT

Update:

Suggestions from here were passed on to our IT consultants. They came back with the following:

The originally spec'ed xw4300 comes as stated, if you swap graphics cards etc. this voids any warranty , so the next suggestion is -

HP xw4400, the differences being-
Proc: Intel Core Duo E6300 1.86 2Mb/1066 CPU (was P4 - 640)
Mem: HP 2GB (2x1GB) DR2-667 ECC Memory (was 4x512 PC2-4300 DDR-2)
Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro FX1500 256MB PCIe (was ATI FireGL V3100 128MB)
HDD: 80GB (was 160) (I'm guessing not an issue??)

The price for this is NZ$3650 up from NZ$2780 for the original spec. Sounds like the original version might be better value, still much better than what I have at the moment.

Any recommendations? Probably heading towards the cheaper option right now, with the intention of upgrading / superseding and passing down the office in the future.

Cheers

Re: Workstation advice please

ci-JoshOs — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 05:34:19 GMT

The problem with getting a spec for archicad is that what you really want is a games machine. The HP Workstation machines are great, but you are paying more (or less) for a graphics card that is either overpowered or underpowered. I have had a look through their range, and there isn't really anything that fits Archicad well besides the Higher end Home PCs.

IBM is still, as far as i am concerned, the best bet for a solid workstation. You can customise them to pretty much anything, and the 10 or so we have in our office are coming up on 3 years old with no problems whatsoever. That said, for pure speed, you will get the best performance from a gamers system like the Alienware Area 51 series or similar.

If i were to recommend anything, much as i hate to say it, i would go for a Dell Dimension 9150 of some sort. Yes the service is dreadful, but its a good machine with lots of customisation options. Either that or a DIY job(best choice every time i think).