Installation & update
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Help with PC selection.

Anonymous
Not applicable
I am looking to buy a new PC and i do not know enough about them.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?prodid=11065696&cm_mmc=BCEmail_113-_-DellXPS600-_-30-_-Com...

Is this a good deal. The Dell site could not match it but I am not sure if it's fit for AC
14 REPLIES 14
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
Albert,

AC will take advantage of multiple processors in various areas. By having multiple threads, that work can be scheduled onto multiple processors (dual core) or pipelined in a multithreaded (not the same thing as dual core!!!) chip. See time estimates below. PlotMaker takes advantage of multithreading nicely during background updates .. you can continue to work on layouts as the updates are happening in BG AC and with the update dialogs showing the progress. LW in AC uses up to two processors.

When you say "I will have to choose", I assume that you now need the computer immediately and have to buy from a local store (Costco or Apple) and do not have time to have one shipped to you?

As I said earlier, the Costco configuration while very nice, does not include a dual core processor - only hyperthreading.

I've had a HT processor for some time, and you will only see about a 10% improvement in throughput with HT enabled ... compared with perhaps 90% improvement with dual core. Not within AC itself, but assuming you are rendering in Artlantis at the same time as working in AC for example. Within AC itself, the LW rendering engine WILL use two processors (threads) ... and so you will see a small improvement with the Costco HT processor over one without HT, but a significant improvement with dual core. Same thing with C4D and other mutiprocessor aware apps.

The Costco machine comes with 533MHz memory. Dell has 667 Mhz available on their web site. Better.

Costco comes with Media Edition ... the features of this machine are geared towards video/music/photos - using as a home DVR/etc - not necessarily CAD and an office environment...although the RAID drives and other specs will make it a speedy CAD station, too. (Even for video editing, I would want dual core ... I'm always waiting for my video editor to render footage. Not an issue with DVR though.)

At Dell site, you can configure with XP Professional, which works well in office networks, including mixed Mac ones (auto reconnect with saved passwords/etc).

Costco comes with Microsoft Works. You can configure with Office apps cheaply at Dell site.

A similarly configured machine, but with 667Mhz RAM, dual core 3GHz processor, XP Pro, and a 19" LCD monitor (no monitor at Costco), "free" shipping comes to 2,737. $537 more... which is probably worth the price difference.

For PURELY ArchiCAD work - for example, section regeneration which is a single-processor activity today - the 3.4 GHz single (HT) Costco processor will give you about 10% faster results than the dual core 3 GHz processor, as this is almost entirely processor dependent given enough memory. But, if you multitask and have llots of things happening on the computer at the same time - or use rendering engines that can use multiprocessors - the dual core should pull ahead easily.

Comparing to the Mac, again if speed is the issue, I've found a pretty much GHz to GHz equality for ArchiCAD and so the Mac would not keep up with the PC here. Minimally, 512MB shared with two processors is an insanely small amount of memory. You'd want to upgrade to 1GB minimum - and ideally 2GB or more IMHO.

For the initial cash outlay, the Dell gives better price/performance. From the amount of time one spends dinking with XP systems to keep them updated compared to OS X, the Mac might be cheaper in TCO?

Karl
One of the forum moderators
AC 28 USA and earlier   •   macOS Sequoia 15.2, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
Well, perhaps the nail in the coffin for Media Center and Costco, Albert...

Bugged me that I didn't know where Media Center fit between XP Home and XP Pro... so reading on the MS web site I found this:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/evaluation/faq.mspx
Can I connect a new PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to a work network or domain?

While you can access network resources on a work network or a domain, you cannot join a Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 PC to the domain. PCs running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 are designed specifically for home use. Windows XP Professional features, specifically Domain Join and Cached Credentials (Credentials Manager for logons) are not included. As a result, you will be prompted for your logon user name and password to access network resources after you reboot or log back on to the PC. In addition, file shares or network resources that are set to require a domain-joined PC for access will not be available. Remote Desktop and Encrypting File System support are still included.
So... Media Center seems to basically be XP Home with the media extensions. Not XP Pro. Probably fine for a standalone/home machine.

Karl
One of the forum moderators
AC 28 USA and earlier   •   macOS Sequoia 15.2, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
Anonymous
Not applicable
Karl,

I was surprised of the detailed answer and I THANK YOU, this type od advice is priceless and I do not believe one could find then just anywhere, this board is great.

others....

I have a in my office a G4 and is so stinky slow that makes me mad Friday when I wright that particular paycheck. I decided tat I must change it give up my G5 and use a PC. A PC because of RISA and Carrier's energy analysis. I am much afraid of the future. I am perfecting these two aspects because I am convinced tat this will render most architects to a non licensed status within a decade, to no more than a fashion designer and we all know how many will be required. I decided that is not yet time to go to Revit, lets wait an see how practice aspects are being integrated. For the moment one can use Risa on its own. Energy analysis it not yet integrated on modeling a functional skin. In all this aspects a PC is vital but a mediocre will do.

Back to my purchase I realised that all tings equal a PC above average (Dell preceision dual core) is more expensive than a MAC by close to $1000, and I mot wiling to build my own. The monkey wrench it :"First Intel Macs on track for January"
http://appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1368

Aussie John
Newcomer
The quad mac dual core dual processor 2.5Ghz should be pretty zippy.
quite a lot faster than the vanilla 2.3 dual core.
I wouldnt expect the intel desktops for a little while yet although powerbooks are rumoured for January
Cheers John
John Hyland : ARINA : www.arina.biz
User ver 4 to 12 - Jumped to v22 - so many options and settings!!!
OSX 10.15.6 [Catalina] : Archicad 22 : 15" MacBook Pro 2019
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Anonymous
Not applicable
In light of the January release of Intel based Macs I decided to keep the G4 in service but add a Sonett 1.8 GHZ processor. This is a $350 investment.