Workstation advice please

[Anonymous]

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

[Aussie John]

All the more reason to use it with OSX

[Anonymous]

. . . 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.

[Anonymous]

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

[Dwight]

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

[andrewzarb]

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Man that is so outdated.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? $:shock:$

[Anonymous]

Thank you Andrew Zarb, common sense at last

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

[andrewzarb]

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...

[henrypootel]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

[henrypootel]

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).