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

[__archiben]

s2art wrote:
Probably heading towards the cheaper option right now, with the intention of upgrading / superseding and passing down the office in the future.

yep. do that, but bump the graphics card - to hell with the warranty. the 3.2 GHz single processor will do you for a year or so . . . but the 128MB graphics card won't last a day.

~/archiben

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys, off to talk to the boss. He's the one who'll make the final call.

[andrewzarb]

I didn't mean to take so long to get back but i was busy. (under-arm bowling practice)

henrypootel wrote:
...the perceived advantages will be heavily outweighed by the time and effort it takes to learn the new system.

I didn't mean to suggest s2art switch to the dark/light side.

henrypootel wrote:
what you really want is a games machine

Absolutely

At the end of the day its all about $$$.
I don't like seeing people buying stuff that's already obsolete and all computers begin their obsolescence when taken out of their box and placed on a desk. The Pentium 4 640 is already two generations behind. (P4 6 series, Pentium D 8 and 9 series, Core 2 Duo) But it is probably two generations ahead of your current system. I am interested in finding out the difference in speed from you once you get your system.

henrypootel wrote:
...swap out the FireGL for a Radeon X1600 with 256 MB. It will probably be quite a bit cheaper too

I agree but would say nVidia Geforce 7900 GTX 512MB but importantly it has a higher memory bandwidth than the Quadro FX1500. Generally, for gaming cards, nVidia cards are faster than ATI in OpenGL at the same price point but slower in DirectX (not relevant to ArchiCAD)

[Anonymous]

andrewzarb wrote:
(under-arm bowling practice)

Are you guys still going on about that.

Oh, hang on, no, it's us isn't it.

[__archiben]

s2art wrote:

andrewzarb wrote:
(under-arm bowling practice)

Are you guys still going on about that.

. . . yet they still have the nerve to complain about italian football . . .

[Djordje]

I am quite happinly running xw4100 ... and have absoilutely no problems.

[Anonymous]

Update: Got the xw4300. Now I just have to re-install all my software!!! Will give it a good thrashing and post back with findings.

[Da3dalus]

andrewzarb wrote:

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.

The dual-core Pentium D's seem slow... ArchiCAD doesn't seem to be able to utilize both cores, so unless you're really multitasking, you don't see an improvement. In fact, comparing apples to apples (not Macs), a Pentium IV 3.0GHz costs about the same as a Core2Duo (about the same as a Pentium D) 1.8GHz. I have both in my office (Dells with identical video cards, RAM, and chassis), and I THINK the P4 is faster at rendering and general ArchiCAD use. Going up to a comparable Core2Duo 2.4GHz is an extra $500!!

Question is, are the Core2Duo's significantly better than the Pentium D's?

I'd love to hear a response from someone at Graphisoft. If I do some legitimate speed tests, I'll be sure to post.

[Anonymous]

you should (advice the dell solutions ,before to buy something.
I 've no problem at all,with my precision.no drivers problems.
also,Lightwork engine,have a very good result with my xeon twins in 3ghz.
Great 24inch monitor,with the half money than mac monitors

[Anonymous]

Da3dalus wrote:
Question is, are the Core2Duo's significantly better than the Pentium D's?

My MacBook Pro seems noticeably faster than the Pentium D workstations I have seen (Pentium M laptops are seriously slower). I assume that the Core2Duo is even faster.