Not sure if I'll get a volunteer or crash n burn, but help would be appreciated and others might find it useful too.

I want to spend about $1000-1200 max on a PC.
Home office and Drafting work.

My thoughts are:
Min to zero HDD - I have heaps of externals, space not an issue
Small SSD - for fast windows boot
24" or up monitor midrange (cheap model decent brand?)
Win 7 home/basic
Most processor for money
Most Vid card for money
Ram - 8 or 16 DDR3?
cheapest generic keyboard, have good mouse & left hand keyboard (Nostromo) at home
Cheap case
ok power supply

My problem is that I am way out of touch with motherboard/CPU/Ram combos and vid cards.

I'm looking to order here (link to PC builder) but the choices are overwhelming. Anyone know this stuff well?

http://www.umart.com.au/umart1/pro/build_computer1.phtml?id=10&bid=6&id2=9

Perfect, ta

Umart I think is in QLD while MSY is Sydney based. Check out Gamedude, a Queensland company who is good to deal with.

What kind of drafting/drafting software are you going to run?

cRAZY Canuk said...
What kind of drafting/drafting software are you going to run?

Autocad 2015 & Rhino 5.

I'm used to working within the processing power of a machine, so I'll manage without a proper "CAD spec" machine & associated price tag. There's display settings you can make, unload xrefs, stop any 'rollover' stuff, etc..

Disclaimer- I'm no computer genius!

Have just gone through the same thing, and after a lot of reading things click together and all of the choices and promotional advertising nonsense you do finally feel like you're getting handle on what's what.

How much of a rush are you in. I've ended up deciding to keep this POS computer of mine limping along for another few months. Intel seems to have dropped the ball last year and their latest chips offer very little improvement over what they were offering a year and a half ago. I'm well aware that I'm unlikely to ever take advantage of the extra few performance improvements of the latest and greatest models but buying in Aus, the components don't get appreciably cheaper as they are superceded.

Just feel that as far as bang for your buck is concerned you may as well wait for the Broadwell CPU's to come out later this year. You could upgrade your chip in 6 months as the motherboards will still be compatiable (I think), but it's money down the drain and I'm not even sure if you are able to re-install your windows with a chip upgrade.

Like I said I'm sure I'd never use the extra performance fully but I'm not someone who upgrades my pc too often so the wait is worthwhile for me.

Also I've had two external drives fail so I'd be getting a good brand HDD, they're cheap as chips relative to the price of all the other components and from my personal experience are a lot more reliable.

N.B. Please re-read the disclaimer.

d1 said...
Building your own PC is so 90ies. It is much easier to just spec and order something like a Dell Precision graphics workstation, and benefit from reasonable price and components that have been tested to work well together. Lenovo also an option, but seems pricier. For SSD, suggest sticking to Intel.

I agree, but umart (my original link) will build & test your PC, you just spec it, so it's kinda best of both worlds.

The Dell Precision workstation here
configure.ap.dell.com/dellstore/nodata.aspx?c=au&cs=aubsd1&l=en&model_id=precision-t1700-workstation&oc=awt1700mtov&s=bsd&fb=1

has terrible specs for $2081 - 4gb ram, 512HDD, no video card, no monitor, . I can better it for $1200 - with a display. So there's way too much 'big name tax' there for me to swallow.

Oh, I also upgraded the ram myself from 8GB to 16GB.
Was a good move, RAM is definitely one thing where bigger is better.

Que; 'That's what she said'

d1 Yeah dunno mate I copy/googled the text from your post and it was the first dell link that came up. Musta been old or something because that looks much more on the money.

oceanfire said...
Get youself a gaming machine with as good a graphics card as you can.

Being a drafter too, I've found that the graphics capabilities is what makes or breaks a machine's capabilities for cad work.

I have a Nvidia quadro FX1700 card at work and it's to blame for every single crash (Rhino actually emails you back with analysis). Plus it goes buggy in numerous ways, requiring acad or PC restart to recover. Empty dialog boxes and my favourite is random lines added to both ends of every single line in the drawing - that's a great one when you're drawing linework. In short it's a dog. So yes, you're right.

We run HP Z210 at work with i7, 8gb and nvidia graphics cards (think there a mid to high range) with pretty good reliability. They spit it at something's but I know what and why the cause is.

Its all going to come down to where your willing to compromise for the price you want to hit.

I'd say i7 8gb minimum with 2 sticks of 4 if you do with 2 spare bays and as good a graph is card you can go. And well ventilated.

I'm partial to HP machines and Nvidia as I've never had issues with them. But everyone has there preference.

Biggest thing I've always found especially with AutoCAD is tuning the graphics options. AutoCAD will also tend to rob as many resources as it can.

cRAZY Canuk said...
If you willing to compromise the onboard graphics on the Intel's will handle light drafting work. I wouldn't go the gaming card route.

ok, interesting. Because, yes, I'm looking to compromise. I'd rather save a grand and struggle once a year.
Most work will be light.

Whirlpool is definitely the go.

do a bit of research on what you want from the posts and Wiki, come up with a build you think might work, what you want it to do and post it for comments.

This is an important step to make sure your build components are compatible and to see if you can achieve your needs cheaper.

Once you settle on a build buy off MSY or one of the others locally and pay the additional $70 or so for them to assemble it for for you.

Don't expect much tech or other help from MSY (or others similar) - they are good at what they do only, which is bulk supply computer parts cheaply.

Well I'm fairly happy with this order from Umart, comments welcome.
I put it together based on lots of reading of Whirlpool, a few similar builds rated there.
Price includes build & 24hr test.
It's reasonably beefy where it counts (i5 CPU, Mobo, 16gb ram, 600w power supply) , 24" monitor with speakers built in, and close to my $1200 budget.
As per AP, gone with 128gb SSD from reliable brand to boot & do CAD work off.
As per CC - will start with graphics on board and see if I'm struggling. Then perhaps when it generates some income I'll put it towards vid card.

PS Equiv spec Dell would be about 1k more, I'd rather that in the pocket.

AP- those techspot guides are great, thanks.

The build looks good to me for what you are trying to do. No fat anywhere and enough grunt where needed - ie good RAM amount. The i5 should be more than enough for what you want....and it seems you have plenty of leeway with your PSU if add a GPU down the track.

If you find you struggle with no graphics card then you can always pick up a second hand one pretty cheaply....hopefully will be OK without though.

I would personally recommend Windows 8 over Win 7....I know lots will disagree, but it's just getting used to the interface...it is actually a much lighter OS on your system....

Sailhack - I've always used dual monitors, have 2x24" at work, but I'm finding lately that I'm needing less actual drafting window, I use more of it for tabs & panels and less drawing space.

I also use M570 trackball and would never go back - but 2 things you should really try with it -
1. Go buy 2 packs of blu tack and wedge it up at 45 degrees with the ball high. Cut some paper for underneath so it doesn't grip desk and allow extra for your wrist & little finger to rest on and slide with trackball. (they should have designed it this way)
2. Go into setpoint and reallocate button 4 to be middle click button - ie make the small front index finger button the same as the scroll wheel button. You'll quickly adjust and it's much easier to use separate fingers for zooming and panning. Try these and you'll never go back!!