If you’ve got the time and energy to do some research to match your needs to available solutions, then a new CAD workstation makes a great DIY project. It also give you an opportunity to personalise your faithful friend and create a machine that will most likely outperform anything available off the shelf. You may even save a few dollars, but that’s probably not the ideal reason to embark on on this quest – he savings probably won’t be that great.
Fortunately there are quite a few people who have gone before you in search of a custom hand-built CAD workstation so there is a lot that you can learn from their experience. High quality computer components are generally available at reasonable cost locally and online. With a bit of time spent familiarizing yourself with recommendations and options available to you, you’ll soon become confident about creating your own custom build.
Know the purpose you wish to achieve, know the constraints that bind you and dream of the best performance possible.
Engineering your own kick-ass CAD workstation build
An engineer is particular about his/her tools, and there’s no more important or personal an engineering tool these days than the CAD workstation. While you could just fork over your hard-earned cash for a turnkey CAD configuration designed for corporate sensibilities, you want a PC engineered your way. You want serious CAD power, but at reasonable prices. We can build it. We have the technology.
Quit acting like you’ve never seen the CEO of Nvidia holding a graphics card in front of Castle Grayskull before.
Since we’re talking DIY builds, we’re leaving laptops at the curb and focusing on desktops for now. While it’s certainly possible to crank out a custom laptop, it’s much like building a Hackintosh or a steam-powered giraffe: intellectually stimulating yes, but also ultimately pointless. We’ll hit the highlights today, and can deep dive into your favorite topics in future posts. Via blog.grabcad.com
An engineer is particular about his/her tools, and there’s no more important or personal an engineering tool these days than the CAD workstation. While you could just fork over your hard-earned cash for a turnkey CAD configuration designed for corporate sensibilities, you want a PC engineered your way. You want serious CAD power, but at reasonable prices. We can build it. We have the technology.Building a Solidworks PC
The core of a good Solidworks workstation should be a fast CPU, lots of RAM, and a Solidworks approved workstation graphics card.
16GB of RAM is a minimum and important for dealing with large assemblies. This stuff is cheap and can easily be expanded in the future.
A basic CAD workstation graphics card should be sufficient and won’t hinder performance. They key here is stability and performance with Solidworks which is why you want something like the Quadro K2000. Workstations graphics cards are essentially glorified gaming cards but they have extremely stable drivers. Via enginoor.com
The core of a good Solidworks workstation should be a fast CPU, lots of RAM, and a Solidworks approved workstation graphics card.How Would You Build an Ultimate Industrial Design Dream Machine Computer?
When it comes to configuring that ideal computer for your 3D design needs, every last little bit of power can help. However, when you’re working within a set budget, the challenge of swapping some components for others can become a tedious task that sometimes feels more like rocket science than a ‘fun’ build project.
Earlier this week, a Reddit user by the name of sn0m0be set out to ask this very question: How do you build the ultimate industrial design dream machine?
With his needs centered around configuring a machine that can accommodate a heavy load of SolidWorks, KeyShot and the Adobe Creative Suite applications (including the processor-heavy Premiere Pro for video editing), sn0m0be’s challenge lies in creating the best possible machine for less than $1600 USD: Via solidsmack.com
The Revit Workstation – Hardware Recommendations
Having been asked this month 3 times for a recommendation for a Revit workstation, I am writing this highly opinioned guide today to help Revit users make wise choices.
I have been building CAD workstations since the mid 1990’s. Every time I build a new computer, it requires a great deal of research because of the ever changing technology. This time is no exception.
This system will be designed primarily for Revit but will work as well for 3DS Max Design, Autodesk Ultimate Building Suite, The Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection and V-Ray. It will be suitable for BIM and all of its tangents such as rendering, animation, clash detection and estimating. Via palaciosdesign.com
Cad Workstations| Xeon Versus i7 vs i5 Processors
When choosing a CAD workstation a question that is often asked is what is the difference between a CAD Workstation with a Xeon vs i7 or perhaps even an i5 processor? So below is a quick outline to give you a fairly generic overview of some of the principal key differences (technical source Intel).
It goes without saying that the i7 processors range does offers excellent performance which is not in doubt, but we are considering here the difference between Xeon processors versus i7 processors, so let us take a closer look.
Hardware stability is far better than it has been in previous years as a general rule of thumb, but that said in the Xeon vs i7 debate stability goes to deeper levels. Xeon processors support error checking and correcting memory so are more stable and less prone to data corruption due to memory errors, whereas i7 processors do not, so in this scenario a Xeon based workstation will be far more preferable than an i7 processor based one. Via graitec.co.uk
When choosing a CAD workstation a question that is often asked is what is the difference between a CAD Workstation with a Xeon vs i7 or perhaps even an i5 processor? So below is a quick outline to give you a fairly generic overview of some of the principal key differences (technical source Intel).Best CAD Workstation Reviews of 2015
CAD is no longer a software category. It’s no longer committed to mini computers the size of a car. CAD is now an entire discipline. It encompasses masses of hobbyists, engineers, construction professionals, architects and builders of all sorts. This discipline in turn requires a separate category of computers known as Workstations. Welcome to this article discussing how to pick a workstation and reviews of the best CAD workstation products.
The important thing to take away from this article is that different softwares require different workstation specifications to perform at their best hence the intention of this series lies in equipping CAD users with enough knowledge to configure a worthy CAD workstation for themselves. Via computeraideddesignguide.com
CAD is no longer a software category. It’s no longer committed to mini computers the size of a car. CAD is now an entire discipline. It encompasses masses of hobbyists, engineers, construction professionals, architects and builders of all sorts. This discipline in turn requires a separate category of computers known as Workstations. Welcome to this article discussing how to pick a workstation and reviews of the best CAD workstation products.Images courtesy grabcad.com, enginoor.com, graitec.co.uk
