8gb on a single stick

T

TheWookalarKing

New Member
I am currently building a desktop for my wife. This PC is not a toy, she will be running several Autocad and Inventor programs on it for engineering purposes.
For those who do not know these programs are memory monsters and will use as much as they can get.

I need to install 64gb of DDR3 1866 MHz Quad Channel Memory Architecture into 8 DIMM slots.

I have purchased an ASUS Sabertooth X79 Motherboard, with an Intel® Core™ i7-3930K Processor.

Still unsure if I will be using Quad SLI or Crossfire X graphix processors yet.

Any help pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
 
You would be better off getting a workstation graphics card rather than doing an SLI or xfire with gaming graphics cards. If she if only doing CAD work it is better to get a workstation card as they are built for that. I have limited knowledge in that area to point a card out but I figured that I might as well let you know.

Do you have a budget in mind for a graphics setup?
 
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id...skip on the 64 for now, and get 32, would save a bundle you could put into a better gpu, also you will need windows 7 ultimate to address the ram amount
 
TheWookalarKing said:
I need to install 64gb of DDR3 1866 MHz Quad Channel Memory Architecture into 8 DIMM slots.
Click to expand...

Why?

Unless you are creating assemblies with 100,000's parts, no. Look at specs below.

TheWookalarKing said:
Still unsure if I will be using Quad SLI or Crossfire X graphix processors yet.
Click to expand...

Why?

CAD programs do not require a super powerful graphics card, as the link below clearly shows. By the very nature of the linear boolean operations the have to happen one after another, there for the key ingredient is the fastest CPU possible.

The reason why workstation cards are recommended is because they are guaranteed to work, which is what you want after you have dropped a couple of grand on a license for this software. And if they don't Autodesk or whoever will make a patch for you.

http://usa.autodesk.com/autodesk-inventor/system-requirements/

How do I know this: Having worked for a in a design office where I had a dual Xeon CPU workstation, with 4GB of RAM and regularly working with 100+ assemblies in SolidWorks and NX (both far higher end than AutoCAD/Inventor), and working from home on my PC with Phenom II X4 and 4GB Ram and Integrated graphics - with no performance drop (These were the latest versions as well, just to add).

Also having a Design Engineering masters degree with several modules in CAD software design, e.g. how they physically work, BRep, CSG etc.
 
@Salvage-this
I am hoping (fingers crossed) she will let me play games on it, on the rare occasion, NOT.
Also after doing some more research I am leaning towards a single Asus Nvidia Geforce GTX 590

@FuryRosewood
She specifically requested the 64gb, and considering I am doing this for her, pretty much the sky is the limit. hopefully the sky is not that high.
Really though she is doing some big projects that require lots of ram and I believe she is trying to stay ahead of the game

@Dug987654
As far as the CPU goes as you can see I have one of the fastest available.
I totally understand what you are saying about the ram requirements needed after reading up on your link. it has definately given me something to think about.
As to the technical aspects of the programs in reference BRep, CSG, etc. This is all greek to me. no offense to those engineers that know what they are doing. ( I Work on overhead catenary powerlines for electric light rail )
I do routinely smile kindly at my wife, nod my head in agreement, and tell her she is the smartest person I know and she amazes me on a regular basis.
Back to the reality of it i regularly hear her complain that her setup is barely able to do what she needs and regularly freezes her system doing 3d modeling, and rendering. She does have something to do with making the designs animate to demonstrate something or other, but her stuff looks really cool when she shows it to me.

Anyway the short is I know nothing other than she needs, as you said, windows ultimate, MORE ram, a better procesor and a graphics card that can actually render the final product animations.
I can not ask her exactly what she needs to make it work as it is a surprise, and her coworkers would be no help as they are always trying to one up each other and generally stoop to childish ideas selling me short so they all could have a good laugh

I do appreciate all the input and look forward to anymore assistance that I get from all of you.
 
The graphics card does not render in terms of producing images for publishing (i.e. exported tiffs etc.). The CPU does that. If your wife regularly creates high quality renderings then a multi-core CPU will be an advantage as the program can break the image down into quarters say and give each core a quarter to render. If she is creating animations, which are effectively many images after each other a multi-cored CPU will speed up the process. For normal modelling a fast CPU is essential. Due to the nature of the process each instruction can only happen after the other (e.g. create cube, subtract rectangle etc.), therefore making a multi-cored CPU no advantage really.

What the graphics card does is put what the computer has created onto the screen. E.g. creates a visual display of the geometric model. If you think about the difficultly in doing this compared to a computer game you can see why you do not need a powerful graphics card, after all it is just geometric shapes!

What is her current setup? And what types of assemblies does she make (quantities of parts)? Is she actually maxing out the RAM at the moment? If the budget is there for a graphics card, as others have recommended, it would be better to get one that is supported by AutoDesk.

Cheers, Doug.
 
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