We tested systems last year and ended up with adequatesystems, but nothing spectacular, and some cuts were made to myrecommendations based on IT budgets...we don't need to get intothat discussion...Anyway, the graphics design management is finallywilling to pony up some cash for proper systems. We design verylarge assemblies (10K+ bodies), boilers & environmental systemsfor power plants. (See SWW2006 Design Contest Large Assy firstplace). Drawing performance is critical. These are our documents ofrecord, and deliverables to customers. COSMOS was a driver in thecurrent box choice, IT only wanted to support one platform, so wewent with dual-core. These upgrades will have no COSMOSrequirements, and minimum PhotoWorks use.

Our current systems are supposed to be x64 capable, I'm not 100%convinced, and still doing research on this. I really believe weneed to go to x64 to make improvements in performance. I will listcurrent specs below on the left and proposed changes/upgrades tothe right. In addition to hardware changes, we are moving to avaulted PDM system. I want these people working locally, they arecurrently shipping everything over the network to a compresseddrive...need I say more?

IBM Lenovo ThinkCentre M52 8113

Current Specs Proposed Upgrade

Pentium D 820 2.8GHz no change
WinXP Pro x32 Dual Boot for WinXP Pro x32/x64
SW2006 SP4.1 x32 SW2007 SP2.1
3.5GB Ram 8GB Ram (2GB x 4)
80GB, SATA-150, 7.2K rpm 80+GB, SATA-300, 10K rpm
Quadro FX 1400, 128MB FX 3500 or 4500, 256 or 512MB?

I found the RivaTuner and tried it, but could not get an option tomonitor video memory usage as explained. I think I understand thevideo memory vs. system ram addressing issue. Since we're notrunning PhotoWorks & such I don't think we need that much videoram. Am I wrong? Our drawings are as big as J88, 36" x 88".

Thanks for everyone's input to this forum!
SolidworksAdministration