Hardware Guide for X3

[Allen42acj]

I just ordered a new PC.
https://www.refurbdepot.com/HP_PAVIL...0F_AY604AA.cfm
One I have has been acting up a bit..

[Barton Brown]

Looks like a winner! I particularly like the price , about 1/2 of what I paid for parts when I assembled my PC last year...

[tlsapp]

The machine I developed X3 on cost us about $1300 to build a year ago.

Doug, do you have your system specifications posted anywhere? I've looked at George's, and would like to know what you are using.

I'm getting ready to attempt my first build, and am gathering info.
Thanks,

[Doug Park]

My system is tuned for software development and intentionally at the lower end of the i7 quad core spectrum. It has a fairly weak video card as well. It is not the system I would build to run Chief on, but does work pretty well. I currently am running 8GB of ram.

Today I would look at one of 6 core systems, a High end gaming card and probably put 12-16 GB of ram in. I might also look at an ssd drive to improve the speed of undo.

The reality is that the system you buy should be tuned for your needs and budget.

[lbuttery]

Leslie:

consider getting USB 3.0 ports, they are new and fast

Lew

[charlesu]

My system is tuned for software development and intentionally at the lower end of the i7 quad core spectrum. It has a fairly weak video card as well. It is not the system I would build to run Chief on, but does work pretty well.

Perhaps we are all asking the wrong questions......

Doug, what would be your "dream" setup for Chief, money no object?

Now we can pick and choose from your list.

[tlsapp]

intentionally at the lower end of the i7 quad core spectrum.

Smart- I'm glad you're not designing it on a machine like George's.

[bendcadgirl]

Thanks, Doug. You make an excellent point about what you are using for development. From your point of view you have to cover the spectrum of what CA users might have at their own desks.

[portrait]

Hello,

I'm a fresh user, and bought a new computer before purchasing X3. I read in the forums that X3 supports multi core systems, but i want to learn that if it supports double processors.
My computer is actually a workstation with a Intel Workstation Board S5520SC(http://www.intel.com/products/workst...c-overview.htm) and double Xeon E5504 quad-core processors on it. Can the software support the eight cores on two different processors? Should i expect a significant improvement? This is important for me because i currently work on a high rise residential building with 38 storeys,so i'll really need a great performance. (By the way, i know that the software has a 30 floors restriction, but this is another issue.)

Thank you very much...

[curbappeal]

Dan, I posted the below info a few days ago and got some good feedback. I have copied it below.... Can you give me your take on this system?

Thanks Rob

_____________________________
I am having Dell build me a new desktop and wanted some input. We are a design build remodeling company and i use X-2 pretty heavy. My current machine is a Intel duo core 186 GHz and has 3 GB ram and is running XP Pro. Below is what i am looking at. Please let me know your thoughts of this system with chief along with all the other daily office applications. Thanks

Dell Studio XPS 9000
Windows 7 Professional, 64bit
Intel® Core™ i7-920 processor (8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz)
9GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs
640GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive

ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 (other option from Dell is the Nvidia GTS 240 but the reviews for the ATI says its in a totally different class than the Nvidia) My current PC has the Nvidia GT8800 with 512 memory

16X CD/DVD Burner + Roxio Creator 10 Premier - Ultimate Burn/Authoring

[Doug Park]

As far as Chief is concerned it sees multiple cores the same as it sees multiple CPUs so you should see all the cores working for certain operations, such as ray tracing.

[ibuild]

A few things to keep in mind....

More cores is good but if they run slowly....like an i7 laptop at 1.6 ghz, you'll be disappointed, even with turbo boost. If you're not running in the neighborhood of 3 ghz on the cpu chief will feel slow.

Buy something around 3 ghz if you can afford it. Intels (i5, i7) and Amds phenom 2 1055T, 1090T) "Turbo boost mode" does NOT boost ALL cores. Intel overclocks only when a couple of cores are in use. AMD has a 6 cores on line but overclocks 3 cores in turbo.
If you want ALL cores running fast you have to overclock. The questions are, a) do you know enough about your system to overclock it intelligently and b) Do you feel lucky? If you don't know what you're doing and try this, you'll turn you computer into a fireworks display.

A real quad core > hyperthreaded dual core > dual core. If you still run a single core computer upgrade asap.

Get a reasonable video card...a $150.00 geforce or radeon will work fine.

DON'T forget the hard drive. The wrong drive can REALLY slow you down. 7200 rpm is recommended. SATA 2 300gps is the norm. If you get a new system that has a board that supports it, look at the new SATA3 drives that do 600 gps. (the current SATA 2 drives do 300 gbs.)

[bendcadgirl]

Great advice, Al. Thanks for chiming in. I'm sure I'm among many shopping for a new system now, and this helps a lot with figuring out the 'necessaries'.

[Larry Kumpost]

Thanks Al:

That is good to know, since I was looking at the Asus notebooks that have the i7 1.66-2.8 Ghz CPU's. I assume, from what you said, that there is no way to force the CPU to use Turbo boost mode when only one core is in use?

The reason I ask is that my old G1 Asus can either be put on autopilot, to save energy when on battery, but can be set to a specific (high) performance level when plugged in.

[Barton Brown]

Larry, I have observed the performance of my laptop (i7-820) when running CA X3 and monitoring CPU speed using the CPUID application cpu-z. When the laptop is sitting idle, the CPU frequency is 1.2 GHz but as soon as I do a zoom, or any activity requiring processing, the CPU frequency immediately jumps to 2.8 GHz (turbo mode). For me, X3 runs quite acceptably.

When I do something in X3 that requires a lot of compute power the CPU frequency bounces between 2.8 GHz and 1.8 GHz, depending upon the number of cores in use (I can see the cores in use by looking at CPU % utilization in the task monitor). A task that requires a lot of CPU activity is doing a ray trace. While X3 is preparing for the ray trace, it typically bounces between 1 -3 cores in use and the CPU frequency ranges from 1.8 GHz to 2.8 GHz. When the actual ray trace processing starts, the CPU utilization goes to 100% and the CPU frequency locks at 1.8 GHz. Note, at this point there are effectively 8 CPUs cranking on the raytrace data.

The above is, of course, all anectdotal data and does not really answer the question of whether an i7-820 will be faster than an i3 or i5 processor. Tom's hardware has run some of these tests and my recollection is that, and as one that spent the extra money for an i7 would hope, the i7 processors outperformed the i3 and i5 (although sometimes not by much).