What is a good machine to run Pro-Engineer?

[M Skabialka]

One of our users will be using Pro-Engineer, 3D CAD software, so we need to
buy him a good computer on a limited budget. If you go to the
manufacturer's websites it seems as though you end up looking at $10,000 so
I'm looking for advice from someone who bought something for far less, under
$1000, that is doing the job well. Building from parts is not an option, it
must be purchased from Dell, HP, etc, and running WinXP 64bit.
Any advice, and or warnings about what might be missed but is necessary?
Mich

 

[JS]

One of our users will be using Pro-Engineer, 3D CAD software, so we need
to buy him a good computer on a limited budget. If you go to the
manufacturer's websites it seems as though you end up looking at $10,000
so I'm looking for advice from someone who bought something for far less,
under $1000, that is doing the job well. Building from parts is not an
option, it must be purchased from Dell, HP, etc, and running WinXP 64bit.
Any advice, and or warnings about what might be missed but is necessary?
Mich

If what you need to do the job was estimated
to cost around $10,000 I'm afraid a $1,000 PC
will not hack it as it will be so far under powered
that his or her productivity will be hampered.

Or to look at it another way the persons time (labor)
in $$$ will take much longer to complete the task and
as a result what you save in dollars on a low end PC
will be lost in the increased number of labor hours per task.

Look at the $10,000 for the PC and compare that
with the person's salary. If they make $100,000 per year
and it's takes them twice as long or more to complete
each task then you just tossed $50,000 out the door.

Be more specific on the requirements for the CAD
software and the type of modeling you will be doing
and maybe a middle ground can be found.

 

[Malke]

One of our users will be using Pro-Engineer, 3D CAD software, so we need
to
buy him a good computer on a limited budget. If you go to the
manufacturer's websites it seems as though you end up looking at $10,000
so I'm looking for advice from someone who bought something for far less,
under
$1000, that is doing the job well. Building from parts is not an option,
it must be purchased from Dell, HP, etc, and running WinXP 64bit.
Any advice, and or warnings about what might be missed but is necessary?
Mich

Look at Dell's Precision workstation line. You need a video card that can
run 3D CAD, integrated ones will not work. You may be best off speaking to a
Dell sales rep about this. You also need lots of RAM and if your CAD program
supports it, a 64-bit operating system would be best. I doubt you will be
able to find a computer that can run 3D CAD for under $1,000 though.

The very first thing you need to do is go to Pro-Engineer's website and write
down the system requirements.

Malke

 

[Paul]

One of our users will be using Pro-Engineer, 3D CAD software, so we need to
buy him a good computer on a limited budget. If you go to the
manufacturer's websites it seems as though you end up looking at $10,000 so
I'm looking for advice from someone who bought something for far less, under
$1000, that is doing the job well. Building from parts is not an option, it
must be purchased from Dell, HP, etc, and running WinXP 64bit.
Any advice, and or warnings about what might be missed but is necessary?
Mich

You can see some comments here.

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=141366

This document has some links for various computing solutions.

http://www.ptc.com/WCMS/files/77552/en/proewf5.pdf

This is the first link, for HP. One model of computer
is the Z400, with an FX580 video card. Using the HP
configuration page for the Z400, I got $1200 as a
starting point, with the FX580 installed in it.
Maybe you could buy more RAM from other than HP,
to save a few dollars. More RAM would help. (I.e. Buy
the computer with minimum RAM, and add more yourself.)

http://www.ptc.com/WCMS/files/77550/en/hp_wf5.pdf

The FX580 video card is about $170. Judging by the
cooler design, and the lack of PCI Express Auxiliary
power input, this is a low end card with OpenGL certification.

http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_lrg_images/785/210998785.jpg

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...s/SPECopc-Viewperf-10.0-Pro-Engineer,132.html

So you won't be able to buy a solution for $1000, but
maybe with some luck, the basic computing box could
be $2000 or so. You really need to work through the
various vendor specific files on the PTC site, to
see what you can manage to do.

Pro-Eng eats computers for breakfast. Our mechanical
engineer a number of years ago, was working on a design
that took seven hours to load, before you could rotate
it in 3D. And I believe at the time, he had about as
expensive a computer as we could give him. His
project had a couple hundred thousand references
to some database on the network, which may have accounted
for the speed. So don't be surprised, if some expensive
talent is sitting around most of the time, twiddling
thumbs.

If the mechanical engineer makes $100K, has a loaded labor
rate of $200K, then a $10K computer doesn't sound so bad, if
you get more real hours of work per day from him/her.

Perhaps you need to find more benchmarks for projects
similar to what your mechanical engineer will be working
on. Otherwise, you could end up spending $12000 -- $2000 for
the first computer, and $10000 for the second computer.

Paul

 

[M Skabialka]

Looks like the budget just doubled - looking at the Dell Precision T5500...

 

[1PW]

Looks like the budget just doubled - looking at the Dell Precision T5500...

^^^^^^^
Oy ve!

Hello Mich:

I'm being as charitable as I can possibly be. This is not going to be
enough!

Before I retired from using *2D* AutoCAD, in my own electronic design
job, we would often seek whatever computer parts or systems were being
/retired/ from our department of mechanical engineers who continuously
used PTC's Pro/ENGINEER w/extensions in their *3D* designs with their
$6K+ systems back then.

The mechanical engineer's video cards alone cost at least as much as
whole high-end administrative business computer systems. Please tell
us that you will allow the user of the new system to at least use
*two* large screen displays if not three.

Your management must truly rethink this whole undertaking. As it is
Mich, it is doomed from the very under funded beginning.

Respectfully,

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

One of our users will be using Pro-Engineer, 3D CAD software, so we need
to buy him a good computer on a limited budget. If you go to the
manufacturer's websites it seems as though you end up looking at $10,000
so I'm looking for advice from someone who bought something for far less,
under $1000, that is doing the job well. Building from parts is not an
option, it must be purchased from Dell, HP, etc, and running WinXP 64bit.
Any advice, and or warnings about what might be missed but is necessary?
Mich

The Dell T5500 should be running Vista 64 Business, and will require 2gb RAM
just to get performance out of Vista. You should look at 8gb RAM to give you
performance while running Pro/Engineer. You may find that you need more but
it will be dependant upon how ambitious the CAD projects are.

According to PTC, not all video cards are made equal, so you should contact
ATI or nVidia support to ask what cards they recommend for use with
Pro/Engineer, and then order from Dell accordingly.

You might also want to consider getting a professional grade 21" monitor
rather than LCD as clarity on a pro grade large CRT is generally better.

Don't go with XP 64. Driver support is nothing like as good as Vista 64.
Vista support for Enterprise and Business variants will be extended to 2014.
Home versions including Ultimate stops in 2012.

 

[VanguardLH]

One of our users will be using Pro-Engineer, 3D CAD software, so we need to
buy him a good computer on a limited budget. If you go to the
manufacturer's websites it seems as though you end up looking at $10,000 so
I'm looking for advice from someone who bought something for far less, under
$1000, that is doing the job well. Building from parts is not an option, it
must be purchased from Dell, HP, etc, and running WinXP 64bit.
Any advice, and or warnings about what might be missed but is necessary?
Mich

http://www.ptc.com/products/proengineer/

The link under the Essentials section goes to their System Requirements.
Since they provide several products, you'll have to find out what THEY
specify as the minimum and recommended system requirements for use of
their different products.

http://www.ptc.com/products/proe/newpackages/package-comparison.htm

What, they won't talk to you to suggest what are the minimum and
recommended hardware requirements? They don't list prices but a Google
search shows some of their products selling for under $300. At that
price, I doubt there is much for hardware requirements for this 3D
software that a $800 host couldn't handle.

Ask them for their hardware recommendations about their software:
http://www.ptc.com/support/proengineer.htm

 

[M Skabialka]

Vista is not an option. Period. There will be two monitors. Now that we
are going to demolish the budget we have to come up with justification - the
more technical the better!

 

[Bob I]

If you can justify using Pro-Engineer, you have the answer.

Vista is not an option. Period. There will be two monitors. Now that we
are going to demolish the budget we have to come up with justification - the
more technical the better!

 

[rjmno1]

--
windows geek

One of our users will be using Pro-Engineer, 3D CAD software, so we need to
buy him a good computer on a limited budget. If you go to the
manufacturer's websites it seems as though you end up looking at $10,000 so
I'm looking for advice from someone who bought something for far less, under
$1000, that is doing the job well. Building from parts is not an option, it
must be purchased from Dell, HP, etc, and running WinXP 64bit.
Any advice, and or warnings about what might be missed but is necessary?
Mich

the money for a maschine that will use autocad is very expensive.
The only thing u need is a descent videocard.
This vidcard will cost u a 1000 or 1500 dollar depence on wich u want.
Then u have the program called autocad that co u a amount of 10000 dollar.
Then u must find a descent computer also.