Windows XP Computer Aided Design (CAD, ArchiCAD, AutoCAD)

[Waynos_Face]

Hi,

My Brother in law is into restoring old buildings, does quite well at the mo, however his firm is now using CAD and he has to practice at home, he has been given the software but his PC is not upto the task,

P4, 512 RAM, integrated graphics.

Never used CAD myself, but i know it needs a pretty good system, so really i need help in what to buy to go in it ?????

I need to purchase CPU, Mobo, RAM and Graphics Card.

Go go go.

 

[Madxgraphics]

AutoCAD System Requirements

For 32-bit AutoCAD 2009:

• Intel® Pentium® 4 processor or AMD Athlon®, 2.2 GHz or greater

• 
  or
  Intel or AMD Dual Core processor, 1.6 GHz or greater
  [*]Microsoft® Windows Vista™, Windows® XP SP2 operating systems
  

For Microsoft Windows XP SP2:

• 1 GB RAM
• 750 MB free disk space for installation
• 1024x768 VGA with true color
• Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 6.0 (SP1 or higher)

For Microsoft Windows Vista or 3D modeling:

• Intel Pentium 4 processor or AMD Athlon, 3.0 GHz or greater

• 
  or
  Intel or AMD Dual Core processor, 2.0 GHz or greater
  [*]2 GB RAM or greater
  [*]2 GB free hard disk available not including installation
  [*]1,280 x 1,024 32-bit color video display adapter (true color) 128 MB or greater, OpenGL®, or Direct3D® capable workstation class graphics card. For Windows Vista, a Direct3D capable workstation class graphics card with 128 MB or greater is required.
  

For 64-bit AutoCAD 2009:

• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition or Windows Vista 64-bit
• AMD® 64 or Intel EM64T processor
• 2 GB RAM
• 750 MB free disk space for installation
• AutoCAD 64-bit cannot be installed on a 32-bit Windows operating system

Thats pretty much a run down on the system requirements, what MoBo etc you choose is entirely upto you..I have the 32bit version and it runs quite happily on my crappy Ac*r Asp*re....Hope this is of some help, maybe try adding a bit more ram to his machine and a cheap but good card to start with before splashing out loads on a new rig..Also another sugestion, if Autocad is work related, then surely his company should be footing the bill and they should sort out an upto scratch amchine for him..???

 

[Waynos_Face]

Thanks for the specs,

His work is giving him £300, just wanted to see what kind of setup people can run it faultlessly on.

Was gonna go AMD Dual Core, so cheap at the mo, 4GB RAM, 9500GT 1GB, should easily do it.

 

[Madxgraphics]

Thanks for the specs,

His work is giving him £300, just wanted to see what kind of setup people can run it faultlessly on.

Was gonna go AMD Dual Core, so cheap at the mo, 4GB RAM, 9500GT 1GB, should easily do it.

£300....??? Tight wods or what..Yeah I was just havng a look around AMD Dual are really cheap at the mo..Build it as if you wer building a low to medium spec gaming machine...2gig ram and 512mb graphics will be more than plenty.. And if the machine is going to be used soley as an Auto cad machine, depending on wether you're going to be using Vista or XP (XP Preferably) use something like nLite or vLite to slimdown which ever OS you decide to use...

 

[Waynos_Face]

Okay cheers mate, will chop 4GB of RAM to 2GB and the 1GB card to 512Mb, prob not cost alot.

 

[TriplexDread]

Anything more than 3gb wont register in XP anyway

 

[JaLing]

XP 32bit can recognise upto 4Gb of memeory addressing..... however this includes the graphic cards memory aswell

 

[muckshifter]

sorry but ...

Anything more than 3gb wont register in XP anyway

WRONG!!

 

[Me__2001]

Mucks has gone through this numerous times, just search the forum for it

2GB of RAM is fine for CAD, you dont even need a fancy graphics card.

i have to do quite a lot of complicated modelling for uni and i use an AMD X2 4400 with 2GB of RAM and a 256MB 7600GS which copes fine

 

[Waynos_Face]

Okay cheers guys.