# CAD machine



## dathai (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

I had posted here before and got a lot of great advice on building my first rig.

The backstory is I'm an architect looking for a system that will handle CS5 Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat Pro X (often with very large CPU workloads from big Illustrator files), AutoCad, 3dsMax (relativity small render resolutions,all still), SketchUp with the occasional bit of Premier Pro. Windows 7 is only option for OS although I have tried to keep the Hackintosh option open. A wide range of software, I know, but this is the nature of my job.

Going on the advice I've gotten here and elsewhere I'm looking at this build

Intel Core i5-2500k 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail	
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-368-IN

Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard	
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-054-AK

Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-021-CS

Asus GeForce GTX 550Ti 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-265-AS

Corsair Builder Series CX 600W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-600CXUKV2)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-048-CS 

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-101-AN

Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel 
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-094-KS

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-035-AR

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=AC-000-AC

I have my own monitors and HDDs lying around for storage so they are not.

The system will never be used for gaming but I do plan on overclocking the 2500k.

If anybody could offer advice if I've got overkill, leaving aspects out etc, I would really appreciate it?

May not buy it all from overclockersUK but I can do a bit more shopping around once I have a final shopping list.


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## DanishDevil (Jan 26, 2012)

What I would recommend you do differently simply for ease of use is get an SSD smaller than 64GB and utilize Intel SRT to automatically cache your most-used data to your SSD. You'll never have to worry about running out of SSD space, and your most used files will be fastest. Overall performance will be a bit lower because you'll only have half the space on the SSD side of things, but it will be completely automated after you set it up.

Also, the CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ is a great bang/buck cooler that comes with enough of its own TIM to not need to purchase any separately. Looks like they only have the Evo, virtually the same cooler. Arctic Silver 5 is ancient per today's standards, too.

You *might* want to bump up from a Corsair CX to a TXv2 or HX model. Longer warranty and better reliability if you spend more than the CX series.

Overall, looks like a very solid build for CAD/content creation!


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## Jetster (Jan 26, 2012)

Agree. Switch to the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO or + if you can find one. (The EVO copper tubing is tighter so better cooling) But both are way better then the AC 7. A TX650 Corsair or HX if you want modular (there are a lot of wires with the TX)


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jan 26, 2012)

Generally, CS5 can benefit from HT as will some of your other production apps and plug-ins surely so you may want to go with a 2600K. Has 2MB more cache too.

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/806048


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## happy (Jan 26, 2012)

I just built a CAD machine, but I think I paid almost half the price you would be paying.  I think you are building a gaming pc rather than a CAD pc.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jan 26, 2012)

happy said:


> I just built a CAD machine, but I think I paid almost half the price you would be paying.  I think you are building a gaming pc rather than a CAD pc.



Well share the specs.


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## DanishDevil (Jan 26, 2012)

CAD is similar to a gaming PC, except for a CAD machine, you just want a mid-range nvidia GPU, and more RAM rather than faster RAM. Otherwise, they're fairly similar.

A bump to a 2600K wouldn't be a terrible idea either, but not a priority in my eyes, as it's easily upgradeable later.


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## Jetster (Jan 26, 2012)

You should go with a Cad design video card. Gaming cards are for gaming there faster. Cad design cards are more accurate but slower


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## happy (Jan 26, 2012)

Mobo: Gigabyte P55 USB3
GPU: Sapphire 5670
Memory: Kingston 4GB x2 1600mhz
CPU: i5 750 (Surely slower than the 2500 but will definitely do the job for CAD)
PSU: Corsair CX430w
HDD: 640GB Caviar Blue


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## DanishDevil (Jan 26, 2012)

Jetster said:


> You should go with a Cad design video card. Gaming cards are for gaming there faster. Cad design cards are more accurate but slower



Workstation cards are incredibly expensive, and since some Adobe programs are now CUDA accelerated, he'll get more bang/buck by going with a midrange nvidia GPU. A mid-low end would probably be fine, too.


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## Jetster (Jan 26, 2012)

Understand  

@ Happy. Go to the top of the page and click "User CP" on the lift is where your specs go


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## n-ster (Jan 27, 2012)

I would say to go for a GT 240, a different cooler, and a MUCH MUCH cheaper motherboard. Much smaller SSD. If you want to go with such a motherboard your better off with an i7 3820 (LGA 2011). Maybe a smaller PSU. A 2600K is going to last you long but won't bring you the bang/buck the the 2500K will.

RAM can be cheaper http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-299-CS

CPU Cooler --> http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-041-ZA&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395 is better

Thermal paste --> http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TH-004-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=27 or MX-4

You are going to Overclock though right?


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jan 27, 2012)

Yes he plans to OC.


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## n-ster (Jan 27, 2012)

In that case follow my advice xD


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jan 27, 2012)

Yeah that is a pretty pricey board...not counting the fact I can get a Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 for $100 with a CPU at Microcenter (granted that deal not open to all and diff markets too but just sayin').


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## n-ster (Jan 27, 2012)

If he wants he can go i7 3820 and get some nice 8x4GB RAM. He'll get a sweet motherboard and awesome computing power (basically better than any Z68 mobo and better than any SB CPU)


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## dathai (Jan 27, 2012)

Thanks guy. I'm in the process of recompiling my shopping list, taking account of your advice.

@Wrigleyvillain unfortunately there are lots of great stores that only ship to the US or Canada. I'm in Ireland and so am pretty limited.

Just wondering, why does everyone seem to agree that a smaller SSD is better? 
The programs I use, Adobe CS5, AutoCAD, 3DS Max etc, are all pretty large and I tend to want to switch between them in pretty rapid fire. Would this not be compromised by using smaller SSD and Intel SRT?

As for upping the CPU to a 2600k, it would cost me nearly Euro 110 for what seems to be a pretty small advantage for my uses. 

@n-ster I do plan on overclocking the 2500k.

The updated list is:


Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-368-IN

Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (CSSD-F120GB3-BK)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-021-CS

Asus GeForce GTX 550Ti DirectCU 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card	
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-265-AS

MSI Z68A-G43-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard	
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-198-MS

Corsair Builder Series CX 600W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-600CXUKV2)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-048-CS

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black	
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-101-AN

Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9)		
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-299-CS

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler (Socket Intel® Socket LGA1366/1156/1155/775/AMD Socket FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2)	
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-035-CM

Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Compound (4g)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TH-003-AR



I am a little concerned about the Cooler Master Hyper 212 fitting both with the RAM and in the case. Does anybody have any experience of using it?

Thanks again


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## n-ster (Jan 27, 2012)

You can always get lower profile RAM (ie the cheap Crucials 1600 cl10) ... I still stand on the 550Ti being too much, and if your paying that much, why not go for the 560 (not Ti). The motherboard still seems very expensive considering that it is pounds. If you want the 120GB SSD go for it.

But the video card definitively needs changing IMO


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## puma99dk| (Jan 27, 2012)

does CAD only use Memory or also the memory on the GFX?


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## dathai (Jan 27, 2012)

@n-ster I think you may be right about the gpu, but i've left it in until I can research a little more the support given by Autodesk and Adobe for GPU and Cuda, dependence on processing cores etc. 
Regarding the motherboards, the cheapest I can z68 I can come across with usb3 support are all in and around the £80 mark so I can get it down to about that eg  Z68Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Intel

@puma99dk|that is still kind of a mystery. 3ds max uses gpu for view-ports, Photoshop uses Cuda as of cs5 with predictions of increasing support but I haven't figured out the rest yet. If anyone could shed some light on that part, it would be great.


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## DanishDevil (Jan 28, 2012)

I'm not as familiar with it as it might seem, but all that I was told on here was to ensure that I stuffed the system to the teeth with RAM. The build that I did used workstation cards, though. He opted for much older generation workstation cards over current nVidia consumer cards, but I can't find anybody selling anything similar anymore.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jan 28, 2012)

You can get a Quadro 2000 for around $400.


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## n-ster (Jan 28, 2012)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> You can get a Quadro 2000 for around $400.



I bet in the UK that translates to 350~400 pounds, which is not worth it for him.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-132-MS

has 336 CUDA cores instead of 192 the 550 Ti has and for only 30ish pounds more

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-140-OK

isn't that bad either for 96 pounds


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## puma99dk| (Jan 28, 2012)

n-ster said:


> I bet in the UK that translates to 350~400 pounds, which is not worth it for him.
> 
> http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-132-MS
> 
> ...



or he can find a used one, or a demo or something at a store to get a cheaper gfx.


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## dathai (Jan 29, 2012)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> You can get a Quadro 2000 for around $400.



Having had a pretty good look into the cost-benefits of that level of GPU, that is way out of my price range. The Quadros seem to be just the consumer level bits with different clocking and drivers to slow them down. I guess if you're drilling for oil or whatever, absolute accuracy is worth it. To be honest for my purposes speed is more important than absolute accuracy.



n-ster said:


> I bet in the UK that translates to 350~400 pounds, which is not worth it for him.
> 
> http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-132-MS
> 
> ...



Pretty much decided on the 460 now. Thanks for the advice. 

Anyway, here is what I hope is the final list:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM	

Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (CSSD-F120GB3-BK) 

OcUK GeForce GTX 460 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card	

Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9)

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler (Socket Intel® Socket LGA1366/1156/1155/775/AMD Socket FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2)

Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Compound (4g)

I've found a motherboard that's about half the price of the one I was looking at first, but still has the Usb3, firewire, overclocking options I want. 

Coming in at Euro825, I'm pretty happy but if anyone spots any place to shave another bit off, I would certainly appreciate it. 

A little concerned about the Hyper 212 fitting in the case and with the RAM, but there seems to be a consensus that it fits in the Antec 300 and I can always move/flip the fan if it covers a RAM slot. Cross that bridge when I come to it! 

So, what do you guys think?


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## Jetster (Jan 29, 2012)

The 212 EVO comes with thermal paste. That would save you 8.99


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## DanishDevil (Jan 29, 2012)

I think if you're cutting cost, just use the included thermal paste that comes with the Hyper 212 and ditch the MX-4. There's enough included with the Hyper 212+ for 3-4 applications. Otherwise, looks really good, but where's the PSU?


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## dathai (Jan 29, 2012)

Ah, didn't realize paste came with it.

PSU is Corsair Builder Series CX 600W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply


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## n-ster (Jan 30, 2012)

Yea paste comes with it... I am a bit outdated because I'm use to the i7 9XX where 2-3 C makes a difference, but the i5 2500K runs really cool and that 3 C difference between the thermal pastes won't matter at all. If I were in you position I'd still take the MX-2 though xD It's nice to have and if you ever need it in the future, at least you don't have to pay for expensive shipping just to get thermal paste (at least here the shipping kills the price of thermal paste ie: 5$ thermal paste 7 $ shipping)


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## repman244 (Jan 30, 2012)

dathai said:


> To be honest for my purposes speed is more important than absolute accuracy.




The Quadro/FirePro cards completely obliterate gaming cards in CAD (if the application can benefit from it) plus you get to enable some of the extra features some CAD programs have (like the RealView in Solidworks).
However they come at a price, and if you know you won't benefit from them it's better to keep to your plan on getting a normal gaming card.


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## dathai (Jan 30, 2012)

@repman244 I have looked at the quadro cards quiet a bit but it really came down to price. I don't do a massive amount of rendering and even when I do, the scenes are pretty simple so I couldn't justify the price of the quadros.


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## repman244 (Jan 30, 2012)

dathai said:


> @repman244 I have looked at the quadro cards quiet a bit but it really came down to price. I don't do a massive amount of rendering and even when I do, the scenes are pretty simple so I couldn't justify the price of the quadros.



Yea I understand, I was in a similar situation myself so I just used the software hack and turned my HD 3870 into a FireGL V7700 and it serving me well. I don't use it anymore since I bought a laptop with a FirePro.
The biggest benefit for me was the use of realview in Solidworks (3DSMAX also has similar features I think) and of course the FPS increase especially when operating with more complex models.
As for rendering, you don't need a Quadro or a FirePro since GPU rendering uses CUDA (NVIDIA) or OpenCL which consumer cards already have. But most of the rendering is done by the CPU anyway.

I need to ask you tho, is stability very critical for you? 
Because if it is I would advise you not to OC much, I had my CPU at around 3,7GHz for rendering and it was doing fine, but I got a BSOD 6 months down the line so I backed down the OC a bit, plus I didn't want to strain the VRM a lot since I'll probably stick with my PC for the next few years.


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## BlackOmega (Jan 30, 2012)

Exactly. People saying that the 550Ti was too much don't know about the CUDA cores and all that. For the applications that can utilize it (CAD, 3DstudioMax, Maya, etc) they'll speed up your rendering by A LOT. Definitely worth it to get more CUDA cores for that application. And as REPMAN said, the Quadro's do give you some advantages, i.e REAL 32xAA rendering and such. 

 Repman, as far as your overclock is concerned, you must remember that all electronics suffer from Electromigration. Eventually, all electronics will degrade over time. However, overclocking and applying more voltage accelerate this process. I had a CPU degrade over a period of 3 months due to high voltage. 

 Also, it's about keeping the CPU cool. Remember the higher the overclock the lower your max allowable temp becomes. It's a direct inverse function.


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## repman244 (Jan 30, 2012)

BlackOmega said:


> Repman, as far as your overclock is concerned, you must remember that all electronics suffer from Electromigration. Eventually, all electronics will degrade over time. However, overclocking and applying more voltage accelerate this process. I had a CPU degrade over a period of 3 months due to high voltage.
> 
> Also, it's about keeping the CPU cool. Remember the higher the overclock the lower your max allowable temp becomes. It's a direct inverse function.



Yes I am aware of that but thanks for the heads-up anyway. The CPU was kept cool (around 50-53C) and I actually had a slight undervolt. 
But the funny part is that it was rock stable with prime I think I kept it running for 3-4 days and no errors, but crashed in rendering. It wouldn't be a problem with fast drafts where you are done with rendering in a few minutes, but I use realtime rendering + final render which can take hours to finish.
So I decided to take the clock down to 3,5GHz and raise the NB to 2,8GHz and have no issues anymore 


@dathai my suggestion is that you should go for 4x4GB RAM, because of the prices we currently have and don't worry about the timings or clock since you won't get much better performance from it on SB system (1600MHz and CL8 should be good), as for the graphics card, just get one with a lot of CUDA cores and you're set.


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## BlackOmega (Jan 30, 2012)

repman244 said:


> Yes I am aware of that but thanks for the heads-up anyway. The CPU was kept cool (around 50-53C) and I actually had a slight undervolt.
> But the funny part is that it was rock stable with prime I think I kept it running for 3-4 days and no errors, but crashed in rendering. It wouldn't be a problem with fast drafts where you are done with rendering in a few minutes, but I use realtime rendering + final render which can take hours to finish.
> So I decided to take the clock down to 3,5GHz and raise the NB to 2,8GHz and have no issues anymore





 Prime is pretty good for stability testing for sure. But it's not without its flaws. When I test for my stability, I typically run 24-36 hours of prime (blend). Then once it passes that, I'll run Folding at home for a few days. I've found F@H is a little bit more sensitive to errors than prime is. And for what it's worth, I've found that Intel Burn test isn't very good at all for finding true stability. It's ok for quick and dirty stability testing, but that's about it. 

 Do you ever use your GPU to do any rendering? Just curious what the actual time to render is compared to doing it on the CPU.


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## repman244 (Jan 30, 2012)

BlackOmega said:


> Do you ever use your GPU to do any rendering? Just curious what the actual time to render is compared to doing it on the CPU.



Yes I tried it but since I have an ATi/AMD card I'm stuck with OpenCL and it's very very hard to find a proper rendering program. The only one I tested was the LuxRender (version for GPU rendering) and while it is very fast for real time you just don't get the same quality as from CPU rendering. Its similar like using GPU for video conversion, it is fast but the quality is lower compared to the CPU rendering.
I'm using keyshot as the real time renderer (quick demo for those interested http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLOT7g_4H4c with an overkill system of course ).

I don't know how do renders turn out with using CUDA in terms of quality but I guess for real time rendering they are good enough.


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## n-ster (Jan 30, 2012)

BlackOmega said:


> Exactly. People saying that the 550Ti was too much don't know about the CUDA cores and all that. For the applications that can utilize it (CAD, 3DstudioMax, Maya, etc) they'll speed up your rendering by A LOT. Definitely worth it to get more CUDA cores for that application. And as REPMAN said, the Quadro's do give you some advantages, i.e REAL 32xAA rendering and such.
> 
> Repman, as far as your overclock is concerned, you must remember that all electronics suffer from Electromigration. Eventually, all electronics will degrade over time. However, overclocking and applying more voltage accelerate this process. I had a CPU degrade over a period of 3 months due to high voltage.
> 
> Also, it's about keeping the CPU cool. Remember the higher the overclock the lower your max allowable temp becomes. It's a direct inverse function.



I don't know about CUDA cores? Yes they help a lot, but the GT 240 already has half the CUDA cores as the GTX 550Ti and is a much better bang/buck. 550Ti is stupid to buy as it has a much lower core count then a GTX 460/560 which have 336 vs the 192. He chose to go with more CUDA cores just in case to make sure he has enough performance, and I see nothing wrong with that, but the 550Ti doesn't make sense to buy, hence why I suggested a 560 and a 460

SB runs very cool and OCing doesn't make enough of a difference in the life of a CPU to matter, unless you put unreasonable amount of voltage. From what I understood, he is looking to get a decent OC, nothing extreme. He has heat very much covered with his cooler as well


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## BlackOmega (Jan 30, 2012)

n-ster said:


> I don't know about CUDA cores? Yes they help a lot, but the GT 240 already has half the CUDA cores as the GTX 550Ti and is a much better bang/buck. 550Ti is stupid to buy as it has a much lower core count then a GTX 460/560 which have 336 vs the 192. He chose to go with more CUDA cores just in case to make sure he has enough performance, and I see nothing wrong with that, but the 550Ti doesn't make sense to buy, hence why I suggested a 560 and a 460
> 
> SB runs very cool and OCing doesn't make enough of a difference in the life of a CPU to matter, unless you put unreasonable amount of voltage. From what I understood, he is looking to get a decent OC, nothing extreme. He has heat very much covered with his cooler as well



lol, That's exactly what I meant. You want more CUDA cores and not less. They way you worded it, I may have misunderstood what you meant. 
 You're absolutely right that he should go with the 460/560, the added cores will help out a lot.


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## ZenZimZaliben (Jan 30, 2012)

CAD support mutli-threading and as many as you can give it. I would go with a i7 Socket 1366 or wait for i9. Actually an AMD Bulldozer would be a great CPU for a CAD/Rendering rig. Might want to think about that.


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## dathai (Jan 30, 2012)

@repman244 on the ram, I should have listed I am getting 2 of those 2x4gb ram kits, so total ram will be Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel. 
I do tend to have Adobe Illustrator, InDesign (maybe Photoshop but I avoid raster) open while SketchUp is exporting some massive EPS drawing so I would like the room in the ram.

Regarding the stability, yes it matters a lot. Currently getting ready for a thesis in architecture so there are a lot of tight deadlines for very large volumes of work. But as n-ster said, I only plan on doing some fairly modest overclocking, 4.4-4.5 max and I have put in a good cooler.

The reason I opted for the 460 over the 550 was the CUDA cores. It seems like support for CUDA in the programs I use is expanding so it should offer some future proofing without going to Quadro.

@ZenZimZaliben the support given by 2d vector programs for multi-core is still pretty limited and there seems to be a lot of skepticism about how and if it could be expanded. The linear nature of the processes makes it very difficult apparently. There is growing support for running background processes such as vector export and plug-ins but not for the core functions of AutoCad and Illustrator, in 2d at least. And that's where I work most with those programs. Most modeling is done in SketchUp and then brought out for render/post processing. 


Again, all of your input is really appreciated. Thanks


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