Over The Top

[time]

One of my neighbours (there's a bunch of us here now with home-based businesses) is an industrial designer (or something like that). He uses SolidWorks, a 3D design tool. You can spot it in one of the SPEC benchmarks.

He decided to get himself a new computer (his current spec is a PII 450 with Win2k). I don't think he quite believed me when I explained that a "workstation" was just a PC with particular components. He tried to get IBM to supply him, but they decided they were out of their depth ...

Anyway, here is part of the spec of the "workstation" that he expects to take delivery of in a week or so:

CPU: Dual Xeon 3GHz with 1MB L3 cache (he insisted on it)
RAM: 3GB (ECC)
Graphics: Quadro FX3000 ("King of the Hill" - unavailable outside the US, it's a direct import)

There's more - much more - which I'll discover in the next week or so.

Price: AFAIK, we're talking a small car. :eekers: I won't repeat the number that I heard because I'm hoping I must have misunderstood ...

 

[The JoJo]

Sound like a nice workhorse though . The fella must take parts from PC Mag or something similar....

 

[Handruin]

Sounds like they have some money to spend. Might they be interested in an "L" computer:

http://www.go-l.com/home/index.htm

 

[blakerwry]

$80 to go from 160->200GB hard drive! That's outrageous!

 

[time]

Yep, $80 is really significant in this sandpit ...

I forgot to mention, he seriously considered an HP Titanium solution, but worried about its long term prospects!!!

That's at least part of the reason he didn't jump for Opterons: the uncertainty of how future 64-bit support will fall.

I just checked Dell's sites, and a conservative estimate without the bits I don't know about is nudging US$10k. :bigeek:

But one of the things I don't understand, is how Dell's FX3000 price is maybe a third of what I've seen locally? :-?

 

[Mercutio]

My father's employees (engineers) use Dell Precision machines, which are basically 2-processor Xeons with a graphics card that cost more than five or six normal PCs. Very typically these PCs end up in the $10,000 range.

 

[Bozo]

Maybe I'm missing something.........
My son also uses Solidworks that is running on a P4 2.5GHz, 1GB of RAM setup and it runs fine. The video card is a Radeon 9000.
Is there more to be had from Solidworks if it is running on a $10000.00 computer?

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[sechs]

Yes, but you're digging on the flat part at the top of the S-curve.

 

[Pradeep]

Yep, $80 is really significant in this sandpit ...

But one of the things I don't understand, is how Dell's FX3000 price is maybe a third of what I've seen locally? :-?

Guess your neighbour hasn't seen the Wildcat4 7110 option Should be a little faster than the FX3000.

 

[Mickey]

Can SolidWorks even take advantage of 3 GB of RAM in a Windows environment? Also, can it take advantage of dual CPU's? Some programs don't directly make use of the second CPU.

The typical CAD workstations we buy from Dell (Precision 650) run around US$4K or so. Single Xeon chip with a Wildcat and 1 GB RAM, with a 36 GB 10K SCSI drive. SolidWorks would run just fine and dandy on such a system. Even if you went with a Quadro, the price shouldn't go beyond that. If anything, it'd probably be cheaper.

Now, if only *I* can persuade my management to let me upgrade from my P3-800 rig. I'd have to quit and get rehired to do that, though, as we are not allowed to upgrade our systems, per official policy. Absolutely asinine... :evil:

 

[Handruin]

Wow, we must get a hell of a deal on the precision 650 machines. I got a single Xeon 2.8, 1gb ram 36GB SCSI drive and the price tag was about $1800. It can with the quadra fx 500. We use them as development workstations. Although I don't develop, I'll be using it for automation testing.

 

[Mickey]

:wink: You probably *do* get a good deal. Maybe we don't buy enough of them to get a really good discount. Still, the video card alone is around US$1600.

We used to run HP Unix boxes for CAD work, but converted over to NT boxes a few years ago. I do miss being able to run multiple apps at the same time without a big slow-down, especially when dealing with large drawing update.

 

[Tea]

So .....

Have you recruited this guy for the Storage Forum folding team?

 

[The JoJo]

So .....

Have you recruited this guy for the Storage Forum folding team?

LOL!

Good one... :mrgrn:

 

[time]

Well, I now have a better idea of the spec here. It turns out the monster is actually a customized IBM IntelliStation Z Pro. Note the price tag even four months later. Mind you, this doesn't include the Firewire-B PCI-X card or the DVD recorder, but you get the gist ...

Summary:

Twin Xeon 3.0GHz/1MB cache (and ducted cooling to suit)
3GB ECC DDR-SDRAM
1x AGP Pro slot
1x PCI slot
4x PCI-X slots
Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet
IEEE-1394 FireWire
Dual channel LSI Ultra320 SCSI
IBM SvrRAID-4Lx Ultra 160 SCSI RAID PCI-X controller
Unknown FireWire-B PCI-X controller
1x 36.4GB 10000rpm SCSI HDD
2x 73.4GB 15000rpm SCSI HDD
1x CD-RW drive
1x DVD-RW drive
1x FDD
nVidia Quadro FX3000
IBM 20.1" LCD monitor
Spaceball 3D Input Device (just a guess - I suspect the actual device is way more expensive than the paltry AU$739 for this).

 

[time]

I don't want to comment on this as a value for money proposition, but you may notice that there are actually three SCSI controllers in this box ...

For reasons best known to the people who set it up, the three Ultra320 drives are actually connected to the Ultra160 single channel controller card - maybe it has more cache or something? On this single channel model, this renders the external SCSI port unusable.

In turn, life gets interesting when you try to connect your somewhat expensive SCSI 35mm film scanner. In a breathtaking piece of bad design, the motherboard's solitary PCI slot is adjacent to the AGP Pro slot where the huge Quadro card squats, rendering it unusable. The only option is a PCI-X SCSI adaptor, and especially in this country, these tend to be exotic RAID controllers rather than cheap scanner interfaces.

Which brings me back to the three SCSI controllers. The twin LSI units are just sitting there dejectedly while the IBM card takes all the glory. One non-functioning external port and two unused internal ports - can anyone spot the mistake?

 

[time]

After I'd pointed this out to the bemused owner, we noticed that the Windows desktop had frozen. All he had done was remove the side panel.

So he powered it down (IBM doesn't provide either a reset switch or a master power switch) and then back on.

Uh oh.

No video.

No beeps.

We're talking cemetery city, folks. Late on a Friday afternoon. With work promised to a new client over the weekend.

I swear I didn't touch it. Honest.

Surely AU$20000 computers are more reliable? oke:

 

[Tea]

That is awesome, Time.

Err .. and so far as reliability and on-site support and stuff goes, for AU$20,000, I'll promise to ... er .... well, almost anything!

 

[Bozo]

Sounds like the IBMs we used to have. When you consider the cost and the spec sheet, they should be a real ball of fire. But the setup renders them as fast as molasses in the acrtic.
Our Netfinity servers had multiple SCSI controllers, but everything was conected to one, the IBM model. The Adaptec controllers were used as dividers in the PCI slots. :roll:

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Buck]

Time, you must have that Midas touch in reverse. I know database admins that can logically put together a better system then that, especially the disk sub-system.

Are there any ATA devices in the system? Did the data cables get removed and then plugged in backwards accidentally?

 

[time]

ATA devices? In this system? You're kidding - right?

We checked all the data connectors and reseated the IBM SvrRAID-4Lx, as well as a few other things. No joy whatsoever.

BTW, I got the owner to do all this. I literally was not prepared to touch it. Put yourself in my position - I turn up and hold forth about SCSI interfaces etc, he pops the hood so I can have a look, and his Mercedes SL-500 - oops, I mean IBM IntelliStation Z Pro - dies.

 

[Buck]

ATA devices? In this system? You're kidding - right?

Nope. I 've seen plenty of Compaq servers with ATA interface connectors for items such as CD-ROMs.

 

[time]

Well, five days after the fault was logged (including a weekend), an IBM tech finally turned up with a bag of Very Expensive Parts.

Merc is going to love this.

As I suspected, nVidia's finest had morphed into a dead parrot. The world is officially down one Quadro 3000.

I can't say I'm impressed with IBM's "next day onsite service" here. The 3000 is now standard equipment on Intellistation Pros, so you would think they could have scraped together some parts and urgency for such a loyal customer. :-?

He has probably lost a contract over this, so I'm thinking of suggesting he invest in a backup PC - I thought perhaps an Athlon 64 3000 on a Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP with 1GB RAM, Quadro 1000 and a Raptor 72GB?

 

[Mercutio]

Actually I don't think that one's too funny.
Much as I hate nVidia for their cheapass, get-way-too-hot, poor image quality, bad memory-having, cause more problems than they solve GeForce cards...

Anyway, unless I saw Quadro-type cards failing all over the place like I have pretty much consistently seen with TNT and GeForce-class hardware, I'd be inclined to think it's just bad luck.

The guy (over)paid for something that should've been a godly computer. He didn't get it. That's a shame.

 

[blakerwry]

He has probably lost a contract over this, so I'm thinking of suggesting he invest in a backup PC - I thought perhaps an Athlon 64 3000 on a Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP with 1GB RAM, Quadro 1000 and a Raptor 72GB?

careful, you might make the backup machine faster than the primary one... for a whole lot less....

 

[freeborn]

Can SolidWorks even take advantage of 3 GB of RAM in a Windows environment? Also, can it take advantage of dual CPU's? Some programs don't directly make use of the second CPU.

The typical CAD workstations we buy from Dell (Precision 650) run around US$4K or so. Single Xeon chip with a Wildcat and 1 GB RAM, with a 36 GB 10K SCSI drive. SolidWorks would run just fine and dandy on such a system. Even if you went with a Quadro, the price shouldn't go beyond that. If anything, it'd probably be cheaper.

Now, if only *I* can persuade my management to let me upgrade from my P3-800 rig. I'd have to quit and get rehired to do that, though, as we are not allowed to upgrade our systems, per official policy. Absolutely asinine... :evil:

Ouch, our IT department declares ANY system over 3 years old obsolete so we are guaranteed an upgrade at least every 3 years. I'm not an engineer so I got a stripped down Dell Dimension P4 2.4GHz. Luckily I order all the systems / parts for my lab so that Dimension is now sporting a 3.2GHz processor(NewEgg), 2G of RAM (Crucial), upgraded dual head workstation class graphics (from a new IBM Intellistation), improved audio(some Gateway bundle), a DVD burner (NewEgg), and an 18" Dell flatpanel bundled with a Dell Poweredge I needed for PCI-X card support . Of course the poor donor systems are a bit lighter than they were to begin with but they still run my test tools just fine.

Free

 

[Santilli]

Can SolidWorks even take advantage of 3 GB of RAM in a Windows environment? Also, can it take advantage of dual CPU's? Some programs don't directly make use of the second CPU.

The typical CAD workstations we buy from Dell (Precision 650) run around US$4K or so. Single Xeon chip with a Wildcat and 1 GB RAM, with a 36 GB 10K SCSI drive. SolidWorks would run just fine and dandy on such a system. Even if you went with a Quadro, the price shouldn't go beyond that. If anything, it'd probably be cheaper.

Now, if only *I* can persuade my management to let me upgrade from my P3-800 rig. I'd have to quit and get rehired to do that, though, as we are not allowed to upgrade our systems, per official policy. Absolutely asinine... :evil:

Ouch, our IT department declares ANY system over 3 years old obsolete so we are guaranteed an upgrade at least every 3 years. I'm not an engineer so I got a stripped down Dell Dimension P4 2.4GHz. Luckily I order all the systems / parts for my lab so that Dimension is now sporting a 3.2GHz processor(NewEgg), 2G of RAM (Crucial), upgraded dual head workstation class graphics (from a new IBM Intellistation), improved audio(some Gateway bundle), a DVD burner (NewEgg), and an 18" Dell flatpanel bundled with a Dell Poweredge I needed for PCI-X card support . Of course the poor donor systems are a bit lighter than they were to begin with but they still run my test tools just fine.

Free

Since they are using everyone elses components, I wonder what motherboard they use?

s

 

[Mickey]

Ouch, our IT department declares ANY system over 3 years old obsolete so we are guaranteed an upgrade at least every 3 years. I'm not an engineer so I got a stripped down Dell Dimension P4 2.4GHz.

The rest of the company gets regular upgrades. CAD boxes are somehow exempt from the standard policy. Maybe if I got laid off and then rehired?

Not sure which specific mobo Dell uses in the boxes we buy. I know it has onboard U160 controllers and a AGP Pro 50 slot. The latest ones are using DDR RAM. No SATA onboard, AFAIK, so not sure which chipset that'd be.