Buy new, upgrade, or use my current PC as a doorstop?

[ctwith3]

I am a Computer Technology Teacher , and I teach CAD, Visual Basic, basic computer graphics (Photoshop) and video editing (Pinnacle Studio), as well as MS Office 2007. I love teaching CAD and am trying to learn as much as I can with what little spare time I have so that I can expand my course offerings from just teaching Revit (as a CAD I course), to include Inventor (as a CAD II course).

I am getting ready to load Revit Architecture 2011, 3ds Max 2011, and Inventor 2011 on my Dell XPS 600 with a 1033 FSB, 8GB RAM (8GB of is the max), 2 Seagate 7200 RPM Barracuda drives each w/ 32 MB Cache striped for RAID 1. The computer has a NVIDIA NForce4 motherboard (which NVIDIA no longer supports) but for which Windows 7 has drivers. I am running my system using Windows 7 Professional x64. I purchased the computer in January 2006.

Yes I know as a computer professional that 4 years is a long time to keep using a computer for someone like myself, and I realize that my computer is old, but I have 3 kids, a dog, a house, 2 car, etc. Last year I extended my XPS 600's usefulness by updating my cheap video card to a NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800, and increased the memory from 4GB to 8GB and upgraded to a HP w2207 monitor.

The upgrades have helped, and the student Revit files I review, as well as the examples I create, range from 10 to 25GB, but a I am having a few minor issues with my XPS- a memory dump every now and then (I have wiped my hard drive and reinstalled only the essential programs, and then the semi-essential programs 1 at a time), and slow performance in Photoshop. Studio, and of course Revit 2010 (waiting for a view to regenerate can be annoying, let alone rendering).

Now that Revit makes use of more cores, and you can float the toolbar on a separate screen, do I upgrade to a solid state hard drive for my programs and use my current drives for content, or use my PC as a doorstop? (actually I'd let the kids have it)

If I buy a new computer, would you recommend an iCore processor in a higher-end desktop. or move to a workstation? What do you all think about a notebook workstation with a dock and 2 monitors- 1 large (22" - 24") main monitor + 1 19" monitor for floating the Revit toolbar and multitasking.

I appreciate your advice, and I recognize that I am not an Architect or Engineer like yourselves, but I would like to someday be able to design on the side for extra money if I become talented enough.

Your help is greatly appreciated, and I apologize for being long-winded, but I wanted to provide as much information as possible so that you wouldn't have to ask for more.

[iru69]

It's a doorstop. You need to buy a new (or newer refurbished) computer. It's unfortunate that you sunk any more money into it just a year ago - for just a few hundred dollars more, you probably could have bought a faster new computer with the money you spent to upgrade your old one. Getting an SDD (or any expensive hard drive setup) is the least of your concerns.

You do not need a "workstation" (which I think you're implying a Xeon CPU and Quadro or FirePro graphics card)... a decent "gaming" computer will do well very well (e.g. i5/i7 with a decent GeForce/Radeon graphics card). BTW, you do not work on 10 - 25GB Revit models - that would be 10 - 25MB Revit models, which are very small.

If you get a desktop, the second display should be considered a luxury (considering your budget constraints). With a laptop, I personally find even a 17" frustrating to use for extended periods of time - I'd suggest hooking it up to a larger display when you can.

A laptop is a nice way to go if you really need/want the portability, but you're probably spending 25%-50% more for the same performance as you'd get in a desktop. I'm sure a few of us would be happy to give recommendations for a new system, but you have to give some idea of what your budget is (and throw out some ideas of what brands and models you're looking at if you have some preferences).

[ctwith3]

Okay, duh! 10-25MB is right, I guess I should have proof read my post, but as usual I was doing 3 things at once when writing the post, which is an occupational hazzard- like providiing additional individualized instruction to 5 students while keeping the other 20 on task. I just rendered a Contemporary house at 300DPI to display in my classroom for inspiration and its uncompressed image size was almost 100 MB. My students don't render often so either do I, and the files we have been saving are in the 10-25 MB range since we strip out everything that can go to conserve storage space on the Optiplexs in my classroom.

The HDDs were bought 3 few years ago, and the additional memory 1-2 years ago, but I was thinking of getting he cheapest video card possible and sticking it in this machine and putting the FX 1800 in a new PC when i make the jump. My 12 year is now learning Revit, so the money spent on upgrading this PC a little won't go to waste.

I was looking at the Dell XPS Studio 9100 with the i7 processor. 6 cores would be good for supplying the illusion that it would extend time between new computer purchases, and yeah, I know solid state is a little overkill, but I like everything to be fast- I just hate waiting for my computer to do anything, but the age of instntanious has yet to arrive. Which processor is the big decision. A minimum of 8GB of RAM and as few DIMMs as possible for keeping slots open to add more RAM in the future is obvious.

Which processor?

[iru69]

Which processor?

Get the fastest one you can afford.

If you're going to get the 980X, then the XPS9100 is obviously the way to go. If not, then personally I'd be looking at the XPS8100 which is a better value because it uses the i7-8xx series.

Best of luck to you!

[btrusty]

as you have already upgraded the ram and video card yourself, you seem to be competent with computer upgrades

if you are not afraid to build and troubleshoot the machine yourself
you can save HUNDREDS by building it rather than getting it from dell

I have spec'd out similarly spec'd machines between dell and just buying the parts from newegg and the cost difference was $2600 vs $1500; now the dell did come with a 3 years onsite warranty - but that doesnt justify the $1100 price difference, their 3 year warranties are typically $120+ a year, or about $340 or this type system (so thats a $760 savings if you consider the warranty difference)

i am still awaiting a complete "apples to apples" from my company's dell rep.

this comparison is a same major components configuration from the dell website (same cpu, similar mobo, ram size, same video card model/ram, hd size, win7 x64 pro, office sbe 2010)