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Thread: Workstation vs. desktop motherboard

  1. #1
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    Default Workstation vs. desktop motherboard

    Has anyone seen benchmark results between top-tier desktop motherboards and specialized workstation motherboards? There are a number of highly rated multi socket workstation boards available, but since AutoCad can't utilize multiple cores, it seems to me the best bet is to use the hottest desktop board you can get your hands on and save several hundred in the process. Thoughts or experience?

    Usage would be ACAD MEP and Revit MEP, btw.

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    Default Re: Workstation vs. desktop motherboard

    No. I wish 'the industry' would take questions about hardware a bit more seriously. Does it run faster on Windows 7? with more RAM? with high end processors? on a high end graphics card? I have been in this business for many years and I find solid answers almost totally absent.

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    Default Re: Workstation vs. desktop motherboard

    The sad reality is that "Your Milage May Vary". Certainly it's possible to benchmark individual components, but it's not possible to provide a realistic assessment of what the best hardware will be for you. Your environment is different than anyone else's, your IT group has different requirements, different standard software, antivirus, office suites, email etc etc etc.

    PCs are only one element in a complex system, and the rest of the sytem will have a huge impact on the perceived performance you will experience.

    that said, the basic rule of thumb for CAD stations hasn't changed in twenty years -- faster horses, bigger disks, better displays, more RAM.

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    Administrator Ed Jobe's Avatar
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    Default Re: Workstation vs. desktop motherboard

    If you're using mep in 3D, the biggest performance difference you'll see is hardware graphics acceleration vs software. In addition to what cadtag said, get a decent graphics card that is supported by adesk so that you can enable hardware acceleration.
    C:> ED WORKING....

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    Default Re: Workstation vs. desktop motherboard

    Quote Originally Posted by cadtag View Post
    The sad reality is that "Your Milage May Vary". Certainly it's possible to benchmark individual components, but it's not possible to provide a realistic assessment of what the best hardware will be for you. Your environment is different than anyone else's, your IT group has different requirements, different standard software, antivirus, office suites, email etc etc etc.

    PCs are only one element in a complex system, and the rest of the sytem will have a huge impact on the perceived performance you will experience.

    that said, the basic rule of thumb for CAD stations hasn't changed in twenty years -- faster horses, bigger disks, better displays, more RAM.
    Well said.

    From my own research, the "workstation" class motherboards are geared towards users who need to work with datasets which dwarf those involved with CAD work, such as beginning-of-the-universe type simulations. The applications are often custom built, frequently use databases to house the data, and gain the most benefit from multi-threaded application design. For the vast majority of desktop software the gains of such set-ups are virtually unnoticeable *except* to the budget.

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    Default Re: Workstation vs. desktop motherboard

    Quote Originally Posted by michaelh.125254 View Post
    Has anyone seen benchmark results between top-tier desktop motherboards and specialized workstation motherboards? There are a number of highly rated multi socket workstation boards available, but since AutoCad can't utilize multiple cores, it seems to me the best bet is to use the hottest desktop board you can get your hands on and save several hundred in the process. Thoughts or experience?

    Usage would be ACAD MEP and Revit MEP, btw.
    I am not sure if there are "benchmarks" per se when it comes to motherboards (correct me if I'm wrong). You really only need a server board if you plan on having multiple CPUs. Unless you are doing renderings which obviously requires a lot of horsepower, I wouldn't waste my money. The way I pick a motherboard is by first deciding what kind of processor I am going to be using. That will start to limit the possibilites. Then I look at say newegg.com and see how other people are rating the motherboards. Then go from there.

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    Default Re: Workstation vs. desktop motherboard

    I even buy workstations for home and friends & family. IMO there built better stronger with higer quality parts and built to last the cases are metal not plastic and even the CPU like Xeon vs i7 the gaming speed demon. W3520 vs i7 920 same spec's and chipset X58
    and socket LGA 1366. W3520 has ECC and overclocks better. on less voltage if thats your thing? the after market MOBO's the Workstation MOBO by Asus or supercomputer don't even support EEC. but the Asrock supercomputer does and there extreme3 (usb 3 &sata 6) does. and some of DFI lan party boards and supermiro no bells and whistles.

    P.S the W in W3500 series stands for workstation. not for servers. as many server users
    have complained about. hope this helps I'd always get a workstation! just got a T3500
    with the W3520 & DDR3 1333 ram & FX card.

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    Default Re: Workstation vs. desktop motherboard

    Quote Originally Posted by johnnycad View Post
    I even buy workstations for home and friends & family. IMO there built better stronger with higer quality parts and built to last the cases are metal not plastic and even the CPU like Xeon vs i7 the gaming speed demon.
    Are you talking about Dell computers? I know that with custom builds, there is no problem with lower quality parts.

    It comes down to price/performance. I have not noticed any impact from using ECC RAM in years. These days, a lot of RAM is designed with heavy overclocking in mind, and if you are running it at the stock speed (which is typical of most businesses, where overclocking is usually avoided), it tends to be incredibly reliable, and there's no need for ECC.

    For a couple of years, there was simply no way to approach the price/performance of the Core i7 920. That's been changing lately, and some of the Xeons are hitting very attractive price/performance points. Typically, when compared to the Core iX series, the Xeons have higher bus speeds, which can enable them to outperform a similar-speed Core iX. But the Xeons also cost more.

    It's actually getting pretty tricky to identify the best price/performance. But part of that is because there are so many high-performance, low-cost options right now. We can now spend about $1500 and get a decent CAD machine; just a few years ago, it was more like $3000 minimum.

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    Default Re: Workstation vs. desktop motherboard

    Agreed. Over the past ten years (arguably even the past five) there have been increases in manufacturing reliability to the point where custom-builds are pretty much the same as pre-built offerings in cost and reliability, but minus the support program.

    The only difference I've seen between metal and plastic cases are a) plastic ones typically don't resonate with the fans and b) they are lighter to move around the office.

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