What's needed for Auto-CAD to run nicely?

[Josh Weston]

So, my cousin wants me to build him a new pc to replace his broken laptop. He won't be playing games on it, he prefers consoles, and it shall be mostly for browsing the internet.

However, he's a mechanical engineer and wishes to use Auto-CAD software on his pc - an area of software I know nothing about.

So, for the software to run quickly, what's best?

Is a processor with many cores/threads preferred? Shall there need to be an abundance of RAM? Are graphics cards, or the Tesla kind of things, needed?

Thankyou.

 

[kryten_1st]

Have a look here for Autocad 2013 system requirments.

http://usa.autodesk.com/autocad/system-requirements/

 

[dugdiamond]

autoCAD does NOT use threads

autoCAD is not for rendering or animating ANYTHING 3D

autoCAD is primarly a design application for 2D and 3D 'plans'. the plans, in DGW/DXF format, are then exported into OTHER apps, where a beefy PC would come to hand.

the most important bit of kit a CAD user needs is: a hi-res IPS monitor, a drawing tablet and a decent mouse (or trackball).

the 32bit and 64bit versions are identicle in performance.

 

[Pr3d4t0r]

hmmm... that honestly depends on the package, there are many autocads designed for each speficic reason.

the most important thing is a beast of a cpu and lots of fast ram. on top of that a very good high spec monitor and a good set of mouse and keyboard

it doesnt use much graphics so even IGP would handle it.

it will often require alot of disc space so a ssd boot and to keep the package in. and a tb or 2 for project storage etc.

 

[dugdiamond]

hmmm... that honestly depends on the package, there are many autocads designed for each speficic reason.

the most important thing is a beast of a cpu and lots of fast ram. on top of that a very good high spec monitor and a good set of mouse and keyboard

it doesnt use much graphics so even IGP would handle it.

it will often require alot of disc space so a ssd boot and to keep the package in. and a tb or 2 for project storage etc.

you could not be more wrong!

autodesk is the company that make various modelling packages.

autocad, 3dsmax, maya, mudbox, inventor, etc...... are packages made by autoDESK

i know this, as I am a CAD assessor by trade, and also a beta tester for autodesk

 

[Josh Weston]

Well, he seems to mostly just use the 2D plans, and all they do at work is print the plans off straight from AutoCAD itself.

So...would an i3 do? Or am I missing something here?

 

[dugdiamond]

yep - that would be fine

remember, as i said earlier... a CAD artist needs to see clear lines, and will be staring at a screen for a long time.... so the monitor is the most important bit.

 

[Josh Weston]

Right you are.

Thankyou very much, sir.

 

[DanielSK]

I work with perspective and 3d animation, and I use mainly Autocad and 3DsMax, and Dugdiamond couldn't be more right, probably he has more knowledge than me, but I really don't see any diference in performance across any cpu, in my opinion the 3 most important things are a good mouse (I don't use drawing tablets or anything like that but he can use so think about it) a good monitor, some GPU (I had problem with the amd 6970 with strange lines, so nowadays I always go with Nvidia for my Workstations, specially know that I have money to buy quadros) if he can afford SSDs it will make his life much faster. To resume, I'm repeating Mr. Moderator