Buying Recommendation For Pc Desktop Computer For Chief Architect?


orencons
 Share

Recommended Posts

The struggle is that Blazing Fast is a relative term when it comes to computers, it's also very challenging when a budget is involved. From the posters in this forum it is apparent that there is a wide range of users, those running smaller models such as myself for kitchen/interior design all the way up to massive models for multi-storey construction and publication quality renderings. As such, the type of system needed for the former is drastically different than what is required for the latter. It can easily be the difference between spending $1,500 or $6,000 or more per system. Users need to evaluate the type of software they use, how extensively they use it and the features they use. This needs to be taken into account along with your workflow style and set-up. Some users work on a massive Chief model, Raytrace in the background, edit high res pics in Photoshop, video edit, browse and more all at the same time. If this is your workflow situation then the reality is you are most likely into the higher $ range. For myself, I run smaller models on Chief, a raytrace in the background, MS Office and browser with the odd photo editing here and there. For this, my recently purchased $1,500 Alienware R3, Skylake 6700K, 8GB Ram and Navida GTX 745 runs everything without any sense of lag whatsoever. Given this, the only possible real gain that I could realize by spending more money would be faster Ratraces, and in order to significantly reduce these times I would have to scale up to a dual Zeon configuration which would easily cost an addition $2,000 or more than my current system.

 

Graham

we are looking to buy a desktop and cut down on some lag time on Chief x8, our files are 370mb. The lag for erasing a measurement line takes 5 seconds. Although this thread makes clear that we don't know why. rendering works just fine. we have a newish laptop that is an i7 processor. we pulled up the task manager like you said, we found it said "Chief not responding" when we erased a measurement. Any thoughts??

 

Also do you mind sharing more detail of your purchase? you seem like a similar user, and did you consider:

if you want to buy an SSD hard drive?

if you will expand your hard drive some day? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read an article recently about the next round of GPUs to be released by nvidia some time in 2016. They said they were 10 times as efficient as the current round of processors. Depending on your circumstances, you may want to consider these GPUs rather than the current crop.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

we are looking to buy a desktop and cut down on some lag time on Chief x8, our files are 370mb. The lag for erasing a measurement line takes 5 seconds. Although this thread makes clear that we don't know why. rendering works just fine. we have a newish laptop that is an i7 processor. we pulled up the task manager like you said, we found it said "Chief not responding" when we erased a measurement. Any thoughts??

 

Also do you mind sharing more detail of your purchase? you seem like a similar user, and did you consider:

if you want to buy an SSD hard drive?

if you will expand your hard drive some day? 

 

The "not responding" means that the program is either tied up processing something or is waiting for something it needs to finish a process. While in this state the program can't execute the next command. To erase a measurement line are you using the delete command or the Undo. Delete should be much faster than an Undo.

 

Thought this recent purchase was a pretty good deal. Had been watching the Dell site for a few months as they are always changing pricing and configurations. All of a sudden a configuration with the overclocked Skylake I7 6700k showed up for $1299 before tax. Did not take the SSD upgrade as they wanted about $450 for it. Although the SSD is a new  PCLe NVMe which are significantly faster than other SSD's I was not willing to pay about 35% of the system price for it. Will wait for prices to drop and then get one. The Alienware R3 is really compact and very quiet, about 1/3rd the size of my former Dell workstation.

 

Graham

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I read an article recently about the next round of GPUs to be released by nvidia some time in 2016. They said they were 10 times as efficient as the current round of processors. Depending on your circumstances, you may want to consider these GPUs rather than the current crop.

Hey Rod,

 

Do you have reference that you might share to that information?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is not the article I mentioned earlier, but it is talking about the new technologies that will be released later this year.

 

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-gp100-pascal-zauba/

 

I have not heard anything yet regarding the price point.

 

Interesting, but they also indicate that these new chips currently cost 10 times that of their current top of the line consumer GPU. Aimed at high end server market.

 

Graham

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Possibly more relevant is that companies such as Intel have recently indicated that they will be focusing their efforts on making their processors more efficient versus faster. Seems that the changing market towards mobile computing is driving this. The impression I get is that they feel the current consumer market does not really need significantly faster processors and that their current technology is reaching it's limits concerning raw speed. It's likely that in the next few years the only option if one needs significantly more horsepower will be a dual Xeon configuration.

 

Graham

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The "not responding" means that the program is either tied up processing something or is waiting for something it needs to finish a process. While in this state the program can't execute the next command. To erase a measurement line are you using the delete command or the Undo. Delete should be much faster than an Undo.

 

Thought this recent purchase was a pretty good deal. Had been watching the Dell site for a few months as they are always changing pricing and configurations. All of a sudden a configuration with the overclocked Skylake I7 6700k showed up for $1299 before tax. Did not take the SSD upgrade as they wanted about $450 for it. Although the SSD is a new  PCLe NVMe which are significantly faster than other SSD's I was not willing to pay about 35% of the system price for it. Will wait for prices to drop and then get one. The Alienware R3 is really compact and very quiet, about 1/3rd the size of my former Dell workstation.

 

Graham

Graham,

 

Your insight is very helpful! Your needs seem similar to ours, we use Chief for a few house renovations and a few house designs. I think we may buy a similar computer as you from Alienware R3.

 

There is one on sale for presidents day:

http://deals.dell.com/productdetail/dpcwxy03hpres

 

what do you all think?

Would you upgrade anything here for starters?

 

Do you think the i7 6700k is very important, I see the current sale is for a i7 6700, no overclocking from the box?

 

Emily

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Possibly more relevant is that companies such as Intel have recently indicated that they will be focusing their efforts on making their processors more efficient versus faster. Seems that the changing market towards mobile computing is driving this. The impression I get is that they feel the current consumer market does not really need significantly faster processors and that their current technology is reaching it's limits concerning raw speed. It's likely that in the next few years the only option if one needs significantly more horsepower will be a dual Xeon configuration.

 

Graham

Valuable theory Graham but I haven't seen any real evidence of Intel producing a new processor generation that doesn't include more speed as well as more efficiency, have you? Also there is no doubt that the current (general) consumer market doesn't need any faster processors, that's been true for many years. What's also been true for many years is that the specialty consumers like gamers and video/graphics editors have driven the speed of CPU's and GPU's to their current levels and will continue to do so IMO. Efficiency yes, but speed too IMO.

 

As 'virtual' reality creeps closer to reality I think the need for more efficient and faster processors will remain a priority. Just sayin' and I also think there will be some break throughs that we haven't heard of quite yet that will turn this whole computing world on its head and I think VR will be one of those.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Valuable theory Graham but I haven't seen any real evidence of Intel producing a new processor generation that doesn't include more speed as well as more efficiency, have you? Also there is no doubt that the current (general) consumer market doesn't need any faster processors, that's been true for many years. What's also been true for many years is that the specialty consumers like gamers and video/graphics editors have driven the speed of CPU's and GPU's to their current levels and will continue to do so IMO. Efficiency yes, but speed too IMO.

 

As 'virtual' reality creeps closer to reality I think the need for more efficient and faster processors will remain a priority. Just sayin' and I also think there will be some break throughs that we haven't heard of quite yet that will turn this whole computing world on its head and I think VR will be one of those.

 

Larry, if you look at the "top end" 4th, 5th and now 6th generation I7 consumer desktop CPU's from intel there is not really a huge performance difference. Yes there are improvements but it's not like the 6th gen's are two or three times faster than the 4th or 5th gens. Next leap will be in hybrid photon architecture and then quantum. When the latter arrives we will all be out of a job!

 

VR is certainly going to push things along, more so in the GPU arena, same goes for 4K and higher resolution monitors. Hopefully this will be more successful than 3D TV.

 

The reality is that the "desktop" CPU market is in decline and has been for a number of years. The new growth markets are the likes of mobile devices (phones, tablets, watches fanless notebooks), smart autonomous cars, appliances and the likes. Most of these applications don't really require more processing power as such, they need to be highly energy efficient, self cooling and small. This is also trending into the server market where energy costs are a data centers greatest cost when coupled with their cooling costs.

 

Graham

 

Graham

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No doubt CPU chips can't keep the initial pace of Moore's law forever but I think the performance of Intel's processors isn't slowing down because of an intentional marketing strategy or a shift in focus to mobile devices but more a factor of transistor saturation and the natural, predicted, slowing of Moore's law.

 

Desktop CPU's have of course been in decline for number of years and the mobile market is where the growth is but that's pretty common knowledge isn't it?

 

And even though mobile devices don't need as much processing power the need for powerful desktops still exists and gamers and high end computer users, like ourselves IMO, still need speed in both CPU and GPU. The speed increases will come slower (until some breakthrough technology) from here on out no doubt but I don't think Intel, or AMD, has abandoned that speed quest simply because mobile device are so ubiquitous and require less processor power.

 

I hadn't heard of hybrid photon or quantum architectures. Are those for real or something along the lines of a holo-deck?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Larry - They already have a quantum computer at MIT, this technology is being worked on by a number of companies and institutions. They make Big Blue look like a snail. I believe it was IBM that just announced a hybrid Photon processor, this is where photons are being used to replace traditional electron based circuits.

 

http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2015/12/23/breakthrough-light-based-microprocessor-chip-could-lead-more-powerful-computers​

 

http://www.dwavesys.com/quantum-computing

 

With this kind of technology a holo-deck could be here sooner than we think. Todays VR with headsets might not have very long before it becomes obsolete.

 

Graham

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the Alienware recommendation.

 

I just purchased a new X51 system through the alienware website and wanted to let you know they have a good deal on at the moment. It's $200 off then another $100 coupon code discount making my purchase $1538 before taxes.

 

I upgraded the one they show for $1299 and it has an i7 processor with hyper-threading. I upgraded the hard drive, and then got the pro version of windows 10 and the premium support.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs compared to the 12 year old dell running XPS that I am currently using. Oh, and now I will be able to actually run the latest version of Chief Architect.

 

I just got an Alienware X51 with:

 

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-6700 (8MB Cache, up to 4.0GHz with Turbo Boost Technology) Includes Hyper-Threading,

Memory: 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 at 2133MHz,

Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960 with 2GB GDDR5,

Hard Drive: 256GB PCIe SSD (Boot) + 2TB (64MB Cache) 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s,

Operating system: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit English,

Optical Drive: Slot-Loading Dual Layer DVD Burner (9.5mm),

Wireless: Intel® 3165 1x1 802.11ac Wi-Fi Wireless LAN and Bluetooth,

Support: 1 Year Premium Support

 

This i7 processor has hyper-threading which was explained like this:

 

Hyper-Threading Technology is a form of simultaneous multi-threading technology introduced by Intel. Architecturally, a processor with Hyper-Threading Technology consists of two logical processors per core, each of which has its own processor architectural state."


   

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tough to beat that configuration for that price. Think you will be very pleased. Yes the hyperthreading is great, 4 physical cores with 2 threads each provides 8 logical cores. Chief recognizes this when Raytracing so you should see a solid improvement on your through-put times. That PCLe SSD is really fast, up in the top 2 or 3 in the market.

 

Graham

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

So all the practical advise on this forum about sizing to your needs and value has lead us back to buy a more reasonably priced desktop for our residential remodeling drafting needs, which for the most part are no larger than single family house designs. (Although finger's crossed we are designing a small development.)

 

We bought 

Alienware X51 R3

Intel® Core i7-6700 Processor (8MB Cache, up to 4.0GHz with Turbo Boost Technology)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 with 2GB

16GB Ram

2TB 7200 rpm Hard Drive

 

for the lovely price of $1,295.99. 

 

Thanks for helping us shop smarter. It isn't the top of the line, but it is much smoother than what we had!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with Perry, pretty good choice for the $$. Those of us that seem to live on the computer tend to over-spend. The Puget Spirit desktop rig in my signature was about $2600 but it is ridiculously fast.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice to have a new computer and your system(s) look really good for the money. Also very nice to be able to build your own to save a few $$.

 

I have yet to meet a computer that is truly fast enough and every dollar spent wisely pays off in great time savings over the long haul IMO.

 

Not ready to upgrade yet but will as soon as they make a single processor that will out run the dual Xeons in my current system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share