Re: autocad system options

Quite a few of the newest releases of CAD programs are getting multithreaded and in that case it definitely pays going with the dual core processors. Coincidentally, the 820D is one of the cheaper offerings by Intel at the moment so it shouldn't be more expensive than e.g. a P4 530. A Celeron won't do you any good - just for the record.

If the applications are real-time rendering, then it definitely pays to go with any of the Quadros, even the lower end Quadros will essentially beat the crap out of any super high-end consumer card but then it also depends on the model size that you are running. If the models are greater than whatever fits into the frame buffer, then it is not worth it because the cards will have to shuffle back and forth with system memory.

Those are a bunch of the considerations...

One other consideration is that I just fried my motherboard on my Shuttle ST61G4 system that I am using for office stuff and I transplanted the HDD into a nominally identical Dell system...

All I can say is that I started practicing rolling my toe nails in between ... in other words, it is simply beyond me how much of a performance difference there can be between two systems that have the same specs or, not to sound redundant, how much Dell can speck down systems so that they literally crawl compared to even a little XPC..

I finally got a new motherboard so I am happy again