Cadalyst - November/December 2008 - (Page 28)

cadalystlabsreview headset jacks. The system was very quiet overall, with the only significant noise coming from the optical drive when reading a disc. Vista Business x64 with Service Pack 1 was preinstalled on the system, as were NVIDIA drivers v7.15.11.6255 (dated August 4, 2007) to support the NVIDIA Quadro FX 570 graphics card. The FX 570 is a relatively low-cost option in the Quadro family that provides good performance in situations that don’t require the utmost in graphics performance. Needless to say, I was very interested to see how such a low-cost system would perform on the benchmark tests. Quite well, I soon learned. At $1,429, the SYS Performance Pi720 is the First, I ran the new version of least-expensive workstation in this roundup, but don’t let its price tag fool you. the Cadalyst C2008 benchmark under the 64-bit version of AutoCAD 2009. With the native Direct3D drivers in AutoCAD 2009, the Pi720 produced a C2008 total index score of 206. Using the NVIDIA Performance driver produced a C2008 total index score of 287. For the final tests with AutoCAD 2009 x64, I ran two concurrent sessions of AutoCAD with each running a separate copy of the C2008 benchmark. The combined C2008 total index score was 392, completing in 32 minutes. Next I ran the MAXBench 4 benchmark under the 64-bit version of Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009. With 3ds Max’s native OpenGL drivers, the P9720 produced an averaged high/low score of 50.07. Switching to its native Direct3D drivers yielded an averaged high/low score of 65.13. As with the SYS DesignPro QN6200 in this roundup, at the time of testing I were unable to obtain NVIDIA accelerated drivers for the x64 versions of Autodesk 3ds Design 2009, so only two scores appear in this section. The final benchmark was the 64-bit version of the SPECviewperf 10 benchmark, which produced the following scores: 16.86 for 3dsmax-04, 38.31 for catia-02, 21.86 for ensight-03, 62.87 for maya-02, 30.31 for proe-04, 45.08 for sw-01, 8.91 for tcvis-01, and 8.72 for ugnx-01. The SYS Pi720 comes with a one-year warranty on parts, labor, and on-site service. There’s much to like about this system, which delivers 64-bit workstation 28 power in a compact package for a very attractive, budgetfriendly price. ProMagix W160 High Performance Workstation PC For this roundup, Velocity Micro submitted its ProMagix W160 High Performance Workstation PC. The W160 is built around an ASUS P5N-D motherboard with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 dual-core processor. The E8500 chip is nominally rated at 3.16 GHz, but in this instance Velocity Micro had overclocked it to 3.8 GHz. The ASUS motherboard used the NVIDIA 750i chipset and featured a front-side bus speed of 1,333 MHz. The ProMagix W160 included 4 GB of Corsair XMS2 DDR2800 RAM, although the system can handle 8 GB when fully loaded. The W160 included two hard drives — a Western Digital Raptor 10,000-rpm SATA 150-GB drive and a Hitachi 7,200-rpm 250-GB SATA drive. A Lite-On combination DVD/CD drive and a 52-in-1 Velocity Micro’s ProMagix W160 sports a media reader clear window to show off the blue lights that completed the illuminate internal components. drive inventory. Velocity Micro’s ProMagix W160 was housed in a 17.75” x 8.27” x 19.25” (H x W x D) brushed metal case with a large, clear window on the removable side panel, no doubt to show off the numerous blue lights shining on the internal components of the system. The system had a total of six USB 2.0 ports — four in the rear and two in front — and a single FireWire connector, also in the front. It had a 550-W power supply and a total of seven drive bays — four of which were externally accessible. This workstation was not the quietest I’ve heard. It produced moderate noise from the optical drive and cooling fans and a fair amount of noise from the hard drives. The 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 was installed in the system, along with Velocity Micro 800.303.7866 www.velocitymicro.com Price: $2,399 www.cadalyst.com cadalyst November/December 2008 http://www.velocitymicro.com http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - November 2008

Cadalyst - November 2008 Contents Editor's Window CAD Central Tech Trends: Designed after Our Own Image Budget-Conscious Workstations — 64-Bit CAD Power for Less than $2,500 Cadalyst All-Star Awards 2008 SolidWorks 2009 — 3D MCAD Software IES Virtual Environment 5.9 — Building Performance Analysis Software View Point: A Design with Teeth CAD Manager: CAD Manager’s Survey 2008 MCAD Modeling: Ask for What You Want AEC Insight: AEC Software by the Clock CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Hot Tip Harry: Hot Tips for Cold Days

Cadalyst - November 2008

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