Cadalyst - November/December 2008 - (Page 29)

cadalystlabsreview NVIDIA drivers v7.15.11.7604 (dated June 20, 2008) to drive the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 graphics card included in this configuration. The Quadro FX 3700 had 512 MB of onboard GDDR3 RAM and was a speedy, though somewhat expensive, choice for a budget system. The Quadro FX 3700 is a PCIe 2 graphics card that supports both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 under Vista. I ran the ProMagix W160 through the benchmark paces, starting with v5.1 of the Cadalyst C2008 benchmark running under the 64-bit version of AutoCAD 2009 with Service Pack 1 installed. With AutoCAD 2009’s native Direct3D drivers, the W160 produced a C2008 total index score of 296. I switched to the accelerated NVIDIA drivers for AutoCAD 2009 and ran the benchmark several times, with the best performance yielding a C2008 total index score of 413. My final tests with AutoCAD 2009 x64 were with two concurrent sessions of AutoCAD, each running a separate copy of the Cadalyst C2008 benchmark and both using the NVIDIA accelerated driver. The combined total index score was 619, completing in 21 minutes. Using the 64-bit version of Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009, I ran the MAXBench 4 benchmark in three different configurations. With 3ds Max’s native OpenGL driver, the ProMagix W160 generated a combined averaged high/low score of 70.66. With 3ds Max’s native Direct3D driver, the combined averaged high/low score was 103.48. With the Direct3D version of the NVIDIA accelerated driver, the averaged high/low score was 162.49. The last benchmark was the complete 64-bit version of SPECviewperf 10, which produced the following scores: 42.39 for 3dsmax-04, 63.69 for catia-02, 47.29 for ensight03, 185.45 for maya-02, 57.65 for proe-04, 97.1 for sw-01, 25.23 for tcvis-01, and 27.50 for ugnx-01. The price for this Velocity Micro ProMagix W160 is $2,399, which includes a two-year warranty on standard parts and labor, business-hours support, and depot repair service. Highly Recommended. Ron LaFon, a contributing editor for Cadalyst, is a writer, editor, and a computer graphics and electronic publishing specialist from Atlanta, Georgia. He is a principal at 3Bear Productions in Atlanta. Read More at Cadalyst.com More information about the reviewed workstations www.cadalyst.com/1108workstation-table Budget-conscious CAD software reviews www.cadalyst.com/0108budget Quad-core workstation reviews www.cadalyst.com/0508workstation Cadalyst Labs workstation reviews www.cadalyst.com/workstationreviews November/December 2008 cadalyst www.cadalyst.com 29 http://www.Cadalyst.com http://www.cadalyst.com/1108workstation-table http://www.cadalyst.com/0108budget http://www.cadalyst.com/0508workstation http://www.cadalyst.com/workstationreviews http://www.bluebeampdfrevu.com http://www.bluebeampdfrevu.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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