Sunday, March 30, 2014

3D Solid Modeling Recommendations

Corsair 550D

Software

  • BestSolid Edge
    Many designers prefer Solid Edge over SolidWorks.
  • Market Leader: SolidWorks
    Largest user community and third party support.
  • Also Good: Inventor (Autodesk)
    Cloud integration.
  • ValueSpaceClaim
    Easy and fast, fresh architecture.
  • Honorable MentionGeomagic Design
    Formerly Alibre Design, low cost options.

Hardware

Objectives: Performance, Stability, and Affordability
  • Maximized clock speed for single-thread performance
  • Maximized cores/threads for multi-thread performance 
The key to this hardware recommendation is the Intel Core i7-4930K, essentially a bargain 6-core version of the very expensive top-of-the-line 8-core Xeon that retains the advantages of the Xeon architecture like 4-channel memory, with ample air and water cooling to allow stable overclocking.
Total cost of just over $2,000. Good source for assembled custom systems: Central Computers

The conservative "Fast" setting in ASUS Auto Tune yields a clock speed of 4.25 GHz, 25% faster than standard clock speed. (Higher clock speed is possible with more aggressive settings.) The performance of this system must be experienced to be appreciated.