Corsair 550D |
Software
- Best: Solid Edge
Many designers prefer Solid Edge over SolidWorks. - Market Leader: SolidWorks
Largest user community and third party support. - Also Good: Inventor (Autodesk)
Cloud integration. - Value: SpaceClaim
Easy and fast, fresh architecture. - Honorable Mention: Geomagic 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.
- Corsair Obsidian Series 550D ATX Mid Tower Case
- Corsair HX650 650 Watt Modular Power Supply
- Asus P9X79 LE LGA2011 ATX Motherboard
- Intel Core i7-4930K 3.4GHz Ivy Bridge-E Six-Core Processor
- Corsair Hydro Series H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
- Corsair 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600 1.5V Vengeance Heatspreader RAM
- PNY nVidia Quadro K2000-PB 2GB PCI-E
- Samsung 250GB 2.5" 840 EVO Series SATA3 SSD
- Microsoft Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
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.