At work we are looking into replacing our current computers with two new ones that I'm planning on building. I've got a list of the components and was hoping you guys could give it a look over to see if it will perform. We run AutoCAD, with mostly 2D drawings, on occasion we do a 3D house. So the 3D performance needs to be there. The biggest thing that I run into is having 5-6 programs (iTunes, Firefox, AutoCAD, GoogleTalk, MSN Messenger, Norton, and sometimes Word), running at the same time that seem to hog down the computer that I'm running right now. Here are the specs I've selected...
There are a couple things I would change. First I remember hearing that the 6 & 7 series nVidia cards dont work well with software like AutoCad, but I did hear that nVidias Quadro line of cards work with it excellently. For your mobo it looks great, same with the processor excellent. Any case will do but depending on the quality of the power supply unit (PSU) you may want to buy one also. I would recommend no lower than 500 watt. Your hard drives are fine Serial ATA150 and 7,200 rpm are totally different. SATA150 is the connection that the hard-drive uses to talk to the pc and the 7,200 rpm is how fast the hard-drive actually spins. Since this is a business pc I would recommend a big Seagate drive. If their bought retail they come with a 5 year warrenty, but if you choose to buy one OEM (your rebate wont be valid) you can usually get a 300gb hard-drive for $100 with a faster SATA interface w/ the same 7,200 rpm disc spin speed. And for ram anything from Kingston, Crucial, and/or Corsair is quality ram I would recommend only buying from one of these three companies if possible. And for keyboards/mice, if your company is buying new keyboards/mice too why not spring for the ergonomic type of keyboard/mice?
you want to check with asus for any known issues with dif makes of ram, some boards like some makes more than others, you might also want to cosider 4gb if you are going to get vista.
im not all that up on cad software so i cant realy comment on weather the cards over kill or not, you might want to find out what the software makers recomend for that.
the wd raptors are the fastest harddrives on the market, but if you want to store alot of data you might be better getting second large capacity one. sata is the new port type for drives, it allows faser data tranfere rates than ide, and now goes upto sata 300, as long as the board says sata 2 your ok as they are backward comptable.
the opticle drives, well you would be better asking in thier own threads as the people in there know alot more about those than i.
the case keyboard and mouse is up to you as you have to look at them not me, just make sure the case has good ventilation front and back.
Thanks for the help, on Tuesday I ordered all the equipment and software to put these beasts together. The only thing that I changed (with recommendations from here and the AutoCAD forum), was the video card. I went with a PNY Quadro FX560 128MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16. I was uncertain if the 128MB was going to be enough, but in order to go with 256MB the price doubled so it was just too much. I guess we'll see.
Congrats, post back and tell us how the build go. And trust me the Quadro's are the way to go, when doing stuff like you will be doing. But yeah post back when there up and running :)
