Massive 3D print sale!

Half of 3D printing guys! Get in quick! Max Z height is 85mm and files need to be in by Wednesday 1st!!

New Year, New Workstation!

A question often asked is 'what is a good computer to buy for CAD stuff?'

I know your all dying to buy a MBP, but there are others out there guys! I have a first gen MBP and its OK, its getting on a bit now though at 4 something years old and suffice to say it doesn't get used. Anyway, if you have already decided that you want your computer to tell everybody how individual you are by all having the same laptop, then good for you! But wait, There are others out there!

The main thing to get sorted is what type of pixel pusher are you!?

Mobile, or stationary! My school of thought says that the money you spend on a good mobile workstation/ notebook would buy a killer desktop machine. Arguments for buying a notebook are pretty strong, being able to carry your own machine around with you and all, but don't forget services like skydrive, mobile me and dropbox are all here to help you have your work anywhere and everywhere you go.

The machines invested by the University are second to none, very high end workstations.

This year over 50 new Workstations were brought for the School of Design and these are some serious kit, If I were to build one with off the shelf products, it would cost over £1300. They're currently rocking Xeon E3s @ 3.1ghz, a Quadro 2000workstation card costing over £300 and a lovely 8Gb of ram - so anyone's  opinion of their machine being faster at home - I'm afraid are unfounded ;) .

In an ideal world, I'd take a beast of a workstation (or battle station) at home, and a notebook for commuting and light work around and about the place. But that might be something you work towards; a desktop at least allows for upgrading incrementally throughout its life.

Lenovo u300s in Orange - WANT!

The rising popularity (and rightly so) of Intel Ultrabooks, and of course the MB Air, are giving us mobile computing with pretty decent performance, especially for the price point. Personally I'm pining over the Lenovo U300s.

Edit: Brought one! (in grey) :o

Anyway, on with the post! What about your needs, requirements, and wants!

As a nerd I'd personally try and shy away from buying a PC from a high street store, such as PC world or Comet. They often have an inflated price tag for what they are, and come pre-installed with a load of rubbish that will hamper performance from the outset, it is of course possible to format the machine and re install a clean version of Windows.

Some information about each bit:

Processors:

Currently Intel are marketing consumer I3, I5 and I7 processors, and professional Xeon E3, E5 and E7 processors these are the 'brain' of the computer where all the calculations are taken place. This as far as your concerned, is how fast a command will run in Rhino (such as a Boolean), updating a parameter in Grasshopper or 3DS Max. Preparing a model for the RapMan would be prepared faster with a high end processor, as would the calculation of toolpaths for CNC milling.

If your running scripts it will certainly help spit out the calculations with the better processor you have. Typically though, you should find yourself doing OK with a mid range option, such as the I5. The I7 would add a hefty tag onto the price but it should be considered if you were to take up computational modelling in a big way.

Graphics Cards:

There are 3 types of graphic outputs on the market today, and this is very important to know the difference within this industry. The first is what typically called 'on board' (read 'rubbish'!) this generation of Intell chips have integrated graphics output, which means its doing two jobs (processing and outputting graphics). There are also two types of graphics card(s) available also: Gaming and Workstation. These are two very different types of card and often a cause for confusion. In a nutshell, the graphics card makes the images you see on the screen. The more powerful the card, the better the visuals, the smoother CAD and 3D models will run, update quicker and make your work a breeze to complete!

NVIDIAQuadro workstation cards - lots of cash! :(

Even web browsers now use whats called hardware acceleration to speed up the rendering of web pages and YouTube videos. The workstation cards are notoriously expensive however, due in part to having had countless hours spent in R&D to get the most bang out of it in software environments such as 3DS Max, AutoCAD, etc. Typical Gaming cards are different in operation, as the software written for them enable them to render graphics already generated by creative people such as yourself.

Yeah MLP!

Maybe an analogy might help. For example, the latest My little Pony video game would perform better on a gaming graphics card (found in gaming PCs and games consoles), but the studio that made the game in the first place, would have done so on a workstation card.

That being said, I partake in a little PC gaming, and the complexity of my 3D modelling isn't high enough to warrant the cost of an expensive worstiaiton card, so I opt for a mid / high end gaming card which does both jobs sufficiently for me.

Mobile Graphics cards:

In laptops, they have striped down versions of their desktop counterparts. It still appears in the brochure as graphics card 'X' (EG Mobility Radion ), but it may have a slower clock speed, temperatures may increase when under load as the fans and cooling are restricted in the smaller space. The graphics cards in Imacs are also Mobile versions of their desktop counterparts for their form factor allows them to fit. As mentioned above, the new range of Intel cores output graphics, so allow non intensive and general use be run from the on board chip, and graphic intensive output is run through the dedicated graphics cards - pretty clever stuff.


Ram:

The more the better! This is usually the bottleneck in the speed of current PCs and creative software such as the Adobe suite and the array of CAD packages out there. More than likely you will be running a 64bit version of either OS X or Windows 7, which will require at least 2GB to run. Most hardware brought today will come with a minimum of 4GBs. This will be sufficient for light and general use, editing the odd image ere and there, or creating specification drawings and even simple 3D models. If however, you find yourself getting into the whole CAD thing, this is the easiest and cheapest method to get more performance out of your machine. I am currently running 8GBs, and adding another 8 would currently cost only £45. Give it 12 months and I'll be able to run 32GB of ram for around £80 - (which is amazing BTW!)

Hard Drive:

Currently these are very expensive due to recent flooding of production factories. But the specs are still the same! You want a high speed HDD, around 7200RPM, I can manage with a 500GB but if your continually running high res or complicated CAD models then that might go quite quickly. A technology called Solid state drives or SSD is really making an impact. They have a very high data transfer speed, making boot up times fast on operating system and applications. These are currently expensive as they're a new tech, my 64gbSSD cost £85. 8 months later however the cost has reduced to around £70.

Monitors!

Its the actual part of the PC you'll be looking at whilst doing your work, and stuff! The market leans heavily towards the 'HD' 1080p resolution - which is fine and all if your going for a monitor around 19 or 21 inches, anything more than that and you'll notice the limitations of the hardware. My biggest issue with monitors is that all the panels are typical 1080p, but getting larger and larger; because of this, your pixels becoming bigger!

U2711 27" 2560 x 1440 at a cool £550! Thanks Amazon!

The Pixel per inch or PPI is something I really nerded out over when I brought my monitor. It is something Apple is very good at, and i'd be very reluctant to purchase a monitor online without checking it out before hand. If you look closely at your monitor you'll see all the little pixels that are making up the image, the larger number of pixels the better, with high PPI and resolutions such as 2560 x 1440. Casual use you'll be fine with an off the shelf monitor, but again, if you get into your digital cad stuff with any passion and direction for your career, it's something you might want to invest further in. If you go over 24 inches you'll be looking at a Dell IPS or Apple Cinema Display, all others will be a compromise.

Re-sellers:

The obvious PC world, and they're every where. Sometimes you can get a good machine and a fair price...usually I walk into the store really hoping they have something to tempt me into buying it, but mostly I leave thinking that they're still useless and selling to idiots. I just had a look online and I wouldn't give their desktops the time of day - but if you need a laptop then they may be able to deliver!

www.pcworld.co.uk

Your local independent PC shop!

I had a hard time trying to beat their prices on an I7 workstation a month or so ago on a build from EZcomputers in Winton.

http://www.ezcomputers.co.uk/

Online

My first port of call would be

www.scan.co.uk (who I love)

or

www.Overclockers.co.uk

or

www.dabs.co.uk

Overview

A lotof it comes down to personal preference, and of course the types of work you Will ultimately be doing during your time at University and beyond.I got through my degree on a first generation MBP, looking back I'm not sure how I did manage that. Now I am earning mega bucks (HA!) I was fortunate enough to buy a pretty nice workstation at home, and over the months I have been adding the upgrades piece by piece to make it the machine it is today. A machine for CAD is an investment, that can easily be paid off with a couple of lucrative contracts. As machines get more powerful, and you get more proficient at using the software, then you will expect a machine that can run with high res models and images smoothly without crashing. Of course there are budgets to contend with also, but a lot of people don't have an issue getting their filthy hands all over Apple's products, and a very powerful desktop PC can be brought for even the entry level prices of a MBP!

Any questions or if you find this information confusing, please leave a comment and it will be helpful for others!

2012

Hello!

I heard the world is going to end this year, so I didn't bother cleaning any machines or nothin! I'll mostly be hiding with my head in a bucket, avoiding as many of you as possible without drawing too much attention to myself.

Overall - nothing much has changed, as long as we're happy that's what counts eh ;) I should get onto implementing the online booking system thingy but I'm a bit scared that I might break the whole thing!

One thing that I can say though, is that we have some equipment that you can use should you be inclined, and I also brought it in from home! We have the following for you to have a play with:


iPad 2!

Yeah that's right, have a play with this guy to see if there is anything you can create and then either print or laser!

Camera

Its a bit rubbish, but it takes good macro images, useful for when you want a HQ pic right there and then!

David Scanner

Have a go at scanning sing this rudimentary setup

Microscribe Digitising arm

Belongs to Modelmaking, but if we ask nicely I'm sure we can set you up using it ;)

Inkling (Wacom)

I heard we had one of these on campus, if you kick up a big enough of a fuss I'm sure we can go grab it

RapMan

Maybe I'll bring mine in from home - get some use out of it ;)

Well there is a bit of a list! Let me know if you fancy having a go with any of it, I'm sure we can accommodate you all!!

Might go hide for as long as I can, take care y'all!! x

Ed