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Hi all,
Some context. Im a final year product design student. In previous years i have scraped by with my ageing albeit relatively powerful laptop (8gb ram, dedicated graphics, ssd etc) and using the computers at uni for more intense stuff.
Unfortunately my laptop is dying a death really, it cant even cope with watching hd videos sometimes despite a brand new SSD and clean install about 18 months ago. The option of using the computers at uni is also now limited, pre-book only, specific time slots etc which doesnt really work when some renders can take half a day to complete.
My project this year especially is heavily dependent on CAD modelling (for covid and project specific reasons) so i realistically need to buy something powerful to get through the next 8 months or so of heavy modelling and rendering (solidworks and keyshot mostly for ref)
Im no expert, i do already have a monitor keyboard and mouse. If i was to buy a reasonably specced pc for say around £500, what would i expect to lose selling it on in a year? Would i even get something powerful enough for that money?
cheers
No idea what kind of power you need but awd-it have some pretty reasonable deals on pre-built desktop PCs
https://www.awd-it.co.uk/gaming-pcs.html?features_hash=2-450-550-GBP
The way everyone's going mental for the new graphics cards and how limited stock is for a lot of components I don't think you'd suffer too much on resale.
Solidworks can tell you the minimum spec you would need. At last year's launch event Solid Solutions had Dell PC's they were trying to sell as Solidworks ready.
Having used a PC with a rubbish graphics card for SW it's no fun.
get on ebay and look through the hundreds of Z series HP workstations available.
About £200 will find you a system with dual quad Xeon 24gb ram etc - oh and a fresh install of W10
just search hp workstation
Not sure spec wise but check scan computers daily deals, or itzoo for refurb units etc
@finishthat They do look like a good deal but im not sure power wise they would be powerful enough for solidworks, i'm also concerned about the age of some of them but they are cheap..
@leegee I do feel like solidworks slightly overstate the requirements but yeah, its not very enjoyable using something that isnt up to the task.
Dell outlet is worth a look
an inability to even play HD videos suggests a problem. before spending cash replacing it, why dont you toss it into a local computer bod and let him take a look.
personally I'd just do a complete clean install and test before adding anything else
@scrumfled Im happy to accept that even brand new, the specification of my current laptop isnt really powerful enough for the CAD work i am doing on it. I have already got an iPad pro which i use as my laptop really so im specifically looking for a desktop to use for the short term and potentially get rid of afterwards.
It's a pity your Uni doesn't have a private cloud you can use, would seem an obvious thing to invest in for students on courses that involve CAD/AI/Analytics type stuff
As for spec. for something to buy - you probably need a decent CPU and a fair amount of RAM for rendering (unless it's low resolution or you can afford to wait days for it). And possibly a mid-range graphics card for doing the actual modelling in the first place? I can't see you getting that for under £500, you'd be looking at more like £750-1000 for an AMD based system with 16-32GB, SSD + HDD and a half decent GPU.
PCs don't tend to hold their value well either, I've always ended up giving mine away rather than go through the hassle of trying to sell it on but maybe someone else here has had a better experience.
an inability to even play HD videos suggests a problem.
First thing I would do would be to try and open it up and vacuum out any dust that's in there. Costs nothing and can make a huge difference.