CAD, PS, 3D Work With i7

[GreenMan415]

Good Day Folks,

I am in the process of researching what would be a great system to replace my first build ever. My current desktop I built way back in college and now that I am getting more into CAD work with AutoCAD, Photoshop Work, and 3D work with Revit I need to upgrade. (my system is still using IDE )

So I was looking at the i7 core that just came out and the tech specs look great and the bench marks are outstanding vs a previous quad core system (yes i7 is quad too). My question is: Is this too much power for day to day work? I would like to also have a system that could run some heavy games once in a blue moon.

If anyone could help out or give me any suggestions that would be great. I am looking in the $1,000-1,200 range at most right now.

Bill

 

[Balishang]

will you be needing a new monitor, speakers, operating system, etc. with it?

 

[MySoox]

I see it as more of a benchmarking/showing off/gaming processor.

 

[GreenMan415]

will you be needing a new monitor, speakers, operating system, etc. with it?

No I have a copy of XP 64 I would like to run and everything else will stay the same.

Bill

 

[tastegw]

if you have the budget for the i7 and its chipset

go for it.

nothing else is equal to it atm. (as far as i know)

i7 is much more than just a show-off chip...its the next generation and will phase out lga775 platforms over the next few years.

and if you do go i7, and want to upgrade your chip in a year or so, you should allready be setup for it with the rest of your system.

 

[NickPapageorgio]

Hey Bill,

I use Photoshop as well and plan on buying the i7 SOON. It seems like a lot of people here (right now) are suggesting the x58 motherboard ($300), DDR3 SDRAM memory (~$250) and a GTX 260 graphics card ($250) to go along with it. I'm not sure if your budget is high enough if you need to buy the case, psu, dvd, etc.

 

[GreenMan415]

Hey Bill,

I use Photoshop as well and plan on buying the i7 SOON. It seems like a lot of people here (right now) are suggesting the x58 motherboard ($300), DDR3 SDRAM memory (~$250) and a GTX 260 graphics card ($250) to go along with it. I'm not sure if your budget is high enough if you need to buy the case, psu, dvd, etc.

Well I am lucky in a couple of my things are coming from my old system:

Case
DVD
Speakers
Monitor
Keyboard
Mouse

 

[saltynay]

I see it as more of a benchmarking/showing off/gaming processor.

What the greatest improvements are encoding, media editing and cad. Gaming is only improved by the cpu being more efficient at handling multiple gpu solutions and gives some extra processing headroom.

Whats your budget?
You should also be able to reuse the OS even if its OEM.

 

[UA_Iron]

Whats the ratio of the CAD, PS and 3d work compared to gaming?
If you're main use is for OpenGL apps then you should get a workstation card - firegl or quadro.

 

[NickPapageorgio]

Photoshop benefits from CPU power and more memory. I think his CAD and 3D work will benefit from the better graphics card.