WOT: Building a computer, to surf 914club faster Options

[MattR]

Ive been trying to research computers lately and thought I'd get the board's opinion. Here's the deal. I dont game or anything, this computer will be built to run CAD, specifically Unigraphics NX 2.0 and Solidworks 2005. I also want to keep the final price under 600 dollars if possible (for motherboard, cpu, memory, case, fan, and video card). I have some specific questions though:

Has anyone used the AMD 64bit technology? Would I be better off (for my application) with a 2.4 ghz AMD 64? or a 3.4 ghz P4? They come out to about the same price.

Can anyone reccomend a good CAD video card thats 256 mb and hopefully under 150 dollars?

Im planning on going with 2 gb of memory. Can you reccomend a brand thats "best"? Is DDR2 that much better then DDR?

Throw out some numbers. Give me a few options. I used to keep up with computers, and I built the computer Im typing on now about 4 years ago. Im not a total neophite, but Im not up to date with technology.

This will probably be coming from tigerdirect.com unless someone can reccomend a better source.

[tat2dphreak]

QUOTE (MattR @ Jul 6 2005, 01:05 PM)

So you think an amd 64 at like 2.2 ghz would run faster then a p4 at 3 ghz (and more stable) for cad applications? As far as video card, the ATI Fire GL is a cad specific card, but they have like 3 versions ranging from 600 to 1200 dollars... Im not making enough money on cad to do that. How about OS? Is XP 64 worth it? I wasnt planning on starting from scratch, although it may not be a bad idea... I just have to backup all my "borrowed" software...

if you change the motherboard you HAVE to start over... windows doesn't take kindly to pulling it's IDE interface out from under it...


I've done it another way 1-2 times, with marginal sucess... you remove all of the hardware from your hardware configuration in the registrym in safe mode of course.

then shut off the PC, swap the hardware and when you boot up, it *should* find everything again... it was NOT as stable when doing this method though...

you can use regualr XP if you already have a copy, and when you do the windows update, it will put the 64-bit components in...