CPU Options

William Rhodes
William Rhodes
in Linux

I need a faster CPU because I'm hitting 100% on some of the cores quite often. RAM is running at less than 50% capacity with 8GB installed.

It's an easy upgrade to go from my present quad core AMD FX-4200 to an 8 core AMD FX-8350.
But will having 8 cores even matter that much?

I've found an i5-3570 (3rd generation) system at a good price. Would i get a lot more performance with the i5?

On a 172 MB drawing the cursor will not move smoothly when it travels across the screen and a complete regen takes 10 seconds.

I'm using an Asus GT740 1GB 128 bit video card. Is that likely a bottleneck?

Comments

  • Wiebe van der Worp
    Wiebe van der Worp

    Hi William, CPU performance is an interesting subject. With BricsCAD mainly single threaded, thread performance is an issue. So you may want to go to https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html which covers that.

    However, only focussing on thread performance might not be a good idea. I use AMD for example, not because of thread performance but because it is all reasonable fast with fast graphics build in, for a proper price.

    You can look up performance of mentioned CPU's at the link too.

    Important to know is what action in BricsCAD hits the CPU ceiling. Opening a taskmanager might give you an idea if one core (probably) or multiple cores are involved. Don't get confused when you look, cores switch 100% from core to core. Please share what you do in BricsCAD.

    172 MB sounds a lot. I know it is obvious but too often forgotten not to mention, does a multiple purge command session and audit command help?

    Don wrote an article here: https://blog.bricsys.com/choosing-bricscad-hardware/, also good to read.

  • William Rhodes
    William Rhodes

    Great answer, Wiebe. Yes, the load bounces around to different cores. There's usually only one core at 100% and never more than 2 cores heavily loaded. I'll concentrate on getting the best single core performance I can with my upgrade.

    And yes, the drawing is bloated but I'm stuck with it. This dwg was produced by software from the CAD industry's leading producer of terribly inefficient software.

  • Michael Mayer
    Michael Mayer

    As Wiebe said,
    look for high single core performance.

    Also I/O and RAM got faster over the years

  • William Rhodes
    William Rhodes

    Thanks Wiebe. Good suggestion to work on drawing size.

    I was able to reduce the size not by purging but by trimming lines and deleting items outside reasonable drawing limits.
    I had contour lines over about 450 acres and only needed about 300 acres for my project.

    I've decided to go for a minor upgrade and get the fastest CPU that will work on my motherboard. That will do for a while. Anything more would require upgrade time, software activation and switching to UEFI. Not something to do during the middle of a big project.

    This question is answered.
    I'd mark it as such if I could find the icon to do that.

    Thanks guys.

  • GranMain
    GranMain

    Hi....only focussing on thread performance might not be a good idea. I use AMD for example, not because of thread performance but because it is all reasonable fast with fast graphics build in, for a proper price.
    You can look up performance of mentioned CPU's at the link too.
    Important to know is what action in BricsCAD hits the CPU ceiling. Opening a taskmanager might give you an idea if one core (probably) or multiple cores are involved. Don't get confused when you look, cores switch 100% from core to core.

  • SamanthaKannan
    SamanthaKannan

    The problem is still actual. Thanks you all for great sharing.