Solidworks keyshot machine

Hi all,

I’m hoping to finally upgrade and wanted some other peoples opinions. Here is what dell is suggesting for solidworks 2015 and keyshot5


Quote Number: 701314652
Item Number Quantity Item Description
210-AAJV
1 Dell Precision T1700 MT CTO Base
370-AAKT
1 16GB (2x8GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC
580-ABLY
1 No Keyboard with Filler for MT/DT
320-3316
1 Monitor Option-None
490-BCIS
1 Nvidia Quadro K4200 4GB (2 DP, DL-DVI-I) (1 DP to SL-DVI adapter)
400-AALR
1 1TB 3.5inch Serial ATA (7,200 Rpm) Hard Drive
403-BBCE
1 Integrated Intel SATA Controller
385-BBBL
1 No Media Card Reader
421-5607
1 Windows 7 Professional,No Media, 64-bit,Fixed Precision, English
570-AAAK
1 Mouse not included
555-BBJO
1 No Additional Network Card Selected (Integrated NIC included)
429-AACE
1 16x DVD-ROM Drive
520-AAAK
1 Internal Speaker
450-AAFS
1 US/Thai/Philippines Power Cord
340-AAMJ
1 English Shipping Docs
340-ABMZ
1 1-Watt BIOS
630-AABP
1 Microsoft Office Trial, MUI, OptiPlex, Precision, Latitude
997-2811
1 Onsite/In-Home Service After Remote Diagnosis 3 Years
997-2808
1 Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus Service
338-BFEF 1 Intel Core I7-4790 (Quad Core HT, 3.60GHz Turbo, 8MB, w/ HD Graphics 4600)
389-BCCZ 1 Windows 7 Label
421-9982 1 Thank you for buying Dell
422-0008 1 Dell Data Protection System Tools Digital Delivery/DT
640-BBES 1 Dell Precision Optimizer
640-BBEW 1 Dell Data Protection | Protected Workspace
640-BBHR 1 Visit www.dell.com/encryption
640-BBHS 1 Not Selected in this Configuration
658-BBIH 1 Dell Applications for Windows 7
658-BBNH 1 Waves Maxx Audio
321-BBPC 1 Dell Precision T1700 MT Up to 90% Efficient 365W TPM Chassis (Thunderbolt Ready)
387-BBBE 1 No Energy Star
449-BBBC 1 C2 SATA 3.5inch, 2 Hard Drives
780-BBCP 1 Non RAID
401-AABD 1 1TB 3.5inch Serial ATA (7,200 Rpm) Hard Drive
401-AADF 1 No Additional Hard Drive
401-AADF 1 No Additional Hard Drive
411-XXYD 1 Raid Configuration not over 2 TB
409-BBCF 1 No Intel Rapid Start or Smart Connect
429-AABU 1 PowerDVD Software not included
492-BBFF 1 No PCIe add-in card
817-BBBC 1 Not Selected in this Configuration
631-AAAP 1 No Out-of-Band Systems Management
954-3465 1 No DDPE Encryption Software
650-0028 1 McAfee SecurityCenter 30 days
817-BBBC 1 Not Selected in this Configuration
817-BBBC 1 Not Selected in this Configuration
620-AACG 1 OS Recovery DVD not Included
637-AAAE 1 Dell Backup and Recovery Manager for Windows 7
430-XXYU 1 Resource DVD not Included
340-AAMH 1 No Setup and Features Guide
332-1286 1 US Order
461-AAAR 1 No Chassis Intrusion Switch
328-BBBP 1 Precision T1700 MT Packaging
658-BBNQ 1 No Windows XP Mode
817-BBBC 1 Not Selected in this Configuration
389-BBJP 1 Intel Core I7 Processor Label
461-AABF 1 No CompuTrace

  •   -DISCOUNT/COUPON APPL
    






Any thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Overall it looks fine, but if you have some money left over I would definitely add a SSD as your primary drive. It will substantially speed up the machine loading, opening programs, saving large files, etc. If the Dell factory option is too expensive they can easily be added secondhand and you just need to clone your hard drives contents to the SSD using some free tools.

Awesome super appreciate the helpful feedback!

Pretty much the important stuff. All that other stuff you copied was kinda getting in the way.

Intel Core I7-4790 (Quad Core HT, 3.60GHz Turbo, 8MB, w/ HD Graphics 4600)
Nvidia Quadro K4200 4GB
16GB (2x8GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC
1TB 3.5inch Serial ATA (7,200 Rpm) Hard Drive


Cant really add much. But that graphics card looks intense.

SSD drive is great, nothing quite like restarting your computer in a minute.
If you do get a SSD. It might be worth getting another 1TB hard drive and setting up a Raid 1 on your “Storage” drive. In order to always have a back up the data on the machine. Wish I had done that when I built my machine, need research a bit and set that up soon.

The only other thing I’ll add, is depending how complex your assemblies are, you may be able to save some money by scaling back to the Quadro 2200…Keyshot does not use the GPU so the only thing that will be impacted is the performance of your viewport in Solidworks. The K2200 for most general “ID” work should be more than enough…if you are going through and working on highly complex engineering assemblies though, then the extra horsepower may be worthwhile.

I’ve been getting away with a Quadro 2000 mobile and it handles Pro E and some pretty serious assemblies rather well…by the time I get it to the point where it slows down it’s because I’m throwing some geometry at it that I really don’t even need to be viewing all at once.

If you decide you ever want to do anything that requires CUDA processing though the 4200 has more than 2X the cores so that would help you.

Ok awesome thanks again, hoping to pull the trigger on this soon

In my experience the Quadro graphics cards don’t function any better than the much, much less expensive GeForce cards. If you ever switch to something like Bunkspeed, which can render off the GPU, you will get a lot more bang for your buck in terms of CUDA cores, the main driver of how quickly and effectively you can render off the GPU. I run dual-SLI GeForce cards in lieu of a Quadro (for Solidworks, Rhino and Bunkspeed) and couldn’t be happier.