Building new PC rig for AutoCad

Depends a lot on what you are doing. I have built cad machines years ago and some need a lot of memory
for large high resolution drawings, some get heavy into rotating 3D stuff, others may do very complex calculations.
You need to figure out the following:
1)resolution needed/desired to be displayed/rendered
2)memory needed (maximum) to load complete drawing(s)
3)how heavy the system will be used (continuously or occasionally)
If you can figure out these parameters then you can better decide if you need more ram, faster video card (or multiple ganged cards), more processors, SSD hard drive. I typically wouldn't build any computer for just 2-3 years time frame I would consider 4-7 years average as a well designed cad system should be able to address normal use in that time frame unless you suddenly changed all your parameters and needed a lot more processing power etc.
A heavily used CAD system will probably generate a lot of heat and need to be rock solid reliable so sometimes stepping back from the absolute fastest components to 1 notch from the top and using very high quality but more resilient components with excess cooling and ease of repairing in design would be better.

Look into the Dell Precision line of workstations, you'll get better performance from workstation-class graphics rather than gaming-class graphics because drivers are more optimized. With Dell business systems, the warranty is excellent and starts with three years next business day on-site service.

http://www.dell.com/precision

If you build it yourself, you'll have to handle all warranty issues yourself, which means contacting manufacturers and whatnot. I would save myself the hassle and just go with an off-the-shelf solution.

Are you going to be running new/latest release of software? I recently got an upgraded CAD machine that is running 64bit Windows 7, 6GB of ram (which I believe is supposed to be increased soon) with dual Nvidia Quadro FX 380 graphics cards. I'm using AutoDesk 2012 (AutoCAD and Inventor) and it seems to be a rocket ship.

As far as graphics cards (and drivers), I highly recommend that you look to see what the software manufacture of your cad software recommends or lists as approved/compatible devices and drivers. I've had many problems in the past with different versions of software and hardware configurations that were cause by the drivers.

I forgot to mention that my video cards are running (4) 19" wide screen monitors.

Thanks a lot everyone for the solid build recomendation.

Some info update I've got today is that the built will be about $5k just for the tower and no monitor or anything external needed(mouse, keyboard etc).

So from my understanding is that even with a dual processor motherboard is use but I can still just install one processor and leave the other socket empty and the pc will still run right?

The build spec will be using SSD per the boss, no if's or but's and I have to deal with it. It'll have a single SSD for just windows installation, then a second SSD just for software and 3rd regular 7200rpm hd for data storing. Something like that but I can talk him out of the setup and went something else provided I have solid reasoning.

Ram will be set at 12GB for now and eventually will add if the capacity is insufficient.

Power supply will probably getting a 1Kw unit.

Casing wise my personal pc is using the Antec Twelve Hundred series and I like it alot so is that sufficient for this build?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131373
This is the motherboard I have in mind for now to build around it and anyone against it?

Processor will be 6 core and spec will depend how much leftover after all is spend.

I haven't have the experience in using the software yet but from what I'm told the size of the company file is reaching some of them about 2GB file size and most of them is about half to 2/3rd of that. AutoCad eventually will be use but the boss will update me next week about the software currently he has interested in because the name slip out of his mind until he get the update from the tech guy.

I would love to setup the system for meeting 4-7 years requirement timeframe but based on the budget I guess the boss will have to settle for it. The rig will see occasianally and it's not for 24/7 running type. Its is built solely for Cad purpose.

And yes, this is for company setup so operating speed is key and my reputation is on the line, sometimes it doesn't matter if it is not on time constraint but sometimes some spec change in the middle of designing stage and we need to produce updated design for the supplier many time it's the matter of a timeslot of just within a few hours because if you have deal with UL approval procedure it can mean the cost difference of upwards of $30k-$60k and 1-3 months product delaying.

I'll update more along the road if I have anything more to add.

Thanks a lot again and keep the idea coming and I appreciate it.

Do your research on SSDs. Some brands are faster than others. Some even as fast as 500MB/s reads. Often, this is determined by the controller chip that the SSD has.

Also, your board that you linked to only has sata 3Gb/s, some SSDs won't reach their full potential without a Sata 6Gb/s connection. I do like asus, though. I've had some gigabyte stuff fail, but no asus stuff yet.

Keep in mind that your processor is going to run at least $1100 or so each.

Also, don't forget about performance that you may gain from creating an array. Kind of pricy having to buy 2 SSDs, but looks like you are planning on 2 SSDs anyways.

Take pics, nerds love computer pr0n.

I think it would be advisable to spend heavily on the video card system as it tends to be as much as a bottleneck at higher resolutions than disk I/O is. I saw the Sata2 on that server board also and think it could be a bottleneck to faster SDD solutions. It may be that a motherboard taking only one CPU but allowing for faster I/O that can handle 2-3 video cards running in tandem would work better but it depends upon what percentage of power is needed for calculations and what is needed for rendering.

What about running it on a server & accessing it through remote access?

One thing to bear in mind with SSDs is the reliability rate (ctrl-F for "SSDs and reliability", about 1/6 of the way down):

http://www.hardware-revolution.com/best-ssd-hdd-december-2011/

This isn't to say don't use SSDs (I've got a pair of Crucial M4s in my PC at the moment), but to just be aware of the reliability rates, even among what some might call premium brands (looking at you Corsair). If you've got the budget for it, go for the Intel ones, a little less speed for a lot more reliability.

With that sort of insane budget I would seriously suggest seeking out advice on forums that are more dedicated to the topic matter. While CPF is chock full of great minds there isn't going to be as much useful advice as easily possible here.

Post your query over at overclock.net to get some more input.

My advice is as follows:

Build it!

Pro apps like autocad and solidworks and many other powerful creations apps will run really well on machines with FAR LESS budget than what you have in mind here. An i5 quad sandy bridge paired with a GTS450 and a nice 16GB kit makes for a pretty inexpensive build that will power through all the modern pro apps very well. If you want to pay for better GPU integration in the pro apps, the "quadro 2000" GPU is just a under-clocked GTS450 with it's BIOS flashed to register as a Quadro series instead of a GeForce series, and sold at about 5X the cost with the pro drivers that allow the GPU to integrate better into a handful of pro apps. in theory, in time, a driver kit may come along (non-supported) that would make a GTS450 work as a quadro 2000. That's theoretical. If you intend to spend more to gain GPU performance, forget about multi-"gaming" GPU configurations as there are not going to be any SLI or CFX profiles in the non-professional drivers, just buy a workstation GPU, or bite the bullet and go with SLI worktation GPUs. They can be pricey but for those who are really dealing super complex models frequently they can be a blessing. Before doing an SLI quadro configuration, make sure the pro apps you are using will take advantage. Nvidia has to have an SLI profile built into the driver for each app, if it's not supported then don't bother. See the following: http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_sli_rendering.html <notice how some apps in the list there get no benifit.

Did I mention Build It? Oh right... BUILD IT!

Pick a quality PSU. Very much like BS lumen ratings, many PSUs are BS as well. Pick a PSU carefully: Most Corsair, Seasonic, PC Power&Cooling, some OCZ units, most XFX. It's not about having the most wattage available, it's about providing reliable clean power. The PSU is often the most overlooked but most likely to fail if you cheap out.

Pick a MOBO with really hefty VRMs to power the CPU to maximize long term reliability of the board. Many are lacking. Look for boards with lots of VRM "units" surrounding the CPU socket, and, ideally, with heat sinks. Higher end Gigabyte and Asus brand boards tend to be very good choices these days. You can learn more about VRM quality through some of the sticky threads on overclock.net

The budget has plenty of room for an i7-3930K, I'd be tempted to go for it. I don't think I would worry about a dual socket board.

Bulldozer is a flop, don't bother.

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I would do the following (or something similar) with a 5K budget:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.772175
This budget has room for the new high density DDR3, may as well go big. Decent mobo there also.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.785666
Overkill PSU and worlds first single platter 1TB mechy drive. (The system will probably never draw more than 350W total, but I saw this combo so thought I'd throw it in there)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.776311
CPU and a well made case. A dual 1366 xeon build is certainly an option, however, you pretty much have to plan on about 3-5X the CPU cost for less than double the performance. That would be a tough one for me to swollow. Also wouldn't be a bad idea to see how many cores the pro apps you will be using can scale up to. Most will use as many cores as you have available but some won't.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145533
Second mechy drive for backup, either use as a manual backup or configure in RAID0 with the other drive.
Flooding in thialand a couple months back has mechy HD prices very high... nothing you can do about it but bite the bullet.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147137
Use this as the boot and apps drive to maximize loading speed. Some people also like to use their SSD space for "current project" which would not be a bad idea. Back up to mechy drives frequently.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133325
Technically speaking, that is a GTX465 with a pile of extra memory and lower clock speed and the ability to use the pro drivers enabled, being sold for ~15X the price of a GTX465. I would spend some serious time analizing whether or not the pro drivers are going to provide enough benifits to be worth it for the specific appliation. This card does support SLI. A quadro 2000 would save a lot of money but is not SLI capable so does not provide a very good upgrade path.

Pick out a nice $20 DVD burner and you have a machine..

Under $3,700, not bad...

Thanks a lot for the build list. I'll have a serious look into your suggestion.