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We are refreshing some of our old desktop workstations that will be used as we start implementing 3D design/BIM modeling in 2016 for the entire firm. We have about 80 designers currently on staff. Our current workflow consists of AutoCAD, Sketchup, Adobe products, Rhino, and starting to use Lumion3D, & Office. Starting next year we are moving all designers with formal training to Infraworks 360, Civil, Revit, and later in 2016 possibly hiring or providing further training for 3DS Max for the staff (although that may be delayed to 2017). So with that new workflow we are trying to choose the best components. Since we are a Dell preferred customer we are looking at the Precision T5810 product line. Since Cad based products are typically single threaded but other products like Adobe an other 3D software products can take advantage of multi core processors. Now we had 3D rendering where graphics cards come more into play, and now i am not sure which card. i have been doing a lot of research on the graphics card portion, but since i have a lot of unknowns for my designers workflows and products they will use, i need some feedback on which way you think would be best.

Here are the three quotes. All three have the same 32gb memory and PCIe 512GB SSD, and all intel xeon processors

Quote 1:

Xeon E5-2687w V3 10Core HT 25mb cache 3.1ghz Turbo processor with a Nvidia Quadro M4000

Xeon E5-1660 v3 8Core 20mb cache 3.0ghz Turbo processor with a Nvidia Quadro M5000

Xeon E5-1680 v3 8Core 20mb cache 3.2ghz Turbo Procesor with a Nvidia Quadro M4000

Will i see a huge difference between the M4000, vs the M5000? i know the Cuda cores is key when rendering. And i have read countless articles that say skip the overpriced quadro line and go with the Titan - X but i can’t do that since the Titan X is not an option to choose, and i am not going to custom build 40 workstations. i do not have the time nor the

The same goes for the Processors. based on benchmarks i have seen the Xeon E5-2687 v3 is a lot better than the other two.

Looking forward to hear from any other design firms out there and what they use with 3D design/BIM modeling, as well as anyone else. thanks

3 Spice ups
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I would advise you to look at the website for the software you use and look at their recommendations for hardware and performance.

The CAD package we use is only multi threaded if you are doing certain functions, so for us it matters more the top speed of the cores then the number of cores etc.

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we run autodesk and have the t5810’s with the xeon e5-1603 v3 proc, 16ram, 500gig ssd, NVidia quadro k4020 and it works great. Good price, good specs with very few issues. I would do as snufkat suggested and check to see if the m4000/5000 is supported by autodesk yet.

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Have you tried the Spiceworks Concierge service?

Dell has a Video Card comparison matrix…did you see this?
http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/help-me-choose/hmc-precision-video-card-t36-t56-t76?&ref=CFG

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The PCIe makes a huge difference and going from 4000 to 5000 will depend on rendering. We do much of what you do and the jump from the 2000 to the 4000 was like night and day. If the cards save 15 min/day for an extra couple hundred or so, you will make that back big time. Are these laptops? I thought the cards were K4000/5000.

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I work for a Civil Engineering company using much of the same CAD-type software, supporting approximately the same amount of designers. I’ve been happiest with Core i7’s over Xeon processors - for some reason, less issues with performance. Go figure. We have been getting Precision T1700’s.

The biggest thing is the video card. Make sure those systems come with a supported video card installed. Autodesk and Microstation maintain a list of approved graphics cards on their websites. The pre-configured Precision I got from Dell 2 weeks ago came with a Quadro K620 (and the Dell eRoot certificate!), which was exactly the card I would have purchased and installed myself. I did need to purchase 3rd-party RAM to upgrade the system to the motherboard’s max, but it was much less than purchasing a custom-built system with the RAM installed and waiting 3 weeks for it to arrive.

I’ve found RAM and graphics cards make a bigger difference than processors (Core i5 and above).

Just my $.02.

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the requirements for the software are a joke IMHO. my specs are well beyond the recommended requirements.

Nvidia is at the Autodesk AU that is going on right now. i had one of my designers stop there and they stated the M4000 is where we should be, but i am not fully sure they know all of our variables and unknowns. Like i said i have a designer out there, not an IT person, so i know he is not fully versed in all of this gear. I would certainly hope the m4000 and M5000 are supported for Autodesk products but i just checked and they are not according to there site for Infrastructure design suite ultimate, but i see they only have up to 2014 version. I will have to have him go to the Autodesk booth to confirm . i can’t even choose the K5200 anymore on dells website when scoping out the unit. these are desktops only.

the M4000,M5000,M6000 replaced the kepler line.

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If I were you check the video card specs with your version of the CAD and other software. That should be your deciding factor for video. The XEON 2687 is a much better processor for your graphic work. Check out the RAM too, you may want to go with at least 16GB if your users are having many of those software packages open at the same time.