Expert: Bill DeShawn - 6/12/2007

Question
Hello Mr. DeShawn,

I'm looking at getting a new computer system for use in AutoCAD (most likely 2008), and have stumbled across one that my company currently owns, and was wondering if you would recommend it:

Intel Pentium D, 2.8GHz – 1 GB RAM – 200 GB Hard Drive – Intergrated Graphics - Windows XP Pro

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OR - should I look at something more along the lines of:

Intel Core 2 Duo (or Quadcore) - 2 GB RAM - 150GB Raptor Drive - nVidia GeForce 8800GTS 320MB Graphics - Windows XP Pro

From my research on this website, and other web articles/forms- the new system, with the C2D, is what many AutoCAD users would recommend.
I am not just looking for a computer that 'runs' AutoCAD, but one that runs it properly and well.

Thank-you for your time.

Jared.

Answer
The first option is too puny.  It's not likely that you would ever in your life fill up a 200Gig Hard drive, but some people - all they have to do in life is take billboard-size pictures and store them on their computer.  I'm sure you've got more going on than that.  :)  You're gong to need the dual core and 2 Gig of memory to do things right.  If you can get more memory than that, it would even be better.
Video Card looks pretty good with the numbers in memory.  I haven't had what I would call optimal performance with any video card that I've tried.  I'm afraid we both need to spend big money on video cards.  But like I said the numbers you tout on the latter system look good.  

Well, that's my opinion, which I don't often give, because opinions can change from one day to the next, and then somebody can say, "but you said..."   

Good luck with your new system.

Keep in touch
Bill DeShawn
http://my.sterling.net/~bdeshawn