If you had a 1,000 to upgrade

[rlbnvegas]

What would you upgrade on this system for autocad? Would allso like to be able to stream iRacing races on Twitch

Corsair 600T case
I5, 2500k,3.30GHz. LGA1155 unlocked
Asus P8P67 Pro Xfire/SLI Intel P-67 Express 1155
16 Gig Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 Dual
Corsair 1200 watt PSU
XFX Radeon 6970 X 1
1 TB Samsung 7200rpm 32 mb buffer
LG 24xSata DVDRW
Windows 7 Home Premium
3, 24" asus monitors
Allso have a new Corsair H60 uninstalled here, system has nothing now nor has ever been oc'd

 

[craigo]

RAM - more of it at faster speeds
SSD - two of them in raid 0

If you can disable HT and achieve a higher overclock do so

 

[Jetster]

SSD

GPU

Motherboard

 

[Rock N Roll Rebel]

plus get windows 7 pro because home pre has a 16gb limit and pro has a 192gb limit 64bit of cores

 

[Bo$$]

Another GPU
SSD + Raid
2600k or IB equivalent
Rest on water cooling to make it quiet

 

[Aquinus]

If you can disable HT and achieve a higher overclock do so

Since when did the 2500k have hyper threading? :shadedshu

SSD

GPU

Motherboard

I think that an SSD isn't necessary and that your GPU is plenty powerful. If you really want to upgrade a machine to handle CAD better, consider replacing motherboard, processor, add 2 sticks of memory, and Windows 7 Pro.

That way you address the bottleneck (CPU,) you increase memory bandwidth and capacity by adding more of what you already have, and you can get a SB-E chip that will eat CAD alive. SB-E can get expensive so you may want to consider a 3820 now and invest more when IVB-E comes out later down the road if you need it.

Another GPU
SSD + Raid
2600k or IB equivalent
Rest on water cooling to make it quiet

SSD + RAID won't help CAD performance that much so that's a bad upgrade recommendation. Same with a second video card, not necessary. CAD like memory and CPU horsepower. If the OP user needs anything more than a 2600k I really recommend going with the 3820 because it has more options for upgrades that can benefit a CAD machine.

Additionally, when you stress all your cores you start noticing where that quad-channel memory really kicks ass.

 

[craigo]

disc access is a major hurdle for CAD.
Some fast cores will handle CAD better than many slower cores.
CAD eats RAM.

you DO NOT need a new CPU or motherboard.
you DO NOT need crossfire or SLI graphics
I would hazard a guess to say most TPU`ers are primarily gamers

no HT on the i5...woops

 

[Aquinus]

disc access is a major hurdle for CAD.

Once a project is loaded, most of what you need is already in memory so I don't see how this is really true. I'm highly skeptical about that.

Some fast cores will handle CAD better than many slower cores.

SB-E doesn't have cores that are that much slower, it's more like similarly clocked CPUs with two more cores. Also hyperthreading could help here, which makes the 2600k, 2700k, 3770k, good upgrade options as well. I recommend SB-E because a 3820 is somewhere between the 26/700K and the 3770K while giving you the option to get a 6-core down the road. SB-E also can accommodate more memory if you get a board with 8 DIMM slots. skt2011 still has IVB-E slatted for it next year but 1155 will be done with before then.

With 1000 USD there is nothing preventing him for getting a decent X79 board, a 3820, and an SSD if it really helps. I just think it's over-exaggerated for render-time performance.

 

[INSTG8R]

Hmm...

A big ass SSD
A nice 27" Catleap(or maybe one of them Overlord modded ones)
Another 8GB of RAM
Another 7970 OC

OH it's not MY Wishlist?