Where Can You Score a Sweet SolidWorks Rig? SolidBox.

by Josh on December 17, 2009 · View Comments

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Well, it snuck up on us, but once again it’s the time of year we wish everyone would stop being so selfish and buy us a sweet piece of tech we can become completely absorbed in. A high-end laptop for crankin’ SolidWorks and other 3D goodness would be just fine.

Where do you start? At this post obviously, but after that, you’ll want to head over to SolidBox. SolidBox is the new site that takes all the guess work out of choosing what kind of rig you need to spank 3D modeling, rendering, simulation or animation instead of having it spank you. It’s all there and they have big plans for the future.

“Why can’t PCs be as stable as Macs?”

That’s the question that started it all for Chris Castle, founder of SolidBox…

Chris founded SolidBox after many years of frustration with the hardware market. In early 2009, Mr. Castle partnered with Dell Computer and developed several benchmarks to qualify systems for his customers… Chris started with the minimum performance requirements recommended by SolidWorks. Chris then configured and purchased a “test system” from Dell to represent an “Entry” level system. Chris stripped the Windows OS to its core, installed the necessary Windows updates and .NET components, installed the certified Graphics Card drivers, and finally installed SolidWorks…The secret was simple; install SolidWorks on a clean Windows OS on high quality standardized hardware, and finally use only those drivers that have been tested to work best.”

Professional Laptops, Workstations, Servers and More…

What if you need to be mobile? What if you need to replicate a server? What if you need to replace the last workstation you launched into a concrete wall? It seems SolidBox is there to answer all those questions and not leave you hanging after you get the computer of your dreams. They also work with your VAR to take the pain out of installation and are working on ways to assist with driver updates, virtualization and getting optimal performance out of your shiny new hardware.

Example of the Solidbox high-end Pro series of laptops. Lower prices than OEM's.

There’s some great options that cost less than the pro laptop series. Right now their working with Dell. I’ve been partial to HP workstation lately, but as SolidBox grows I’m sure you’ll see more options become available.

Tagged as: computers, professional cad workstations, solidworks laptop, solidworks workstations

Kevin De Smet

Do you really believe in such high price tags?

I know it's an investment a company can easily gain back, but we all know hardware ages quickly and it's fruitless to pay an extra 2 grand for that little extra power.
Josh M

I know I myself have a price point alarm. for my personal computer at home I don't go over $1000 and usually buy refurbed, mostly because of the hardware aging thing.

For a cad/graphics station I'd want a little more, but still have trouble when thinking of crossing that $2000 mark, especially for desktops. It's just me, but I also think a lot of other have this price point mentality.
Izzy Bedibida

How long before we get to see offerings from Lenovo, HP and others?
solidbox

We are currently in discussion with Boxx Technologies here in Austin. We hope to offer their products in Q1 of next year. Boxx offers superior performance and attention to detail. Many of my colleagues swear by Boxx systems. So keep an eye out for those...

Both Lenovo and HP still need to prove themselves in terms of back end support and diversity with their workstations. Dell is still our favorite computer company overall. A significant portion of their overall sales comes from workstations. For other companies, workstations constitute a small fraction of sales.

We will give our customers an update to any new partnerships.

Thanks for asking!
Chris
solidbox

Hi guys! First off thanks for opportunity to talk about our company. We consider it a privilege to be on SolidSmack.

We'd like to apologize for some mistakes on the website at the time of this original post. We recently ported to a new hosting server, and the "specs" database got copied incorrectly during the move. We've updated the specs and key features to accurately reflect this quarter's products.

With respect to the new i7 Xeon chipsets; SolidBox will offer systems with this chipset in Q1 of next year. Demo systems for the i7 were not available to us during our benchmarking phase for Q4 of this year. We are VERY excited about the i7 chipset, but at the same time we would never recommend any under tested hardware. We currently have a few i7 systems in house, and we are VERY impressed with the numbers. In fact, we will have to modify the SolidMark benchmark to account for these improvements.

In terms of graphics cards, we are EXTREMELY critical. Based on numbers alone, you can easily assume that anything above the Quadro FX1800 is overkill. However, in "real world" testing, the FX3800 and FX4800 both offer tremendous benefits for users handling large simulation datasets, e.g. FEA and fluid flow simulation graphics. Also, to this point, most SW users have been using these high-end cards on x32 systems, or x64 systems with small amounts of RAM. To get the most out of these 1.0GB cards it's necessary to have as much RAM as you can afford, given the issue of shared memory for graphics cards. Finally, in our bundles we offer the 27in Flat Panel from Dell, which tempts you to open as many windows as possible. These cards handle multiple windows with ease.

We admit that our systems are currently skewed too much towards users with simulation needs. Therefore on January 1st, our site will offer several more configurations that will make everyone happy. Or at least we hope ;-) Seriously, please keep talking to us, and voice your opinions on what you find most useful in a workstation.

Thanks again,
Chris
Charles Culp

I actually disagree with their specs. Anna's (www.solidmuse.com) benchmarks show that those wimpy 2.4 GHz chips should be replaced with 3.2GHz Corei7/Nehalem Xeon chips, and the video cards should be toned down a notch. FX4800's are not nessisary for Solidworks, we aren't designing "immersive environments". Regardless of how complex your part is, an FX1800 is plenty for midrange, and an FX3800 is overkill for anything in SW.
Josh M

I'd also have to agree with you charles. On the Engineering series the 1800 would be fine. I've sent Chris an email asking him about customization and if there would be different options for what people use solidworks for. It's nice that he has it split up, easy to pick and buy style, but a lot of users know what they need.
Charles Culp

Well, those top end systems seem expensive, but I do like the "creative" series. $1,8-- for a well optimized and fairly decent system sounds good. Especially amazing if it comes with a "guarantee" that it will work with Solidworks, and customer support to prove it. Specifically, video drivers and video card compatibility are always a nagging issue.
diverso

I just bought an M4400 very similar from the Creative Series Mobile, the only differences are that I Upgrated the processor to the Dual Core T9900 at 3.06Ghz and kept the GPU at the FX770

It ran me about $2100 not even close to what SolidBox shows (overpriced).

Also if you look into the Full System Specs there are major differences from what is shown on the Key Features for the Laptop.
diverso

I agree Charles:

Anything greater than the FX1800 for SW = Money Wasted!