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Looking to build a new computer for Mastercam 2020/Camplete

BRIAN.T

Cast Iron
Joined
Jul 23, 2018
Location
Los Angeles
I built my computer about 2 years ago, before I was doing any 5 axis work. Now I'm doing significantly larger and more complicated parts, and as a result my computer is lagging. Some toolpaths might take 10 minutes to generate, and collision checking with Camplete might take an hour, needless to say it's unbearable.

So I'm looking to either put together a new computer, or upgrade my current build. Keep in mind, I don't actually know a ton about computers so some of my statements may be wrong.

My current specs are
Intel i7-7700k
64gb Corsair ram DDR4 2400
2x Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD - RAID
NVIDIA Quadro P600
Windows 10 home


Now most people tell me the graphics card is most important, however when I look at my processes during toolpath generation I see my graphics card at 1-2 percent, and my CPU at about 80-100 percent. Seems to me I need a better CPU right? If so what should I buy? I assume I'll need another mother board correct?

Also what else should I have to speed things up, my hard drives are almost empty as I don't keep the files on my programming computer. I don't mind spending money, what I hate is spending time waiting.
 
I'm no expert but if you don't have the files on the computer you are programming on is there a chance that there is some data going back and forth between your programming computer and where the files ARE stored while this processing is going on and slowing things down? That processor has 4 cores. I think MC is multithreaded software and saw this post elsewhere:

Mastercam 2019 Bugs - Industrial Forum - eMastercam.com
 
There is nothing wrong with that build... For reference, my work laptop, which will run Esprit, Partmaker, and Solidworks simultaneously without lagging is only an i7-4810 @2.8GHz (8 cores), 16GB Ram, with a 4GB Quadroo K2100 video card, no SSD.

Something isn't setup right, is my gut feeling.
 
I agree with TeachMePlease. Unless...as far as models go what kind of file size do you work with, on average?
 
There is nothing wrong with that build... For reference, my work laptop, which will run Esprit, Partmaker, and Solidworks simultaneously without lagging is only an i7-4810 @2.8GHz (8 cores), 16GB Ram, with a 4GB Quadroo K2100 video card, no SSD.

Something isn't setup right, is my gut feeling.
My first instinct is that the w10 Home might not be optimum, would a 64 bit windows run faster? Most of my software requires 64 bit Pro just to install. Partly asking for my own information, I'm no IT expert.
 
I am far from an expert but from what I know calculation time is purely governed by the CPU, and its not necessarily the more cores the better as when calculating the tool path, as it can't spread the work across the cores because it has to work tool path points out one after the other and cant spread that work out across other cores. If you can, turning hyper-threading off if possible can help cal times.

Xeon vs i7 – What’s the difference? | Velocity Micro Blog
 
Your build is still good,The only thing I would upgrade is the RAM, get faster RAM, period. The 2400 you have is dogshit slow compared to something like 3300. And your GPU isn't bad, but you could upgrade to a P4000.

Also.. don't even think about a Xeon for Mastercam. They're a waste of money since Mastercam LOVES clock speed.

I'd wait until the next generation of Intel cpu's to come out before upgrading that because the current generation isn't anything special.
 
My first instinct is that the w10 Home might not be optimum, would a 64 bit windows run faster? Most of my software requires 64 bit Pro just to install. Partly asking for my own information, I'm no IT expert.

W10 home is 64 bit, there's no architectural difference between home and pro. No speed difference. Only reason to get pro is if you specifically need the pro features (mostly enterprise stuff for larger businesses). Mud, what software are you using that requires Pro specifically to install?

Compare Windows 10 Home vs Pro | Microsoft Windows

The only question I would have about your build is whether you are planning on overclocking. If you are not planning on overclocking (which I think would be overkill for your workload and potentially introduce reliability issues if you aren't building/configuring for it), you can consider non-K model processors instead, possibly at some cost savings.

I also agree that faster RAM is better, as long as you get a motherboard that can support running it at that speed (check beforehand).

Also seconding to check whether the network is your real performance bottleneck, if you are truly keeping no files on the machine.
 
Your current specs are fine.

I just paid for a huge virtualization server for my company and it wasn't too much more specific wise than what you have there.

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I'm no expert but if you don't have the files on the computer you are programming on is there a chance that there is some data going back and forth between your programming computer and where the files ARE stored while this processing is going on and slowing things down? That processor has 4 cores. I think MC is multithreaded software and saw this post elsewhere:

Mastercam 2019 Bugs - Industrial Forum - eMastercam.com

I'm not actually working off a different computer, my files are on my hard drive while programming, I move them to a server when I'm done. I should have clarified that earlier.
 
I agree with TeachMePlease. Unless...as far as models go what kind of file size do you work with, on average?

I suppose that's good to hear, ide love it to be a simple problem. As for file size, most are small, the ones that give me trouble are about 25-60mb. Which doesn't seem that big compared to what I see people doing online. I don't do much surfacing, I suppose I use a fair amount of stock models, rest milling type ops.those add to file size quickly.
 
Your build is still good,The only thing I would upgrade is the RAM, get faster RAM, period. The 2400 you have is dogshit slow compared to something like 3300. And your GPU isn't bad, but you could upgrade to a P4000.

Also.. don't even think about a Xeon for Mastercam. They're a waste of money since Mastercam LOVES clock speed.

I'd wait until the next generation of Intel cpu's to come out before upgrading that because the current generation isn't anything special.

That's actually great advice, I honestly don't know anything about ram speed, so I'll do some research and swap it out. I also assumed I should have gone with Xeon, glad you're telling me otherwise!
 
#1 problem I see when complaints about processing speed...getting too fine too early. When building your toolpath leave the stepovers and tolerances high. Once you're happy with the tool motion, then adjust to the needed stepover/tolerance. This will save you hours!

...and upgrade that video card! Rest of the system is a beast but your running a piddly $200 2gb video card.
 
#1 problem I see when complaints about processing speed...getting too fine too early. When building your toolpath leave the stepovers and tolerances high. Once you're happy with the tool motion, then adjust to the needed stepover/tolerance. This will save you hours!

...and upgrade that video card! Rest of the system is a beast but your running a piddly $200 2gb video card.
Great tip, thanks.


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#1 problem I see when complaints about processing speed...getting too fine too early. When building your toolpath leave the stepovers and tolerances high. Once you're happy with the tool motion, then adjust to the needed stepover/tolerance. This will save you hours!

...and upgrade that video card! Rest of the system is a beast but your running a piddly $200 2gb video card.

Definitely a great tip, However that is usually what I do, at least for surfacing operations, and vector driven paths. I think usually what happens for me is I'll be 70 paths into a part, when I decide I need to take rough out one more little area, or perhaps change a stickout length of a tool, so I add a path somewhere at the top, and since 1/3 of what I'm doing is stock model based, I have to regenerate everything. I get it's an amateur move, but let's be honest, sometimes youve got to make a change.

As for graphics card, I'm fully on board with buying a new one, however I really only see my graphics card working when I'm simulating, never when I'm generating toolpaths. Will it make a difference?

As for card my initial research points me to a quadro p2200, it's reasonably priced, new design, 5gb memory. Should I get something better?
 
Regarding memory speed, on DDR4 on intel, it doesn't make much difference in real world applications. I would suggest that you will be disappointed if you install faster ram with great expectations.

Keep and eye on CPU load when it's struggling, probably you will have one core that is under load and the rest idling - if the one core that is loaded is 100% pegged all the time then faster ram is unlikely to make any difference whatsoever. If it's hovering or jumping around 50-75% while the rest are idling, then it is almost certainly IO bottlenecked, in which case faster ram might help, but more cache would likely help a lot more.

I am about to build a new workstation for cad/cam too, and it will be a Ryzen 3700X - single core IPC is within MOE against Intel's best and it has twice as much level 3 cache. Ryzen CPU's are much more sensitive to memory speed than Intel, but I will also be using slow (2666Mhz) ram, because I will use ECC which is not available in fast speeds. I made this decision based on my less than stellar experiences with DDR4 stability.*

Regarding the GPU, yes the P600 is an absolute turd of a GPU, but as you have observed it does very little of anything in a cam workstation. Fact is, ALL of the low-mid range Quadro cards are dog slow GPU's. The equivalent AMD workstation cards offer more bang for buck, but it really doesn't matter much. I have a Quadro P2000 and a Radeon Pro 5100 in identical workstations, the 5100 is noticeably faster when modelling, but neither of them are under any load whatsoever when calculating toolpaths, so who cares.

*Important to note that Intel do not support ECC ram unless you buy a Xeon, which was a real driver for choosing AMD for this build.
 
Also check Task Manager to see if there's a process going on in the background that you don't need that is consuming CPU and disk resources.

Turn those processes off and watch the CPU usage.
 
As for card my initial research points me to a quadro p2200, it's reasonably priced, new design, 5gb memory. Should I get something better?

As mentioned above, no calculation is done on the graphics card but I would still upgrade. Most likely you'll have more than just Mastercam running on the computer, if you have 70+ops displayed on the screen all at once....plus a plethora of other reasons, it will make the computer experience 'faster'.

Some other things you could do in Mastercam, if you are confident your stock models will not change you could save them out as stl and then base the next operation on the saved stl. This is a tad risky in my mind though. Using stl is not available for all paths though. Another option, when possible use stock that is defined by a previous tool size. You could loosen the tolerance on your stock models specially when you're just roughing, try starting your stock models' stock as the previous stock model. This way you reduce the number of toolpaths calculated per stock model....thats all I can think of for now

Oh...and do not buy a used video card from ebay. Many are getting out of the bitcoin game and dumping the videocards they were using...or just dumping clapped out cards altogether.
 








 
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