KitGuru Complete Guide to Workstations – Part 4

1. Introduction2. Test Workstations3. Test Graphics Cards4. Test Software and SPECapc Results5. Cadalyst Benchmark Test for AutoCAD 20156. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

Cadalyst Benchmark Test for AutoCAD 2015

The Cadalyst Systems Benchmark 2015 (C2015) is designed to test and compare the performance of systems running AutoCAD v2000-2015.

The Total Index Score is calculated based on subindex scores for four areas of performance: 3D Graphics, 2D Graphics, Disk, and CPU. The 3D visualization portions of the benchmark are compatible with AutoCAD 2009 and later; the 2D portions of the test work with AutoCAD 2000 and later. The benchmark compares the test times of your current system with a set of base times and computes an index number.

An index score of 135, for example, means your test system is 135 times faster than the base system for the functions tested. The original Cadalyst Systems Benchmark was released in 1996. All versions have been developed by Art Liddle, a former editor of Cadalyst magazine and now a physics teacher at Springfield High School in Springfield, Oregon.

Our first AutoCAD results provide some considerable surprises. We ran the Cadalyst Bench Test on the Xeon E5-2697v3 platform with all four graphics cards.

It's no surprise that the CPU, Disk and 2D results show no significant variance between the four graphics cards, since these portions of the Bench Test won't be using the GPU power. But there is scarcely any difference between the four graphics cards, implying that the GPUs are hardly being stressed at all. In fact, the K2200 is just as good as the K4200 and K5200.

So, for our second test, let's have a look at how the K2200 performs in the overclocked 4.4GHz Core i7-5820K compared to the Xeon E5-2697v3.

The story told by this graph is becoming somewhat familiar in this series of articles. The overclocked Intel Core i7-5820K running at 4.4GHz beats the Intel Xeon E5-2697v3 in ever test. As we showed in our initial tests, the Core i7 does provide faster disk access than the Xeon. But in AutoCAD, the faster core clock gives significant benefits for 2D, CPU, and even GPU-oriented 3D tasks.

With the latter in particular, there's a 32 per cent benefit for the overclocked Core i7. So a CPU with a fast core clock is very clearly your best choice for optimal modelling experiences with AutoCAD. This test also implies that core count has little or no benefit. To confirm this, let's add the 10-core Intel Xeon E5-2660v3 into the mix.

Running the Cadalyst Bench Test on the two Xeon platforms, this time with the NVIDIA Quadro K4200, shows that the E5-2697v3 wins out very slightly over the E5-2660v3, but not by very much.

There are small benefits in the CPU, Disk and 2D tests, whilst the 3D test is neck-and-neck. So the four extra cores in the top Xeon provide little benefit. The small boost is almost certainly from the slightly faster Turbo Boost mode in the top Xeon. We can confirm that AutoCAD gains no benefit from extra cores when modelling – and not much benefit from expensive graphics either.

A fast single CPU core is the best choice when running this software.

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