Is this Intel i7 machine good for LTSpice?

That's where it becomes esoteric to me. I just want to install LTSpice and ... simulate. Not get into the business of IT and computer science which is pretty foreign to us analog guys anyhow.

That's what some folks in Germany said as well. Although I don't know why because if you had a machine with, say, 32GB of RAM then everything and the kitchen sink will comfortably fit into that much RAM and should execute even faster than via SSD.

Well, I do want to update a lot of the software to newer versions and also I do not trsut auto-installers.

Done it before, worked every time.

Ok, but for example a gamer machine like the XPS series is a pretty good bet that it'll perform well with SPICE.

Ahm, my SW goes back to the mid-80's. Unorthodox filter design, beamfield simulators and such.

Yes, nagware is a major problem. It already was 10 years ago where it took a lot of effort to rid the computer of that.

They only have them online.

I install everything in my own directory called "Programs". That avoids a lot of such issues. Makes it tough in a multi-user environment but I work alone here.

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Then DVI will works just fine, HDMI is just DVI with optional audio and the encryption Hollywood insists on if you bought a blueray movie

So just plug a monitor into both the HDMI and DVI output

-Lasse

That's just it, the price differential for the monitor is only $100. Bought separately they are >$250. I could use it for a dual-monitor setup. Two 27-inchers would allow me to have module spec, schematic, layout and Digikey page in view simultaneously.

I've seen lots of issues, mostly with Excel. No VBA, x-axis in plots gets crunched into oblivion and so on. Not too often but enough that I'd be willing to spend the $100 for the MS-Office suite. Of course my default Office package will be OO.

Got to find a local place for that. Or I could use Phil Hoobs' supplier over the web because he said they are good.

Supposedly quite well but I am new to this, so I don't have any experience. Once we did a crude benchmarking and a guy with a quad-core ran my sim more than 3x faster. Heck, I'd plunk down money even for 1.5x.

Thanks, good to know.

The Costco machines have 1600MHz RAM so that might put a slight crimp into things.

I am not at all concerned about video because that's just used for static display and sometimes video conferencing. No games, no movies.

I have no idea what you are talking about. 32 GB of RAM is great as RAM, but how does it mitigate the speed problems of a rotating hard drive? When you run spice, where does your simulation data get saved?

Ok, but can one be sure that an ordinary cheap 27" 1920*1080 monitor will plug into either of them? For example, the ViewSonic VA2702w I have here only has the large DVI connector, not the narrow HDMI. It does have VGA though which I am using right now (good enough for my purposes).

So DOS programs? What makes you think they won't work under Win8? The usual FUD?

I've never been a fan of Costco for computers, with one exception. They let you return a computer, no questions asked for 90 days I believe. So you can try it out at home.

That helps one aspect, the nags from the OS about writing data. But you have lost the benefit of the Program Files directory being protected. It makes your executables that much easier to infect, although that is not typically a problem since good AVS stops malware long before it gets a chance to infect the hard drive.

Normally on the HD. But not in the DOS days, there I used (part of) an extra 4MB that I installed for this. RAM-disk should also be possible under Windows. Like here:

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yes, for regular computer monitor HDMI and DVI is the same thing, you just need the right cable or a adapter to get the wires in the right holes ;)

-Lasse

Heck, for $100 that's a good deal.

The only issue I've seen is when I add block diagrams to a spreadsheet. Seems LO likes to shove it all up into the upper left corner sometimes. I've never had trouble with any graphs, although I can't figure out how to add engineering notation to LO or a third Y axis for plotting multiple types of data on one plot. Can you do that in OO or Excel?

Most custom shops will be good because if they aren't, they are gone. Word of mouth is a *big* deal with these sort of shops.

If you are going for power, you need to have separate video memory or the video eats memory bandwidth which is often the limiting factor on a multicore machine.

I haven't kept up with the hotrod machines these days, but I'd be willing to bet you will get a lot better performance with multi-banked RAM. Does this machine have two or more memory interfaces or just one?

So then here in the photo the center one is HDMI and the right one is DVI and that's where the two monitors should go to? I could also hook one up to VGA like I have now.

Says dual-link or DVI-D for the DVI connector in the specs, whatever that means.

Yup :-)

No idea, I am always at the receiving end. Clients send me Excel plots of test data logged with stuff that I designed and then it's "Oh, I can't read some of it". When I open it on a computer that has genuine MS-Office it works but I do not have enough licenses for all computers.

True. But when it comes to contemporary PCs I am a newbie, so I wouldn't even know what to look for and PC assemblers don't know anything about network simulation.

It's like going into Bel Air. My wife knows exactly what to pick for the ingredients of a meal. Me? I'd be lost, except in the beer aisle. But plop me down in a restaurant and within milliseconds I know what I'd like to eat.

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yes, you can hook up three monitors

single-link is three differential pairs, dual-link has three extra pairs th at are used for the higher bandwidth need for very high resolutions

afair single link DVI is limited to 1920x1200 at 60 Hz

-Lasse

No clue. But with SPICE the graphics action is very slow, just a wee progress of a few traces on an otherwise static screen. And you could even turn that off.