Ericherbrooke,
Firstly, consider consulting Dessault directly for recommended. certified hardware. As is the case for Autodesk there may not be full software support without certain hardware; and probably using a Quadro GPU will be on that list.
Catia-oriented systems may be divided into the priority function; whether modeling ,simulation, or rendering. If the system is primarily modeling, the best single-thread performance is the goal, with the highest possible clock speed as the criterium. For simulation, multiple cores and high clock speed in combination with RAM quantity and disk speeds desirable, and for rendering, more cores, a GPU wit a lot of CUDA cores, and a lot of memory. In all systems, the primary GPU must be a Quadro as both Catia and Solidworks are optimized for them. For all systems, consider using a single CPU with more cores instead of a dual one as some associated software may not be able to utilize dual processors.
For an all round system that would correspond to what might be characterized as a super version of the current system and that might handle a good range of functions and projects scale. consider an HP Z4 G4 / Xeon W-2145 or W-2155 / min. 64GB RAM ECC, configuring to allow increase to 128GB / Quadro RTX4000 / 512GB M.2 OS/ Programs drive / 1TB M.2 Projects and libraries drive / 6TB storage drive configuration in RAID 5 / external USB 2TB backup drive run only for backup and with a quick restore system image in a dedicated partition. If the projects are very complex and if there is dynamic structural, gas, particle, thermal analysis and etc, the GPU might be an RTX 5000 and also for simulations, the OS might run on a dual M.2 card in RAID 0.
For a middle ground system, suitable for medium scale projects, consider an HP Z440 G3 / Xeon E5-1650 v4 / 1660v4 / 1680 v4 / 64GB / Quadro P4000 and etc. There are also the E5- 16XX v2's that may be overclocked; the 1650 v2 , 1660 v2 , and 1680 v2. I and forum friend Brian1965- who is running Solidworks- use E5-1680 v2's on liquid cooling, his at 4.7GHz using a custom external cooler and mine at 4.3GHz using a z420 AIO liquid cooler.
A reasonably good performing system on a budget or for student use might be similar to the primary system in this office:
HP z620_2 (2017) (R7) > Xeon E5-1680 v2 (8-core@ 4.3GHz) / z420 Liquid Cooling / 64GB DDR3-1866 ECC Reg / Quadro P2000 5GB **_ GTX 1070 Ti 8GB / HP Z Turbo Drive M.2 256GB AHCI + Samsung 970 EVO M.2 NVMe 500GB + HGST 7K6000 4TB / Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 sound interface + 2X Mackie MR824 / 825W PSU /> HP OEM Windows 7 Prof.’l 64-bit > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark Rating = 6280 / CPU rating = 17178 / 2D = 819 / 3D= 12629 / Mem = 3002 / Disk = 13751 / Single Thread Mark = 2368 [10.23.18]
Or, possibly: a reasonably good performing system on a budget or for student use might be similar to the second system in this office:
HP z420_3: (2015) (R11) Xeon E5-1650 v2 (6C@ 4.3GHz) / z420 Liquid cooling / 64GB (8X 8GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB **(EVGA SSC)/ Samsung 860 EVO 500GB + HGST 4TB / ASUS Essence STX / Logitech z2300 2.1 / 600W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (HP OEM ) > Samsung 40" 4K
[Passmark System Rating: = 5644 / CPU = 15293 / 2D = 847 / 3D = 10952 / Mem = 2993 Disk = 4858 /Single Thread Mark = 2384 [6.27.19]
**But substitute Quadro P4000 8GB.
These two are using Iuntel Extreme Tuning Utility for overclocking, but it is not perfectly 100% reliable in my use and if the stock speeds are to be used with E5-v2, use the E5-1660 v2 6C@ 3.7 /4.0Ghz.
But, using software of that cost and scale capabilities professionally, my choice would be the Xeon W-2155
To compare the current system CPU to the proposed:
Xeon E5-1620 4C > Passmark average CPU Mark = 9027 / Single Thread Mark = 1925
Xeon W-2145 8C > Passmark average CPU Mark = 19718 / Single Thread Mark = 2521
Xeon W-2155 10C> Passmark average CPU Mark = 21832/ Single Thread Mark = 2475
Xeon E5-1650 V2 6C@ 4.3GHz > Passmark CPU Mark = 15293 / Single Thread Mark = 2384
Xeon E5-1660 V2 6C@ 3.7/4.0GHz > Passmark CPU Mark = 13808 / Single Thread Mark = 2116
Xeon E5-1680 V2 8C@ 4.3GHz > Passmark CPU Mark = 17218 / Single Thread Mark = 2364
Xeon E5-1680 V2 8C@ 4.7GHz > Passmark CPU Mark = 17164 / Single Thread Mark = ~2530 (?)
BambiBoomZ
