Topic Title

I read the minimum system requirements for DataCad. What would you suggest as a good system to work primarily in 2D? Processor, Ram, Video Card, OS. Suggestions would be welcomed. Homer

If your looking to build something the minimum specs I would feel comfortable giving to someone to run Datacad smoothly would be:

OS: Windows 7 64 bit (or Windows 8.1 with the add on Start 8 from Star Dock)
Ram: Min. 4 GB ram, recommend 6 to 8 GB. Anything over that would be overkill as far as Datacad is concerned I would think unless your really cranking out some huge projects. DDR3
Processor: i5 or i7. As many Mhz as you can afford. This is one of the key components for Datacad's refresh/display speed.
Harddrive: I would get a SSD for your primary OS drive if you can swing it, and then a SATA III drive for data. Primary OS drive size would be 256 GB. Could get by with 128GB if you are not going to add other office apps.
Video card: Get a card with 1 Gig memory to drive your video display. Don't need a ton of processing horsepower for Datacad, but Windows 7/8's hardware accelerated interface needs the ram.

Your mileage may vary.

Although I think it's great that you're looking at DC's minimum specs, make sure that you're also considering any other software that you'll be running (ie. will you be doing any rendering?) that could make use of more RAM or a higher-end video card.

If you are doing totally 2D production with DataCAD, I think that you would need to work to find a system that won't let it work fine. The main thing is to get sufficient RAM that the OS functions well.
All bets are off if you plan to do large projects and to have a dozen other programs running at the same time. In that case, DataCAD wouldn't be the problem, it would just be a victim. I have a ten year old laptop that had Win 2000 and now XP as the operating system and I can run Version 16 with no difficulties. Once it is booted up and loaded, anything in DCAD that I load up works as well as it does on my six month old desktop.
Good luck,
Woody

I'd agree with most of what others have said - I'd stay with Win7 if you can, or Win8 if you have to. 6-8 GB of RAM and an i5 would do nicely, and an i7 if you can. A 1-2TB hard drive is probably more than sufficient. An SSD is probably a bit pricey for benefits running DataCAD, in my opinion.

I'd make sure that the video card can support two monitors, so 2 DVI outputs or DP or VGA. HDMI can work I guess, but some can be finicky for setting a good resolution; since it is meant for TV. A more esoteric thing to look for is a power supply that has APFC (active power factor control) and you can tell this if it does *not* have the red voltage switch on the back. APFC means the power supply is more efficient and generally will be better quality.