Topic Title

My neighbor who is an IT tech was over last night looking at some of my other IT issues, and we got talking about computers. I want to upgrade to an Apple, he thinks I should just update some stuff on my laptop and save my money. One of those being upgrading my RAM, but to do that, I would need to upgrade my OS to a 64-bit system. We looked and searched, and even read the minimum requirements to run DataCAD, but couldn't find anything that said you couldn't with a 64-bit system. I feel like we might have come across someone with DataCAD 11 trying to run on a 64-bit system, and they talked about choppy issues. But I can't find anything in regards to issues with a 64-bit system and DataCAD 16.

Can anyone vouch that is running a 64-bit system that there are no issues? Or that there are issues? Spending a few hundred is a lot better than $2,500-$3,000 for a new Apple.

How much RAM is in you system now, and how much would you upgrade to? Chances are with 6GB or more, you should be fine with DataCAD.

If you get a Mac, then you need to get 8GB at least, but 16GB would be much better - since you have to run Windows "inside" the Mac, and they split the RAM and use part for each. So, 6-8GB (4GB in a pinch) for Windows and 8GB for OS X (4GB in a pinch).

A Mac will be great, but they do cost a lot. I run an iMac at home.

Oh, and 64bit Windows is totally fine with DataCAD.

I've been running V16 without any issues on my 64-bit systems - a Dell XPS desktop unit and an HP DV-7 laptop. In fact, both systems ran V15 without issues prior to V16 being released.

I currently have 4GB of RAM, and would like to bump it up to 8GB. I have an older Dell XPS M1530 laptop.

Good to hear that there are people running DataCAD 16 without any issues. Will save me a few dollars potentially.

If I were to get an Apple, I have been looking at the Macbook Pro with Retina. 16GB RAM.

If I was wanting an older laptop to get a new lease on life then I would be fitting an ssd hard drive. I wouldn't worry about the ram till I'd tried that. Have done 4 so far and am surprised by the difference in speed. One I did a couple of weeks ago had xp with 2 gb ram, I installed ssd and win 7 pro, the guy I did it for is over the moon with it, still only got 2gb ram. I did my sisters Sony Vaio last night. 4 gb ram, 500gb hd. She was only using 180gb so shrunk the partition to under 200gb cloned the drive to an Intel 240 gb installed and started laptop. I expected to have a few problems with it booting, thinking I would have to do a repair but it just fired up straight away. I used Acronis True Home Image. One of my work colleagues has just fitted a 512gb ssd to his tosh.

If I was wanting an older laptop to get a new lease on life then I would be fitting an ssd hard drive. I wouldn't worry about the ram till I'd tried that. Have done 4 so far and am surprised by the difference in speed. One I did a couple of weeks ago had xp with 2 gb ram, I installed ssd and win 7 pro, the guy I did it for is over the moon with it, still only got 2gb ram. I did my sisters Sony Vaio last night. 4 gb ram, 500gb hd. She was only using 180gb so shrunk the partition to under 200gb cloned the drive to an Intel 240 gb installed and started laptop. I expected to have a few problems with it booting, thinking I would have to do a repair but it just fired up straight away. I used Acronis True Home Image. One of my work colleagues has just fitted a 512gb ssd to his tosh.

Putting an SSD into a system that needs more ram will speed it up because it increases the speed at which the page file can read and write. That said, it's not a good idea to run in this type of scenario because you are putting a TON of extra burden on the SSD. SSD's have a much shorter read/write life span in general vs. standard HDD's. Most SSD will tell you for a proper setup to disable or reduce the size of page file for just this reason. Newer SSD drives are getting more robust and proving better lifespans than when they first came out but they still have not reached parity with HDDs. Using an SSD is best suited in a system where you have enough ram to run the OS in memory (4 gigs min, 6-8 gigs or more recommended) and then the SSD provides an additional speed increase on the top of that be reducing the access time to the system files.

Putting an SSD into a system that needs more ram will speed it up because it increases the at which the page file can read and write. That said, it's not a good idea to run in this type of scenario because you are putting a TON of extra burden on the SSD. SSD's have a much shorter read/write life span in general vs. standard HDD's. Most SSD will tell you for a proper setup to disable or reduce the size of page file for just this reason. Newer SSD drives are getting more robust and proving better lifespans than when they first came out but they still have not reached parity with HDDs. Using an SSD is best suited in a system where you have enough ram to run the OS in memory (4 gigs min, 6-8 gigs or more recommended) and then the SSD provides an additional speed increase on the top of that be reducing the access time to the system files.

Agreed but the Intel Ssd's have a five year wrty so I'm thinking if it gives them 2 or 3 more years on there laptop then all's good. The other units I have done are desktops, my own has 16Gb of Ram, had 2 x 1tb hard drives raided, now has 1 x 250gb ssd as the boot drive and the 1tb raid for data.

More RAM (if the OS supports it) is almost always better. Especially, if it avoids using virtual memory - which is very slow, and it fragments the hard drive and if it is an SSD, it will wear it out much more quickly, all else being equal.

In a properly designed system, virtual memory is almost never needed - only once in a great while should you need more RAM than is in the system. In that ideal system, an SSD will "only" help load programs and boot up more quickly, than with a spinning hard drive.

In my opinion, enough RAM is primary, and fast storage is good but less important.

I am in the same boat as Neil in that I think more RAM is better. In my scenario, I actually have a little NAS (server), and everything is stored there. While that can be an area that could cause a bottleneck, I still think having more RAM on the computer will help with the processing of whatever I am doing. Whether it be DataCAD or Sketchup, or both.

I have a 64bit system with 8 gig ram win7 - never dacad problems. My processor overheats occassionally (I work so fast, I guess)...

Dennis - you're only overheating because you work so fast on DataCAD!!