Hi there,
I'm looking for a small desktop for light CAD work. I have been looking at the Dell/HP ex-lease systems but not sure if they will melt trying to run the CAD program. Minimum specs listed are:
Would something like this be suitable?
I have the same program running (well) on a Dell Latitude Laptop. It does have an i7, 16GB RAM and an SSD, though.
I bought a HP Prodesk 600 G1 (i5-4570, 8GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, Win10 Pro) off ebay for $250 and that runs Inventor 2017 fine. Struggles a little running large assemblies but the integrated graphics card is running three 1080p screens simultaneously so that might not help.
One 1080p screen should be good.
If you need more graphics horsepower you can also grab a 1050ti low profile as well. Thats next on my list but i'm waiting for the graphics card prices to drop a fair bit more before i pull the trigger. That would suit your program as it supports CUDA.
Also, a SSD is a must. The Prodesk also has space for two 3.5" HDDs and a 2.5" SSD space as well. I recommend!
edit: The elitedesk is pretty much the same as the prodesk just with some extra management and reliability features.
What software will you be using?