this question your asking
is only relevent to the speed of the graphics sub frame your main board supports
the faster the better pci express or agp time X
stick to the faster graphics cards in 3d & 2d is best
look for boxed ones that quote these speeds
buy a decent motherboard and mpu
the memory you use is important
it should be fast enought to stop bottle necks
but not too fast as to cause them {parity ram only fully}
the speed of the mpu is irrelevent as is the mainboard
over and above what i said
the graphics is best as fast as possible for both realms 2d and 3d
simple....!
youll also find most oem graphics cards
can be tweaked and reflashed to workstation cards
at a fration of a workstation cards costs.,...
.....
above all using design tools like this in 3d or 2d
takes patence and also its a bit like crytical music apps
you must turn off and disable windows bells and whistles
and maximise the system performances first
then install your tools for eda and re-tweak
there is heeps of tweaks to windows to fix this and that
best look to gamers sites to get good info max your system
as a minimal windows install
{or add a second windows just for this task on another platter}
its simple to be fast a tool has to have a chance to work fast
if you leave all the fancy bits in windows switched on windows and your machine will task on this and not your app
three simple tweaks are
go to
control panel >> system >> advanced system settings >> performance >> settings>> adjust for best performance
next go to the virtual memory >> advanced
in the same tab
choose programs for both settings
then adjust for a swap file on a separate disk drive
if you dont have a second platter add one and setup the swap file on this
{page file}
as a system managed one
and also allow twice your system ram on the main drive as a fixed size swap file
no others
and reboot
problems solved
your apps will now run 70% faster in real time
.....
and dont forget to turn OFF auto insert notification
on all removable media
otherwise the o/s will task on drives every few hundred miliseconds
to see if a disk or new media is there
the rule is if its not needed specificaly
turn it off or disable etc
as it just blages resorces otherwise
if you have more than 1gb system ram and use windows xp or less {advised}
turn the swap file off completely
you dont need it