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2 GHz required on 1.7 GHz processor

Anonymous
2013-03-30T01:16:50+00:00

Is it a good idea to install software which requires 2.0 GHz on the Surface Pro, which has a 1.7 GHz processor? What would happen if I did install it?  The software is Autodesk Inventor 2013: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15402497&linkID=9242018#section6. It said:

"Intel® Pentium® 4, 2 GHz or faster processor; Intel® Xeon®, Intel® Core™, AMD Athlon™ 64, or AMD Opteron™ or later processor (3)"

Did it mean that the Intel Pentium processor needed to be 2 GHz or faster, or the are rest of the processors also needed to be that fast?

Surface | Surface Pro | Install and update

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-03-30T01:39:35+00:00

    Software that requires a certain speed is "highly" recommended.  Autodesk Inventor 2013 "may" install and run but run a little slower than normal or the installer may view your processor speed and post a warning and refuse to install.

    It will not hurt the machine to try it.  You may get a serious battery drain though if it does run.  Autodesk software uses just about every resource a machine has.

    If still cautious about it, you can contact Autodesk technical support and ask them.  Chances are they have already tested some of their software on a Surface Pro.  A lot of other companies maybe doing that right now as well.

    You have a good question but best to check the source of the software.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-03-30T13:16:12+00:00

    The larger issue you'll see with Inventor isn't CPU clock related, it's graphics card related. The 'integrated' graphics on the Surface aren't bad at all as such things go, but it's not a CAD tool screamer, performance wise.

    I've installed PTC's Creo Elements / Direct Modeling 4.0 on mine, and it runs but it can be sluggish on 3D rotates and such, especially if you try to get fancy with part translucency and have a large assembly to display with a high angular accuracy (e.g. lots of 'facets' around curvature).

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-03-30T07:40:07+00:00

    Trust me, a 2GHz Pentium 4 processor is so old and slow that a surface pro runs circles around it. Absolute frequency numbers are pretty much meaningless in I nowadays. In the old days, CPUs kept increasing frequency. Now they increase efficiency.

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