Steve- DXP is now AD (Altium Designer), here's my opinion.
The bread and butter of what I do is actual PCB layout, not schematics or
anything else. That said, I find that PCB layout in AD offers more bells
and whistles, and a few real improvements but nothing that allows me to get
a board out faster. In fact I find it somewhat slower. I did upgrade to DXP
SP2 some time ago and I used it for awhile but for me it was less
productive than 99se and AD SP3 still doesn't allow be to design better or
faster than 99se, so I'm letting AD gather dust until it offers real
enhanced design capabilities. As far as SP3 is concerned, I think the Smart
PDF feature is the bigest selling feature, but it still doesn't help my
actual design, it only help me document it.
According to a post from Nick Martin on the DXP forum last March 22nd, (I'm
summarizing so his exact words were a little different) Altium's plan is to
add interactive routing (not autorouting) of differential pairs probably
with our next "major" release, autorouting is a longer term thing.
Now that would be something I could really use and would improve my
productivity. I'll probably wait until the high speed capabilities get here
and really work before I start using AD again. I think the current AD SP3
upgrade does make lots more sense if you use more of the other modules
(schematic etc). I also think AD would be a good choice for a new user
(someone that had never use 99se).
Something to remember is that the cost of upgrading is much higher than
just what you pay to Altium, upgrade costs also include the learning curve
and the bad boards you may make! Altium's prices will likely get higher
with time, but if you consider the total cost of upgrading, percentage wise
it won't be much more, maybe even less when considering productivity
enhancements yet to come.
So to address your question, is DXP SP3 worth the upgrade $$$? I'd say yes
as long as you are planing to use a lot more than just the pcb layout module.
JM
At 12:21 PM 06/10/05, you wrote:
UPS just drove in with a package of Altium's latest sales pitch to try to get
us old stick-in-the-mud 99SE users to upgrade by June 30. If all the
marketing-ese were actually factual, and all those features actually
worked, it just
might be worthwhile to upgrade. Can anybody here give any insight, pro or
con,
on whether with SP3, DXP is finally worth the upgrade $$$??
Steve Hendrix
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