Real World System Requirements

[tjk0225]

Autodesk's website give the follow recommended system specs:

System Requirements

The following configurations are recommended for effective use:

Intel® Pentium® III or AMD Athlon™ processor, or better
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional, Windows 2000, or
Windows NT® 4.0 (SP6 or later)
256 MB RAM for single-user projects; 512 MB RAM for
multiuser projects
250 MB free disk space
VGA monitor and display adapter capable of 24-bit color
Two-button mouse (scroll wheel recommended)
Internet connection for license registration (recommended)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later


My question is, what is a reasonable "real world" system spec that actual Revit users would recommend. Minimum processor? 512MB RAM or 1 GIG? Which OS - Win 2000 or XP?

Thanks.

[Henry D]

Here's my take on this:
For small projects those specs Autodesk lists might be adequate, but I have 3.06 Ghz processor, 1 GB Ram, XP and I find that is still not fast enough for large projects, but very good for small to medium size projects. The next system I get will have at least 2GB of Ram and Dual processors.

[John K.]

<snip> The next system I get will have at least 2GB of Ram and Dual processors.

Henry,

I'm running a dual [AMD 2.4 Gigs] system at home. It IS faster than my single-Pentium [3.2] system at work. However, I read an interesting review this AM on a dual-Xeon system. Do you know anything about these and how they price out? [I haven't yet been to pricewatch and I only just purchased the new PC for the office. Thus I won't have much $$$ for new toys for at least a few months... :-( ]

[edited w/excerpt from <<3Dworld>>]

<snip> Although Intel's online brochures may leave you even more confused than when you stared, the bottom line is simply this: a dual-processor Xeon, even at the slower 3.06GHz CPU and 533MHz bus speeds, still more than doubles the performance of a single-processor Pentium 4 at 3.2GHz.</snip>

-- from 3D World magazine. Transcribed directly from my copy of the mag, so typos and other goofs are my own...

[cogen]

Henry, can you define "small", "medium" and "large" projects for reference - thanks. When I purchased Revit (4.5) I was told that 200,000 sf was a "large" project.

[Henry D]

John,

There are some interesting threads on Dual Xeons in the Autodesk Hardware newsgroup at discussion.autodesk.com - since I still have about another 9 months before I plan to get a new system I haven't really researched prices, etc., but here is a link which compares prices for Xeon Computer Mobo’s:

http://www.bizrate.com/buy/products__att7--305046-,cat_id--419.html

and here is another link to a review which compares Dual Xeons to AMD’s Dual Opterons – which concludes : The benchmarks (MySQL, Whetstone, ARC 2D, NPB, etc.) show quite clearly that the Dual Opteron puts the Dual Xeon in its place, especially in the server disciplines. In the workstation tests, however, the Dual Xeon has the lead.


http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030422/

cogen,

I am a relative neophyte with Revit (10 months) so I think some of the more knowledgeable members of this forum can give a better answer, but my experience is the following:

Rather than just SF size of the project, it's file size and complexity which affects performance - sweeps, multiple complex families, locking, etc.
-a complex 2,800 SF Residence may be more demanding than a 12,000 SF warehouse. Also, a smaller file size which is more complex may be slower than a larger file made up of simpler objects and relationships. My projects so far have had many repetitive complex families and sweeps, here is my breakdown:

small: <15,000 KB file (my system handles these easily)
medium: 15,000 - 25,000 KB File (starts to get slow)
large: > 25,000 KB (can really get slow)

At around 15,000 KB I start using Worksets to better manage the file size.