new computer and where is money best spent

[Justin Marchiel]

I am under the assumption that the best money spent in a new computer is in the video card and the ram. is this true? does processor speed have much of an impact at this point?

Thanks

Justin

[dhurtubise]

RAM is the main issue. Video card is also important but as long as it support OpenGL you should be fine.
Processor is not much of a big deal unless you wanna do rendering with Revit.

[Justin Marchiel]

i use Viz to render, so that is a different issue. I was looking in here for revit and computer.

Justin

[Justin Marchiel]

what about the 64 byte system too? Any advantages/disadvantages of this?

Justin

[jeff.95551]

From what I've seen on the hardware posts and from personal experience, RAM is first priority (to a point - XP doesn't really use more than 2 gigs anyway), then the processor speed - especially since you are only using half of it with Revit (at least until Revit learns to use a dual core or quad core processor), and then the graphics processor, which makes almost no difference at all beyond rendering. Look on the hardware threads for specifics on graphics cards.

Oh, and one more thing - get the fastest hard drives you can afford - I'd do 10k rpms minimum, Raid 0 is even better. We've got two machines that are almost identical except one has high speed drives and raid 0, and it is noticably faster, especially when dealing with worksets.

Good luck!

[dhurtubise]

Unless you use MAX 9, 64 bits is not so popular.It will be a lot more popular in january once Vista is out 'cause can manage terabytes of RAM.
But if you plan on upgrading then it's worth getting the 64 bits

[whittendesigns]

I'd go with the 64 bit just because it's a matter of time before most of us are using it.

For the most bang for the buck, RAID 0 I found was the way to go. I bought 4-250's SATA when I built mine so theoretically I'm running 28,800 rpm. The format was a really long time but loading windows took me 9 minutes and start up times are quite quick. A terabyte for $300 and fast. Can't beat it.

I thought it was 1 GB that xp could handle. Don't really remember now.

[Scott Hopkins]

RAM is the main issue. Video card is also important but as long as it support OpenGL you should be fine.
Processor is not much of a big deal unless you wanna do rendering with Revit.I think you have been misinformed. Unless you are doing the smallest of residential additions your computer's processor is the most important piece of equipment for working with Revit. Revit is extremely processor hungry. Revit is a single threaded application so dual and quad cores won't speed up Revit much, but they will help with rendering. A really powerful single core will make working with Revit much more enjoyable. I splurged and got a dual core so that I could stream music off the Internet with one core while not slowing down Revit running on the other core.

Next in line of importance would have to be RAM - 2 gigs is considered a good starting place.

One caveat, Revit requirements may change in Revit 10. Revit 10 will most likely be 64 bit, but I doubt that it will be multi-treaded for dual cores. We will have to wait and see.

[Wes Macaulay]

Also -- and no one has been talking about it -- Vista totally changes how CAD accesses video resources. Kiss OpenGL goodbye -- it's all DirectX now. Which might be great, since OpenGL seems to have some serious limitations, but this has got to be a serious undertaking by the developers to redevelop the graphics system for Revit. Who knows: this could be the opportunity for Revit to cash in on all the great hardware some people have.

The new Core 2 processors are the way to go. They are around 25% better in terms of faster computing in Revit.

Get a system that's ready for Vista. I for one don't think you have to go 64-bit...

[Calvn_Swing]

Just to clarify,

Microsoft IS changing how the graphics system works in Vista, but OpenGL will continue to work. Microsoft first stated that OpenGL wouldn't be supported in Windows Vista at all, but were very quick to change that. Too many legacy/current applications depend on OpenGL and they didn't want to loose that market share. As such, OpenGL is fully functional on Windows Vista - this is my current understanding, and I've seen a few tests that show OpenGL application performance on Vista.

As for 64bit, you might find someone with XP-64bit installed and verify that Revit works with it as it should. However, regardless of getting XP or XP-64 most new computers will include an upgrade discount to Vista which will be a native 64-bit OS. It should run Revit just fine. You can purchase regular old XP Pro now with 2 Gigs of Ram and then upgrade in Jan/Feb when it is released to retail and then you'd be ready for Revit 10.

Wes, Do you know if Revit 10 is going to be DirectX based for sure? Just curious because that would affect what graphics card I buy.

Edit: Core 2 Duo/Quad is the way to go now, but I'm waiting for AMD's K8L architecture next year before I buy anything.

[Wes Macaulay]

No -- I've heard nothing about the latest regarding DirectX/OpenGL, and I'm not surprised to hear that MS is backing off. That's a major change to foist on vendors. And I don't know what the Factory is doing regarding Vista and the graphics subsystem: I'm sure they'd rather not have to deal with that.

[richard.binning]

Core 2duo machines are the best choice with AMD the next best choice. After that I would look at the single core intels...they can't really keep up with the core2 duos. Fast speed harddrives are an absolute must. 7200 rpm or better.

We've standardized on XW4400 machines with the E6800 processor. 2gb Ram and nvidia FX1500 256mb video cards.

[patricks]

All I know is this:

work - 2.26 GHz Pentium 4, 3 GB ram, 256MB nVIDIA Quadro FX3000, and a 7200rpm HDD

home - 3.2 GHz Pentium D dual core, 2 GB ram, 128MB nVIDIA Quadro FX540, and a 10,000rpm HDD

I rendered a scene at work and it took over 5 minutes. The same scene with the same settings at home took 60-90 seconds.

I'm convinced that processor and HDD speed are the 2 biggest proponents of having a faster Revit.

[Justin Marchiel]

as i understand revit renders differently than it models so while rendering times are good to know, they might not affect how fast revit will work with modeling tasks.

Justin

[kshawks]

We just upgrade one of our computers to a Core 2 Duo 2.4 with 4 gigs of ram and 256 mg video ram. Rendering speed on this machine compared to our P4's has greatly increased.

[CGM]

RAM is the main issue. Video card is also important but as long as it support OpenGL you should be fine.
Processor is not much of a big deal unless you wanna do rendering with Revit.Hi there,
Thanks for the tip. I'm hoping to buy a Dell for rendering with REVIT, early in the new year. It's good to hear people's opinions before forking out all that money.

[truevis]

... and then the graphics processor, which makes almost no difference at all beyond rendering. Look on the hardware threads for specifics on graphics cards. ..AFAIK, video card does not significantly affect rendering speed in Revit.

[rmejia]

Rendering speed is mostly determined by processor speed and rendering will use the available processors, so a dual will render faster than a single processor in most cases because it will be using 100% of all the processors. But rendering is done with Accurender in revit and is something different from working on the model.

"The new Core 2 processors are the way to go. They are around 25% better in terms of faster computing in Revit." Do you know why it makes revit go faster? Is the program making use of the 2 processors ? How about a computer with 2 dual core 2 processors ?

I too am looking forward to purchasing a new computer mainly to significantly speed up revit, but I wonder if that is possible at the moment or if that will only happen when the program is designed to utilize multiple processors and perhaps also to work in true 64 bit mode. Also being so close to the Vista launch, I am waiting on buying a new computer till February to see if the new OS is going to change anything to make the move to Vista or stay on XP for 2 more years while all the drivers for Vista become available.

[patricks]

I don't know if there are any motherboards out there that will take dual Core 2 Duo processors. I know there are some server motherboards that will take 2 and even 4 Xeon processors, but that would be massive amounts of money for a computer, probably close to $10K

[rmejia]

Pretty soon the Quad cores are going to hit stores, so it seems that it might be worth it to wait a little longer ...

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/29/intels-penryn-core-2-quad-processor-on-schedule/

[dhurtubise]

Totally agree. Plus the fact that Windows Vista is fast as hell and the enormous amount of RAM that it will be able to manage.
Definitely worth a wait, at least i am.

[patricks]

You also have to consider that with computer technology, the next big innovation is always on the horizon. At some point you'll have to upgrade to whatever is current, you can't just keep waiting or you'll lose alot of productivity.

[Justin Marchiel]

quad cores are already available. i was on dells site and you could get dual quad cores! some systems would even let you get 4 processors! imagine the power!

That is if you had really deep pockets!

Justin

[JohnASB]

Yes. I saw AMD talking about 4 socket motherboards for their quad processor when it comes out later next year. I could see 16 cores becoming the sweet spot for some years and being the point where software developers feel compelled to multi-thread if OS or 3rd party haven't otherwise developed facility for all programs to take advantage of muti-processors.

But I would definetly wait for:
-quad processor (I love to flip around between programs and sessions)
-Vista 64
-Revit 10 (to see if they release a 64bit bit version as Autocad now has, and if they use directx)
-DirectX10 video card
-8 gig ram minimum capable motherboard with Raid 0 (0+1 if no server).

All either here or just around the corner :p