New processor and Graphics card - help me pick!

[Martin P]

OK guys,

Is it worth my upgrading any of the attached for a noticeable difference? Are fireGL graphics card worth upgrading or are the lower ones fine anyway? - and would installing 2 grpahics card make any difference at all to Revit?

am going windows 7 - 64 bit
12Gb of RAM.

[clog boy]

The screenshots speak riddles to me as I have no experience with Dell.

Here's what I do know - it's well worth considering an upgrade to an i7 processor, and 'the buzz' is that nvidia cards give more problems with Revit than ATI cards. Then again, quantitative I have to guess there are more Nvidia cards in use in Revit machines than ATI. However, every card with DirectX support 'will do'. The one recommendation is that you use lots of RAM, and if you want to use more than 3GB you need a 64 bit OS. I recommend Windows 7 for stability. The recommended amount of RAM starts at 4GB + 20x the average project filesize (rounded to the nearest higher set of paired RAM modules).

You will have to expect printer driver issues, and probably legacy 3rd party software that has trouble running on a 64 bit architecture. W7 professional has a virtual XP mode available for download.

[aaronrumple]

I have an i7. Highly recommended.
I prefer the Nivida cards. Particularly with the rendering and Photoshop I do. With that sad, my current system has an ATI.

[Chris.Partin]

I'm sort of in the same boat as we're looking to start using Revit Structure 2010 on some upcoming projects and we're trying to figure out what we need to do as far as upgrading existing PCs as well as purchasing new ones. We're still using XP as out OS and there's very little word on when or if we'll upgrade to W7.

[iru69]

The W35x0 series is based on the same microarchitecture as the i7 - it's basically a repackaged i7. I would push for the W3540 or W3570 if you've got the scratch.

In fact, I'd be tempted to downgrade the video card to the ATI V3750 or Nvidia FX580 and upgrade the CPU to the W3540. CPU is generally going to give you more bang for your buck than the video card.

Keep in mind that when spinning around a model, CPU is still king. Most of the "work" the video card performs relates to shadows/anti-aliasing. Going the SLI/CrossFire route (i.e. 2 video cards) serves no purpose unless you're going to spend most of your time playing Call of Duty.

Regarding RAM - there's been a rash of "you need 8+ GB of RAM to run Revit 2010" posts recently. It's all dependent on your model size. The system you're looking at uses tri-channel, so it's going to be 6 GB or 12 GB. Unless you're working on 200+ MB project files, 6 GB should be plenty. The "20x files size" rule of thumb is extremely generous - but even at that, 6 GB should be plenty for a 200 MB project file. Again, I'd take the savings and put it into a faster CPU. If it turns out you absolutely need more RAM, it's a piece of cake to add another 6 GB.

OK guys,

Is it worth my upgrading any of the attached for a noticeable difference? Are fireGL graphics card worth upgrading or are the lower ones fine anyway? - and would installing 2 grpahics card make any difference at all to Revit?

am going windows 7 - 64 bit
12Gb of RAM.

[clog boy]

Regarding RAM - there's been a rash of "you need 8+ GB of RAM to run Revit 2010" posts recently. It's all dependent on your model size. The system you're looking at uses tri-channel, so it's going to be 6 GB or 12 GB. Unless you're working on 200+ MB project files, 6 GB should be plenty. The "20x files size" rule of thumb is extremely generous - but even at that, 6 GB should be plenty for a 200 MB project file. Again, I'd take the savings and put it into a faster CPU. If it turns out you absolutely need more RAM, it's a piece of cake to add another 6 GB.

All perfectly valid points.
As a sidenote, disable the entire Lines category in your 3D views and model rotation will become much quicker.

However you forget one thing: the memory hungry Vista and W7 kernels. To run Revit with Vista (or W7 which is basically Vista 2) 4GB of RAM is recommended. I'm quoting this from credible sources such as the Hardware recommendations thread and my Revit reseller.
Add to that the 20x file size rule x number of open files, and I think this will equal 6GB at least in most cases. I think with 8GB you can render a model in one session, and work on a second (and probably third) model in another Revit session without much of a performance impact. I'm basing this on the fact that i7 processors feature eight cores of which Mental Ray uses 4 maximum to render.

And before you comment on this, it is a reality to us. We have one drafter doing everything on projects right now, from rendering to building permit drawings and construction documents. He's a very bright guy and needs all the processing power he can get. I can't wait for the budget to become available to give him a new machine.

[iru69]

However you forget one thing: the memory hungry Vista and W7 kernels. To run Revit with Vista (or W7 which is basically Vista 2) 4GB of RAM is recommended. I'm quoting this from credible sources such as the Hardware recommendations thread and my Revit reseller...

I'm not forgetting anything. The issue is a generic recommendation (to cover all bases) versus a specific situation. Vista/W7 needs a little less than 1 GB for itself. That's "memory hog" relative to XP, but not nearly what popular opinion has made it out to be. Revit 2010 is well under 500 MB (not including the model). Even after opening a couple Office apps, web browser, iTunes, etc., 2 GB is adequate to cover all those apps. RAM requirements beyond 2 GB is based on the model size.

The point is that it's pretty easy to get a rough idea how much RAM you really need depending on the model sizes you work with. Anyone can do the math for themselves. 4 GB actually covers a lot of users just fine. Bumping that up to 6 GB in combination with x64 offers a windfall of available RAM... well more than the vast majority of users presently need.

As an example, I have a W7 x64 with 4GB RAM (in a virtual machine). I've posted 2 screen shots of memory use, one with just Revit running and the other with a ~50 MB model open. As you can see, available RAM is still at over 2.5 GB. Less than "10x" the model size to open the model. However, as I work with the model, open views, etc., the memory usage will expand (and contract) over the course of the day (that's where the generous "20x" comes in), but Revit won't even get close to actually using all that available RAM (in my usage, obviously YMMV). (edit: i'm well aware that a virtual machine is unaffected by BIOS limitations on some PCs where you'll lose ~500 MB of the original 4 GB)

I'm basing this on the fact that i7 processors feature eight cores of which Mental Ray uses 4 maximum to render."

Just to be clear, the current i7 processors only have 4 cores. Hyper-threading doubles the thread processing to 8. There's a big difference between cores and threads.

And before you comment on this, it is a reality to us. We have one drafter doing everything on projects right now, from rendering to building permit drawings and construction documents. He's a very bright guy and needs all the processing power he can get. I can't wait for the budget to become available to give him a new machine.

Certainly not trying to deny your "reality". I don't know what size models you work on or how many models or sessions of Revit you typically have open at one time. I'm only suggesting that RAM requirements are relative to model size, and suggesting that everyone needs 8 GB of RAM to run Revit effectively is misguided. If someone is purchasing a new computer and is deciding between 12 GB of RAM or a faster CPU, it may be in their interest to get a faster CPU rather than to be sitting on a pile of RAM they're never going to use.