6K Budget For new Revit Machine.

[kaniss746605]

Hi Guys,

My work has given me the ok to purchase a new Revit workstation with a budget of 6k but I have been out of the game for so long I'm just not sure what type of machine will suite these days?
I work mainly in multi unit residential work so very large projects, most sites on the jobs I work on often have around 500 apartments, with highly detailed BIM models.

Can you guys tell me what would you go with if you had this budget?
I'm also not 100% sure which graphic card would be best these days? My old PC had a Quadro T1000 which was ok, not the best. I'm not sure which RTX card would suit these days.

Thank you for your help...

[Ed Jobe]

I would go with a Dell Precision desktop. As an AUGI member, you can get a discount too. As far as graphics cards go, the latest versions of acad rely on DirectX and not so much the card's driver. See this page for recommended hardware. The main thing then is sufficient gc RAM.

[daniel-cadext]

I always go for a custom build gamer machine
CPU, I pay attention to single thread performance as most CAD applications are not threaded.
Get fast RAM! Get all PCIE 5 devices if you can, at least the graphics card

Picking a graphics card can be tough, sometimes getting dropping back a generation is the better deal I.e. if the RTX4090 is out of your budget, a 3090 might be better than a 4060

i9 14900K, RXT4090, 32GB of fast ram(leave room to upgrade), Samsung 970 pro for the system drive (MLC + warranty), Crucial T700 for your work drive

[cadtag]

with that budget, talk to Boxx. Unlike Dell, Lenovo or HP, they can actually spell CAD, and build (pricey) machines that work

[BlackBox]

with that budget, talk to Boxx. Unlike Dell, Lenovo or HP, they can actually spell CAD, and build (pricey) machines that work

Will not work with Boxx; tried to do so earlier this year, and they're effing inept, unprofessional, and have no clue how to talk to someone who knows what they doing with BIM/CAD.

The Boxx rep didn't even understand how CAD works, they cited a spreadsheet that shows a CPU 'running at 6GHz, 24x7' and I had to point out that a 6GHz CPU & SATA HDD is slower than a stock, air-cooled i9-12900K & PCIe Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD, and that their chart didn't include storage type/speed at all. So, I asked for benchmark, as CPU clock speed is only one (albeit important) variable in how Autodesk products, particularly AutoCAD and its verticals perform, where a benchmark is a measurement of how well CPU, RAM and storage perform together.

The rep ended up having to apologize for being a d!ck and waving their inept wiener; I had to encourage the tool to actually look at the benchmark and understand what was achieved with inferior hardware (someone didn't understand what a big 'B' means compared to a little 'b'). I actually had to show them screenshots of emails with BIM BOX (ATG) demonstrating that they (BIM BOX) were attempting to beat the benchmark and had to order a new RAID card to do so, before they could even meet my request.

In the end, Boxx couldn't even come close to my benchmark from a year+ ago with an off the shelf Dell Precision (that I've admittedly configured).

BIM BOX on the other hand not only entertained my request for a benchmark, but when they couldn't beat it initially, went above and beyond to meet the challenge - they did beat my benchmark in Seq Q8T1 test - but were still significantly slower in all other tests, and at the expense of consuming all PCIe lanes (using 4x M.2 NVMe SSD on that RAID card they ordered), which meant no GPU could be installed, so a total deal breaker (for me). BIM BOX sales & technical staff were awesome to work with, and Boxx was dumb as roxx, TBH.

(I didn't buy any workstations from BIM BOX either, FWIW, just thought they were actual professionals and worthy of others' consideration over Boxx).

This is my $0.02... please take from this what you like.

Cheers