Computer Specs for Revit 2012?

[Architecture11]

Would anyone have feedback on the following spec's. I am looking for a laptop to run Revit, 3DStudioMax, and Adobe software.

M4600
Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit
i7-2920XM Extreme Quad Core 2.50GHz,8M cache
Memory 16.0GB, DDR3-1600MHz SDRAM, 4 DIMMS
Backlit Keyboard
Graphics NVIDIA® Quadro® 2000M with 2GB GDDR3
Primary Storage 128GB Solid State Minicard Drive
Secondary Storage 256GB (SATA2) Mobility Solid State Drive
Non-RAID
LCD 15.6" UltraSharp™ FHD(1920x1080) PremierColor IPS RGB Anti-Glare LED-backlit
Bluetooth Dell Wireless
Media Bay Devices 8X DVD+/-RW Slot Load
Camera / Microphone
Wireless LAN (802.11) + WiMAX 6250 Half Mini Card
Primary Battery 9-cell (97Wh)
Energy Star 5.0
Additional Monitor 24" Wide Screen P2411H 16:9 Ratio, Energy Star

MSRP around $6,000

Are any of these specifications overkill- I wanted to get a 256gb solid state primary storage and 500GB secondary normal hard drive but if you request two hard drives in the m4600 the primary storage needs to be 128gb solid state mini card for space limitations and then any size secondary hard drive. Any thoughts on going with a secondary 500gb hard drive oppose to the secondary 256gb solid state?
I would have liked to go with the additional monitor with 16:10 ratio but there are no Energy Star dell monitors with 16:10 ratio. The energy star monitor uses about 60% less energy then the ultra sharp.

Any recommendations would be great-

[cdatechguy]

$6k....wow....I could build 3 PC's with specs like that....

Hope you get the insurance with it.....hate to have anything happen to it for that price...

Nice setup...(jealous)

[patricks]

ummm I think it's all overkill haha... really though, a 2GB Quadro card is a massive waste of money IMHO with any Revit version since 2010. I wouldn't do a solid state secondary drive. It's not going to make that much difference working in files. Solid state for your primary drive with OS and apps would be good, though.

Unless you're going to be working on HUGE models and other files all at once, you probably don't really need more than 12 GB memory.

I think there's a lot of money to be saved on that setup while still maintaining or even exceeding its performance, depending on what parts are used.

[david_peterson]

Just got done doing a little testing on a built workstation with 16gb ram, i7 chip (hyper threaded - looks like 8-cores), solid state drive and a 2gb video card.
Only thing I really noticed between that and my current workstation was that opening a model went a little faster (due to solid state drive). Not much faster, for the file size I usually have to deal with, it'd be a good investment for me. Plus I wouldn't need more than 128gb of space anyway, it's all stored on a network.
Granted I wasn't playing with 2012, so I don't know how much the video card was helping. I know that was supposed to be one of the big programming improvements for 2012. As for the Chip, I'd almost be willing to bet (depending on how much rendering you do) a 3.4ghz P4 may actually out-perform the i7. With revit (since it still really only uses 1 core 90% of the time) it's all about clock speed.

[patricks]

I saw in another thread where an i7 "sandy bridge" processor blew away a slightly older i7 on the Revit benchmark test. It's really not only just about clock speed.

I would never in a million years build/spec a new machine with an ancient Pentium4 processor over newer i7's.

I know my < 1 yr old Dell XPS with an i7-870 I believe, greatly outpaces 2 other < 2 yr old Dell Precisions with quad-core Xeon processors.

[david_peterson]

Well it was more of a joke than anything else.
I wouldn't replace my Zeon with a P4 either, but I didn't really notice much of a difference between them. Then again that was before we switched to 64bit and were able to use more Ram.
The bench mark our IT guys didn't didn't seem to be overly different between the newer i7 and the Zeon I had. But again, I don't do much (if any) rendering. For some reason, not to many people care what the skeleton of the building looks like. Gotta love that primer red color or the flat grey of concrete.

[Liamnacuac]

We're going to test the same machine, but with the i528 series chip, 16 gb ram, and I think a nvidia 580 . We've been trying to get Dell M6600's but to no avail..
we were buying the M6400/M6500's but they are no longer available in our configuration. quite frankly, I won't miss them as I've have a lot of problems with heat in them (we had Quadro 3800 cards in them). several motherboard replacements.

[david_peterson]

The HP Z400's we are currently using have been working great for us.

[cdatechguy]

Been converting my P4's to Linux machines....

[david_peterson]

Hi Mike,
How's that working out for you? what are you running for your Linux OS? Just curious cause I know our head IT guys won't touch anything that runs on Windows.
You can shoot me an IM if you don't want to hijack this thread.