Hardware recommendations

caddict

For the record, I have just had to retire my 600MHz Toshiba laptop from active service.

With its 128MB memory and 11GB harddrive running Windows 2000 and with an on-board video chip, it bravely powered SU6 through many a client presentation. (Granted, the model would often break up into wireframe if view changes were too rapid)

Now that I have shifted to SU7, and SU6 cannot open models made in version 6, when I tried to install SU7 on the old girl, I was met with the fatal message "Operating System not Supported".

So there you go. Progress. Still, she had to go sometime.

Although I am thinking that I could easily revert back to SU6 without really noticing, seeing that version 7 was hardly a quantum leap.

plot-paris

well, at least now you have an excuse to buy a monster! (may I suggest something like the 18.1" screen
Acer Aspire 8920, that weighs 4.8 kg and hardly deserves the title of 'laptop'?)

caddict

I've started saving already

tomasz

@plot-paris said:

well, at least now you have an excuse to buy a monster! (may I suggest something like the 18.1" screen
Acer Aspire 8920, that weighs 4.8 kg and hardly deserves the title of 'laptop'?)

[attachment=0:3anrpjzn]acer-aspire-8920.jpg[/attachment:3anrpjzn]

I am also looking for a laptop suitable for SU. You can buy cheaper and not so heavy Acer with same or probably better graphics card. It won't be 18" screen, but who wants to carry a 5kg and/or kill a flying-by bird with a swing of a screen.

plot-paris

I do! I do!!! and as a matter of fact, I am writing this with the bespoken beast on my lap, listening to 'Air' by Johann Sebastian Bach from it's in-built 5.1 Cinematic Surround Sound speaker system (with subwoofer - in a laptop!).

(and, admittedly, my shoulders are still sore from carying it during my travel from London to the south of Germany two days ago )

Anssi

Jakob,

Does it make much noise? I have an older 17" Acer Aspire, and i am otherwise quite fond of it, but it churns away like a bulldozer (not quite but...). I envy my daughter's IMac-it has no fans at all!

Anssi

plot-paris

it definitely has a fan running, especially when running renders of course. but I think it is not too loud - and for it's monstrous size appropriate

EddyNL

Guys,

I've got this museum piece:

AMD Sempron 2400+
1,75 Ghz, 512 MB
ASUS Radeon 9600 128MB

I'm looking to buy a new desktop because I can't run any large SU models.
What's the most important issue for 3d performance like SketchUp and Kerky?

Dual core? RAM? Or the videocard?
Any suggestions?

Thanks, Ward

remus

For sketchup you want a fast clock speed (number of cores doesnt effect SU performance.) Good processors to look at are the intel core 2 duo and if your feeling up to a bit of overclocking, the intel core 2 quad. Youll also need a graphics card with decent openGL support, the quadro cards are generally pretty good for this, although a bit pricey.

For kerky you want lots of RAM and a processor with lots of cores, although youll need a 64 bit OS if you want to have more than 4GB of ram.

On balance, id say go with a core 2 quad processor and 4gb of ram. A pretty standard combination thats also pretty powerful.

EddyNL

Thanks for the quick reply Remus!

Would this be any good?

Intel E5200 Core 2 Duo
Geforce 9300 512mb
4096mb / 4GB DDR2 800Mhz
500GB 7200rpm

AMD Phenom X3 8650+
Geforce 8300 HDMI, DVI
4096mb / 4GB DDR2 800Mhz
750GB 7200rpm

remus

The top setup looks good Dont know enough about AMD to tell you whether the other choice of processor is a good one, though.

With regards to the 8300 graphics card, it seems there have been a couple of minor issues with it and SU: http://groups.google.com/group/SketchUp/web/graphics-card-feedback?hl=en Probably worth investigating, just in case.

chango70

If you can wait, I'd get the i7 Core mobile CPU laptops coming out later half of this year. The multi-threading almost halves your rendering times. Worth the wait I'd say.

If not I recommend http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk you can build one with 512MB Nvidia 9600M GT graphics card for under £1000 pounds. I have one and the diffault setting makes sketchup lines look super SMOOTH! without anti-aliasing turned on! Incredable for presentations n walkthroughs.

I'd be honest with you PCSpecialist are not really the best quality as mine broke under a year (arguably not their fault as my GPU, the 8600M GT died and if you read internet forums this card is dying at a dispropotionate rate on all manufacturers laptops including Apple) but their service is incredable. They didn't ask any questions had it sent back and upgraded my chasis (Old Chasis had a 8600M GT which died) with new GPU all for free! Sent back to me in a week. So basically I got a free upgrade from them.

The 9600M GT gives amazing default display quality.

chango70

@eduardonl said:

Thanks for the quick reply Remus!

Would this be any good?

Intel E5200 Core 2 Duo
Geforce 9300 512mb
4096mb / 4GB DDR2 800Mhz
500GB 7200rpm

AMD Phenom X3 8650+
Geforce 8300 HDMI, DVI
4096mb / 4GB DDR2 800Mhz
750GB 7200rpm

Whats your budget?

remus

Not a core i7 budget going by those specs

chango70

No but getting a smaller Hardrive like 250GB and a better Graphics Card would be a good trade off. I only use 160HD on my laptop. Just dump all your work on a external HD. They are dirt cheap anyway.

peweuk

@plot-paris said:

I do! I do!!! and as a matter of fact, I am writing this with the bespoken beast on my lap, listening to 'Air' by Johann Sebastian Bach from it's in-built 5.1 Cinematic Surround Sound speaker system (with subwoofer - in a laptop!).

(and, admittedly, my shoulders are still sore from carying it during my travel from London to the south of Germany two days ago )

Which spec was this (ie processor and video card? - and how do you find it for performance with SU?

@unknownuser said:

If not I recommend http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk you can build one with 512MB Nvidia 9600M GT graphics card for under £1000 pounds.

I couldn't see any option for choice of graphics on their laptops!!!

chango70

As a reference, my latest Unibody Mac managed 15.8 fps on the cube test. So yeah yours sounds like a beast.

peweuk

I'm waiting for my new Aspire to arrive and will test it out.

I just ran the test on my desktop with the following results

Scene 1 = 38.6 F/ps
Scene 7 = 0.2 F/ps

It'll be interesting to see the comparison.

Jackson

Jakob,

The second of those 3 skp files isn't my cube test, it's the same as the first skp file.

I did a full OS reinstall a few weeks ago, so I thought I'd run the cube test again- I got 15.0 fps on the 3rd run, my 3-yr-old laptop specs below. That's actually a 2.9 fps improvement on when I ran the test a year and a half ago (hardware unchanged except for new bigger C:drive, but same speed). Either SU got faster (don't think so), updated graphics drivers really work or the full reinstall has really paid off!

plot-paris

It has quite formidable specs with an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU with 2.5 GHz, 4.0 GB of ram, two 300 GB hard drives and a NVidia Geforce 9650 Grafic Card.

it runs really smooth with SketchUp (better than any other computer I called my own so far). you can test it yourself. use the attached benchmark_test.skp model to try your old computer for comparison (simply open the model, then open the ruby console (under Window > Ruby Console) and type in Test.time_display. hit enter and wait for the results to be displayed.
benchmark_test.skp
The Acer Aspire 8920 running with SketchUp 7 under Windows 7 Beta achieved the following results (average of three runs each):

Scene1 = 51.5 fps
Scene7 = 0.4 fps

with Jackson's Cube model it did it with 17.3 fps
SU Frame Rate Test File 080710.skp
I am sure, this laptop isn't exactly best value for money - to be honest it is hardly a real laptop (more a portable desktop). but if you want some serious power, and most importantly, an 18.1" True HD widescreen display alongside a Blue-Ray drive, this machine will make you a happy man!