Hardware recommendations

remus · 6 Mar 2009, 08:29

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 · 6 Mar 2009, 08:55

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 · 6 Mar 2009, 09:19

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 · 6 Mar 2009, 16:36

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 · 6 Mar 2009, 16:37

@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 · 6 Mar 2009, 17:44

Not a core i7 budget going by those specs

chango70 · 10 Mar 2009, 17:13

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 · 12 Mar 2009, 23:19

@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 · 20 Mar 2009, 01:32

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

peweuk · 20 Mar 2009, 08:24

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 · 20 Mar 2009, 08:42

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 · 21 Mar 2009, 11:18

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!

plot-paris · 21 Mar 2009, 11:22

thanks, Jackson. corrected it in the above post.

your observations are quite interesting. so either it was the reinstall of the OS that boosted the performance, or graphic drivers improvements.
or did you use SU 7 with your latest test and used SU 6 previously? perhaps we should to some testing there as well (SU7 vs SU6).

Jackson · 21 Mar 2009, 14:46

I haven't noticed any general improvement in SU speed between SU6 and SU7 and I'm pretty sure Google never mentioned anything about a performance increase in SU7. I can only assume the better frame rate is the result of updated graphics drivers and maybe a cleaner system thanks to OS reinstall, but I'm suprised to see such an improvement.

plot-paris · 22 Mar 2009, 14:02

that is really illiminating: I just ran your Cube Test with SketchUp 7 on an old, dirty Windows Vista and got an average of 7.8 fps

then I ran it (on the same Acer Aspire 8920 laptop!) again with SketchUp 7; but this time on a reasonably clean Windows 7 Beta (a few months in use).
and this time I got an average of 20 fps!!!

so same test, same model, same SketchUp version - but a different Operating System. the difference is absolutely amazing. almost three times the speed!
(therefore a bit of advertising here: if you are running on Windows Vista you MUST upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as it is released (for the beta is sooo much more stable and fast than Vista. it hasn't crashed once since I installed it)

thomthom · 22 Mar 2009, 14:58

@plot-paris said:

that is really illiminating: I just ran your Cube Test with SketchUp 7 on an old, dirty Windows Vista and got an average of 7.8 fps

then I ran it (on the same Acer Aspire 8920 laptop!) again with SketchUp 7; but this time on a reasonably clean Windows 7 Beta (a few months in use).
and this time I got an average of 20 fps!!!

so same test, same model, same SketchUp version - but a different Operating System. the difference is absolutely amazing. almost three times the speed!
(therefore a bit of advertising here: if you are running on Windows Vista you MUST upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as it is released (for the beta is sooo much more stable and fast than Vista. it hasn't crashed once since I installed it)

Or, it could be due to old vs new installation of the OS.
But I can also recommend Windows7 when it's released.

Wazzer · 27 Mar 2009, 06:04

Hi Guys

I have been a sketchup user for a couple years now and just love it!
I have recently started work at a new company and introduced them to SketchUp and they have been blown away.
The problem is the new company laptop i have been provided with just isnt upto the job
The company will upgrade my laptop for me and I want to make sure my chosen one will be Suitable for Heavy SketchUp use

My chosen Laptop is the
IBM ThinkPad Lenovo T61P 6460-E8A
Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 2.6GHz
4GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
250 GB S-ATA Harddisk 5400rpm
15.4" UXGA Screen 1920 X 1200
256 MB Nvidia Quadro FX 570M

It has to be an IBM im afraid

Can anyone tell me weather this will do the Job as well as i hope?
I am also upgrading to SketchUp 7 Pro at the same time

I am currently using my personal laptop which is an old Dell Inspiron 6000 with Radeon x300 and 1.7ghz processor. This laptop performs surprisingly well but i hope the Lenovo laptop stated above will be a significant upgrade

many thanks for your time

Ben

Jackson · 27 Mar 2009, 07:29

@wazzer said:

My chosen Laptop is the
IBM ThinkPad Lenovo T61P 6460-E8A
Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 2.6GHz
4GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
250 GB S-ATA Harddisk 5400rpm
15.4" UXGA Screen 1920 X 1200
256 MB Nvidia Quadro FX 570M

Sounds good. SketchUp 7 will only use one of your CPU cores, but 2.6GHz is a respectable speed.

remus · 27 Mar 2009, 07:33

The other core will help with multi-tasking, as well

The only thing i can think you might want to upgrade is the hard drive, its quite small, but then again external hard drives are very cheap, so you could always just pick one up if you need some extra space.

Wazzer · 27 Mar 2009, 09:21

Thanks for the fast feedback guys

just found out that someone else in the office has a very similar spec Lenovo T61P laptop
so will get him to run the Cube test adn see what results it gets.

By the way my Dell Inspiron with 1.7ghz and Radeon X300 with 2Gb ram get on average 10.3 Fps

What is a good score to hope for?

Thanks