Hardware recommendations

sonder · 12 Jan 2012, 05:43

More memory is good. I have 16Gb and it is noticeable. I also have the same processer you are looking at. As for Dell, the only thing I can say is they are not what they used to be. I have had 6 dell machines fail just out of warranty in the last two years - both laptops and desktops. All failures were motherboard related. My Dells that date further back worked very well.

valerostudio · 13 Jan 2012, 21:18

I just built a machine on HP with a 6 core i7, 12GB of RAM, and a 3GB NVIDIA card for less that $1,600. Shop around before buying the Dell.

sonder · 14 Jan 2012, 01:48

@valerostudio said:

I just built a machine on HP with a 6 core i7, 12GB of RAM, and a 3GB NVIDIA card for less that $1,600. Shop around before buying the Dell.

What he said. Dell is not on my favorite list. My HP's so far, are running great.

Why stop at 12Gb of Ram? That Nvidia card should work well!

halroach · 15 Jan 2012, 13:30

Thanks for all the replies.
I'm currently looking into the following spec - a bit different and better than the Dell XPS:

Motherboard - Asus Gen3 P8Z68-V Pro Chipset Z68
Intel Core i7 2600k
CORAIR H60 (cooling..)
SSD OCZ Agility 3 120GB
Western Digital 1TB Sata33 7200RPM
Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1600Mhz CL8 4x4GB
Gigabyte Nvidia Geforce GTX560 Ti !GB GDDR5 Overclock Edition
Win7 Pro

I have the option to change the Nvidia Geforce into an NVIDIA Quadro 2000.
Does anyone have any hands on experience with Quadros?
After reading a lot online I think I'll stick with the Geforce which should cover all the programs I use "equally"... !?

brodie · 15 Jan 2012, 21:12

I use a quadro at work. It's nice but I'm not sure there's really much advantage to it. If I were spending my own money I'd go with the Geforce.

-Brodie

magentarabbit · 2 Feb 2012, 22:26

Don't forget Sketchup is only capable of using 1 core so the clock speed is very important. I have 3.1Ghz and Sketchup runs really well.

brodie · 2 Feb 2012, 22:40

Ya, the 2600k he mentioned has a 3.4 clock speed which is quite high for modern processors and has a turbo mode of 3.8 which I believe SU could take advantage of.

-Brodie

ak-sam · 12 Apr 2012, 00:35

I would buy a new Ivybridge i3 or i5 which go up to about 4.2ghz(more if you overclock). I would be interested to see a sandybridge vs ivybridge comparison at the same clock rate, for sketchup. i7's extra cores are useless for sketchup, except for perhaps exporting animations.

I'd also buy 2+ hard drives (one for apps, one for files), 8gb fast ram, a quality motherboard, best video card I can afford that isn't stupidly loud (or get some headphones), quality (gold) powersupply, quality (PVA or IPS) monitor. It's usually better value buying a cheaper CPU/motherboard combo every 2 years than it is to buy the best and keep it for 4 years.

I just got a new HP Z400 computer... watercooled 6-core (12 if I use hyperthreading) Xeon 3.2GHZ, and a Quadro 4000, 16gb Ram and a SSD. (gloat)

However, there's not a HUGE amount of difference between this and my old Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz. It seems that the new CPUs are designed to be fast for 64bit apps, which Sketchup isn't. Getting more RAM doesn't really help, for the same reason (unless you're using other software at the same time).

I think the video card (6600gtx 320gb to a 2gb quadro) had a bigger impact. The geforce was supposed to be one of the more reliable video cards out there, but I did get some playback errors and crashes (usually when offsetting or dividing faces) and the screen would 'cut in half' quite a lot, if objects or origin points are placed too far away from the camera in one scene. The Quadro seems very smooth and has hardly crashed..maybe once in the last month or two. I haven't tried the equivalent Geforce but I'm happy with a quadro (though I wouldn't buy it with my own money!). Quadros are supposed to be Awesome for 3DSMax.

In terms of capacity I can work with about 2 million edges at once, but it's a bit choppy..I tend to hide/unhide a lot. And that's being careful with components (every leaf is a component, for example). 5 million edges is about the max for one scene, but you can use a lot more with hiding/unhiding groups/components.

Exporting JPGs also tops out at 3000 pixels on large models, but I've gone to 5000 pixels on simpler ones.

I take large models into 3ds max (2012) and they are still very choppy to rotate, so I dont think sketchup is inefficient software.

sketch3d.de · 12 Apr 2012, 10:10

a Xeon doesn't help much (SU is not aware of), 8 kernels don't help much (SU is single threaded), a Quadro FX doesn't help much (SU uses OGL v1.5), 16GB RAM doesn't help much (SU is 32bit)... simply because SU is not taking advantage of it.

the fastest i7 (in the sense of clock frequency) and a mid-range GeForce delivers the best bang for the buck, nothing else.

Norbert