By going though the company i work for, I’m considering buying my son, who lives and breaths SketchUp, a new low-end hp workstation http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1995213&enkwrd=ALLPROD%3a%281995213%29

Would someone, anyone look at its specs for appropriateness to reliably run the latest version of Sketchy Pro?

Thank you,
Robert

@dave r said:

If you and your partner were talking (phone or Skype or GotoMeeting's voice service) perhaps you could just let him tell you what to do while he wathces.

I believe a couple of your suggestions are pertinent. Using a collaboration service so we can view each other‘s screens while on skype and access same files from 3D-WH. He can demonstrate from his screen as he watches my edits.

Thank you !

Thank you all for your quick input. What I need is for my partner to be able to watch me edit files and enable him to rotate and point to things in that same file, real-time.

I have an associate in Florida and I live in New York. I’m forever sending him my SketchUp renderings of our projects. Is there any way we can both edit and manipulate the same file online real-time? I’d like to see his pointer move to arias he wishes to highlight.

@dsarchs said:

nvidia scales much better than ATI, so if you're thinking about multiple cards, definitely dual 480's in SLI. Having said that, they run very hot, noisy and draw a huge amount of power, so make sure you have a hefty (probably 1200 watt) PSU and a water cooling system.

Area 51 does come with a liquid cooler for the cpu, and a 1,000 watt power supply, upgradable to 1,100.

Your recommendations are very much appreciated.

@pixero said:

I would go with a Nvidia card since my experience is that ATI cards have more driver issues.
Plus Nvidia has CUDA which can be used for "realtime" rendering like the one soon coming with Thea render.

Thanks for expressing your experience!
Would you think a low-end workstation configuration might have more of a problem with gaming, than a high-end gaming computer would have with 3D drawing/rendering(both costing $2500)? In other words, spending $2500 on either a gaming or workstation, optimized at that price, then testing both on games and 3D drawing/rendering, then averaging those performances together for each separately, might you assume the gaming platform to reach a higher accumulative score??? That is, given equal expense, one being a high-end gaming computer, while the other a low-end workstation, at $2500.

I've tried to study what graphics cards are best for both SketchUp and gaming. Is it true that high-end gaming cards are more suitable for SketchUp, than workstation cards are for gaming?

I'm looking at Alienware - Area 51 to do both, gaming and SketchUp projects.
http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/desktops/alienware-area-51/pd.aspx?refid=alienware-area-51&s=dhs&cs=19&~ck=mn

For graphics card, I'd like to upgrade it to either a Dual 1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon HD 5870 CrossfireX, or Dual 1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 - SLI

Any advice or recommendations?? Please keep in mind that I intend to move up to SketchUp Pro with Podium..

Thank you

how do I request my bredge collection to be added to the2009 Google Student Bridge Modeling Competition collection and how do i retrieve my team identification number?

Thank you

thank you.

should I convert a repeditive item into a component to be duplicated where needed? These components then can be compressed? If so how would I compress the components?