Intel iMac impressions

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:05:38 GMT

Just purchased a 20" Intel iMac for use with ArchiCAD. Special ordered it with optional 500 GB hard drive, 2 GB ram, the 256 MB Video card. Since it can now support the extended desktop and I can use my 23" Cinema display, seemed like it might be an acceptable workstation vs. a Power Mac G5.

Since I work with various architects on a freelance basis, I have been using a 17" Powerbook @ 1 Ghz with 1 GB ram with good results.

Running ArchiCAD in Rosetta emulation seems a bit faster than the 3 year old Powerbook. Rerendering section and elevation views is faster, and sketch renderings come up fast. With the Activity Monitor window running, I can see that both CPU chips are running, averaging about 50 to 60% useage per core.

I am very happy with this configuration and would recommend it. The big hard drive is for my video work, so probably isn't needed to run ArchiCAD. I have an associate with a box stock 20" Intel iMac so I'll report back on the differences in speed vs. my optioned out version.

ArchiCAD has always crashed every so often for me, and seems a bit touchier on the Intel box, but still seems to run very acceptably with no odd glitches that I've noticed so far.

Looking forward to the Universal version of ArchiCAD !

Re: Intel iMac impressions

Aussie John — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:25:45 GMT

Thanks for the report Chris. I imagine large improvements with universal coding

Re: Intel iMac impressions

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:15:14 GMT

similar results here. we found that once we added a lot of ram, performance took a HUGE step forward. my guess is that Rosetta is a bit of a memory hog, and if you don't have enough to accommodate the emulation and the software, you're in for slow performance - not just with ArchiCAD.

Wes

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Intel iMac impressions

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