Advice on buying a Desktop

[Anonymous]

Hi, I am planning to buy a new computer because my current PC is slow and the rendering takes far too long. I have gone to two different stores and offer me two different computers but I have no knowledge about computers and it's very hard for me to choose. I am hoping to buy a computer that will benefit ArchiCAD 2D/3D drawing and most important rendering speed and also for gaming.

Option 1 - Intel

CPU: - Intel® Core™ i7-8700 | 4.6 GHZ | 6 Cores 12 Threads
MOTHERBOARD (ZEAL) : Z390 Extreme 4 Motherboard
GRAPHICS CARD - ZEAL : NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6
THERMAL COMPOUND : Thermal Grizzly KRYONAUT
CPU COOLING SYSTEM (DESKTOP) : WATERCOOLING : AFTERSHOCK Glawater coolingsed loop watercooling
MEMORY (RAM) : 16GB DDR4 3000MHZ Black Edition Ram with Heat Spreader (8x2)
Primary Solid State Drive Bay : 250GB SAMSUNG 970 Evo NVMe M.2 SSD
FIRST HARD DRIVE (DESKTOP) : TOSHIBA 1TB 3.5 INCH HDD (Buffer Size 32MB)
WIRELESS LAN (DESKTOP) : Intel 3168 AC WIFI + BT
CHASSIS FANS : Standard Chassis Fans

Option 2 - AMD Ryzen

- CPU- AMD Ryzen 7 2700 - 8 Cores 16 Threads
- Motherboard - ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Motherboard
- Memory - Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB 2666MHz (2x8GB) DDR4
- Graphics ASUS Turbo GeForce RTX 2070 8GB
- SSD - Samsung 970 EVO 250GB M.2 SSD
- HDD - Seagate BarraCuda 2TB HDD
- Power Supply - Corsair CX550M 550W Bronze ATX Power Supply
-Fan - 3x Bitfenix Spectre 120mm RGB Case Fan

Also, about the graphics card if I choose Intel they recommend - NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6 or AMD Ryzen - ASUS Turbo GeForce RTX 2070, 8GB. Are they good graphics card for Archicad? On the Archicad website, they didn't show or tested those graphics cards. I was planning to get Nvidia GeForce GTX1060 but all of the computer stores I went to said they weren't selling it anymore. on ArchiCAD website, they mention "Professional" vs. "Gaming" video cards and I am not sure what is best.

Thank you

[Laszlo Nagy]

If Rendering is your main use then the 16-thread Ryzen makes it a better choice over the 12-thread Intel since they both run those 16/12 threads at 3.2 GHz:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-8700-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-2700/3940vs3957

I think a 2060 GPU will be more than enough, I have a 1060 and I am completely satisfied with it, although it is a gaming card (not a Quadro) and GRAPHISOFT usually recommend Quadro cards (professional cards).
(I think GRAPHISOFT has not included the 2000 series yet because they were just fairly recently released.)

If you are doing much rendering, I would go with at least 32 GB of RAM. You do not have to buy 3000 MHz or 2666 MHz of RAM with the Ryzen, 2400 MHz is enough if I am correct.

Also, I would definitely go with an NVMe SSD, it is much, much faster than a non-NVMe SSD, which is again important for the speed of your whole system in general. 256 GB does not seem very much for a system drive, I have a 512 GB one, which made it possible for me to install all my programs on the C: drive, so they can all benefit from its significantly higher speed relative to an HDD, and still have plenty space left. As it stands, 256 GB would not have been enough for me for a system SSD.

I hope those vendors can make such modifications to the configuration. If you do these, I think you will have a pretty good machine which will serve you for years.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your advice, I will look into it. Took me a long time to figure out which one is best for Archicad 21 and also what will work perfectly for Photoshop, InDesign, gaming etc.

[Anonymous]

LaszloNagy wrote:
If Rendering is your main use then the 16-thread Ryzen makes it a better choice over the 12-thread Intel since they both run those 16/12 threads at 3.2 GHz:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-8700-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-2700/3940vs3957

From that site, AMD cores/threads are +33% better than Intel. Is that a huge difference for rendering? I never experience AMD Ryzen CPU.

[Laszlo Nagy]

The MC Float (Multi-core Floating Performance) number shows that the Ryzen is about 15% faster than the Intel.
Actually, you may also consider the Ryzen 2700X as well, it is even faster.

[drh64]

What is everyone's opinion of going to the i9-9980xe? I understand the cost is excessive but would this make a good processor for Archicad 22?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Hi Daniel,

If you do a lot of rendering, or other tasks where ARCHICAD users multi-cores (see this article for the list of such tasks: https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/knowledgebase/25850/) then yes, the i9-9980 can be a beast with its 18 cores/36 threads.
You may also consider the Ryzen Threadripper 2990VX which is less expensive and has about 50% better multi-core performance because it has 32 cores/64 threads. Here is a comparison between the two:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i9-9980XE-vs-AMD-Ryzen-TR-2990WX/m652504vsm560423

You may also consider the Ryzen 2970VW, which has 24 cores/48 threads, even less expensive and still has better multi-core performance than the i9-9980:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i9-9980XE-vs-AMD-Ryzen-TR-2970WX/m652504vsm626249

For anyone having reservations about AMD Ryzen processors: you should not have, I have a Ryzen 1700x CPU in my desktop and I never had a problem with it, it is just as good as Intel. AMD to Intel is a bit like GRAPHISOFT to Autodesk: the latter is the market leader, but the former also creates a great product, maybe even better than the market leader.

[Anonymous]

What do you think about i9 9900k? on ArchiCAD 21?? they seem similar with amd 2700 apart from the price.

[Anonymous]

Now I'm deciding on a monitor and I noticed I can't use my old monitor because it used VGA connector.

I'm currently using 24 inches and I am very happy with that size.

Any suggestions on monitor 144hz or 60Hz.?? 4K (read online, 4k isn't good for ArchiCAD)

[Karl Ottenstein]

LeeKong wrote:
Now I'm deciding on a monitor and I noticed I can't use my old monitor because it used VGA connector.

Just get an adapter.