New apple MBP 6core

[Anonymous]

Would love to here some reviews about the new MacBook pros if anyone gets one soon.

Specifically with rendering and how they handle heat.

Tempted to switch back.

[Jesse Davidson]

I am also curious to see if the new 6 core models have made any substantial differences for Archicad over the 2017 versions.

I'm looking at either getting the 2018 (2.6 ghz upto 4.3 w/boost) w/ 32gb of ram) or the 2017 fairly shortly. (2017 would be the 3.1 ghz upto 4.1 w/boost w/ 16gb of ram)

Is the 6 core worth the price? or is it mainly the upgrade from 16-32gb of ram that makes it worth it?

[Anonymous]

I would not recommend that anyone buys a 2017 model due to the well documented keyboard issue. I had one and can confirm that it is a real problem. A small spec of dust can cause keys to lose function. Apart from this issue, the 2017 MacBook Pro was a great device.

Because I was too scared after this experience to buy a 2018 MacBook Pro, I went with the iMac Pro, which was totally awesome but too much for my needs, so I am going to return it this week and go back to the 2018 MacBook Pro. It sounds like the keyboard issue has been resolved from the 2017 model. I don’t think it is worth spending the money on the i9 processor due to issues regarding throttling and heat, but will spend the extra on 32GB of ram. If you have multiple instances of ARCHICAD open at a time, you will want the extra ram. On my iMac Pro, I found that opening two or three instances of ARCHICAD used up around 15-16GB of Ram, leaving 16 free. If you only have 16GB the computer can struggle under load.

Hope this helps.

[Jesse Davidson]

Thanks for the reply Paul!

I typically use external keyboards so I'm not sure if I would suffer too much with the issues, plus they introduced a fix I believe for the old style? I could be wrong but thought I read that somewhere.

I guess when it comes to choosing my next machine I am more curious if I should be looking out for faster CPU speeds, or better ram or both.. I don't believe Archicad would use the 6 core to its fullest so I am still wondering if it's worth spending the extra cash just to have up to 32 gb of ram? or would Archicad actually use the 6 cores during standard tasks? (I believe archicad would only utilize the extra cores while rendering? If someone could answer that it would be great). Either model I'm looking at comes with the 4gb GPU.

I mainly do residential custom homes but I am starting to get into multi unit buildings so I don't want to limit myself when I upgrade from my current machine (2013 MBP 15" 2.3ghz w/ 2gb GPU & 16gb ram). I am fairly mobile between locations... otherwise I'd just get a nice 27" Imac

Would the 2017 MBP with 16gb of ram even be that much of an upgrade from my current setup?

I am fairly lost when it comes to computer hardware stuff so any and all insight is greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Sorry Jesse, I didn't realise that you replied with a question; I guess it's too late now, but for what it's worth to anyone reading this, in my opinion you are better off spending your money on RAM over the processor in most cases. Working on bigger files, or if you have multiple buildings linked into a main file, will always work better with more RAM. Get 32MB if your budget allows. I don't find that top of the range processors are necessary yet. I can still run ARCHICAD 22 fine on my old 2012 Mac Mini that has 16MB of RAM, but you will really notice the difference if you have 32MB.