What hardware makes Archicad go faster?

[4hotshoes]

I will be buying a new Mac to replace my 6 year old one. But I am not sure what upgrades will make the most difference.

The new 15" MacBook Pro has options for:
Processors: Both are 8-core i9, one is 2.3 Ghz the other is 2.4 Ghz +$200
Memory: 16 or 32 GB +$400
Graphic Cards: Radon Pro (each with 4GB memory) 560X, Vega 16 +$250, Vega 20 +$350
All HD's are SSD

If I only have $600 more to upgrade the the 15 inch MacBook Pro's basic offering, which of the features above will have the most influence on keeping Archicad running fast?

In other words, if 16 GB of ram is more than enough, buying 32GB will not improve anything, Right?

Or while the higher priced graphic cards improve game play, does Archicad tap into their power to make it worth spending an extra $350?

The speed upgrade from 2.3 to 2.4 Ghz seems rather insignificant from my lack of knowledge. Is it insignificant? Is it worth the upgrade?

How does Archicad use these?

I would think that a Windows tech guru could also answer these questions too.

[rm]

[attachment=0]ARCHICAD MBP.png[/attachment]

Todd -

I currently use a 2015 Imac with and 1TB SSD and 32GB of RAM. Running ArchiCAD 22 works plently fast even with complex models. But that is not the whole picture.

The minute I try to run any rendering from within AC or export out to for an Artlantis or TwinMotion render, my iMac falls down. It has nothing to do with the CPU, rather the GPU is the week link in the iMac.

So the big question is, are you going to just work in ArchiCAD, a base

[Laszlo Nagy]

If you run out of RAM, it doesn't matter how fast your other components are, your systems slows down dramatically.
For me, the order of priority of components are:
1. RAM
2. CPU
3. SSD (NMVe)
4. GPU

[4hotshoes]

So if I have no intention of using Artlantis or TwinMotion for AC 22 or 23, I should be fine with the basic option currently being offered for the 15" MacBook Pro?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Artlantis uses the CPU, while Twinmotion uses the GPU.

The ARCHICAD 22 System Requirements page at:

https://www.graphisoft.com/support/system_requirements/AC22/

says:

Graphics card: Dedicated OpenGL 3.3 compatible graphics card with on board memory of 1024 MB or more is recommended to fully exploit hardware acceleration capabilities. You can find a list of recommended graphics cards at: http://www.graphisoft.com/videocards

According to Apple, this card supports OpenGL 4.1, so it should be fine in that regard:

https://support.apple.com/en-il/HT202823

The 560x is probably strong enough, GPUs nowadays are very powerful, even those which are not the top-of-the-line.

[Lingwisyer]

Do you get close to your RAM capacity on your current machine? If not, not much point in upgrading to 32Gb...

Also, do you do much multi-threaded work? Is there no option for few cores at a substantially higher clock?



Ling.

[Erwin Edel]

Compairing my 2009 (I think) Xeon processor HP workstation PC to a 2015 i7 in one of our macbooks in the office, the Xeon is much faster at (for example) rendering in cinerender since it holds up better in multicore processes than i7 processors. The raw speed is not something you would see a huge direct benefit from in ArchiCAD I think with the background processing being the thing that keeps it all running smoothly.

I've bought 3 iMacs over there years and I found there certainly was a sweet spot where the extra investment still made sense in keeping your machine viable for many years. There also was a point where your really overpaying to get the 'latest and greatest'. 16 GB RAM seems ok for our rendering needs, but has been a staple for many years, so for future proving, I'd say go for at least 32 GB. SSD is a must. Any halfway decent dedicated GPU should be enough for ArchiCAD. You might need something a bit better if they ever do get BIMx running nicely on desktops.

Apple hardware is pricy, but generally seems to last and is well supported by the OS for years, at least I've not had any problems with those iMacs and had each for a good 4-5 years and they held value for trading in when I upgraded (because apple fanboys!).

[Laszlo Nagy]

Erwin wrote:
...for future proofing, I'd say go for at least 32 GB. SSD is a must. Any halfway decent dedicated GPU should be enough for ArchiCAD...

My opinion exactly.

[rm]

At least speaking of working with AC on a newer Mac, perhaps true on a PC as well though I have no experience there, 32MB RAM helps to "future proof" your system, SSD better/faster than disk hard drives.

The GPUs and now eGPU availability on newer Macs since High Sierra came out, is another issue to consider.

The people at Epic / TwinMotion, seem to point to getting the FASTEST possible AMD GPU cards possible for Mac users, as nvidia no longer supported by Apple.....not now anyway.

So its not clear to me if the goal is to produce the fastest renderings with TwinMotion, models produced in ArchiCAD, if it makes more sense to spec the fastest GPU Apple offers in their MBP or iMacs or if it makes sense to get the lowest grade GPU from Apple then add an eGPU which gives you the flexibility to move it to different machines or just keep it in your office and use the one onboard GPU with the MBP when you are on the road?

[Laszlo Nagy]

rm wrote:
The GPUs and now eGPU availability on newer Macs since High Sierra came out, is another issue to consider.

The people at Epic / TwinMotion, seem to point to getting the FASTEST possible AMD GPU cards possible for Mac users, as nvidia no longer supported by Apple.....not now anyway.

He said he does not want to use it for Artlantis or Twinmotion:

So if I have no intention of using Artlantis or TwinMotion for AC 22 or 23, I should be fine with the basic option currently being offered for the 15" MacBook Pro?