[ASK] PC Spec recommendation for interior designer

I am not expert at all but as far as i know, architect programs are heavy as f*ck. I don't think it would be overkill, especially if she uses it frequently because render times will be a pain in the a+s.

Don't forget to put a good amount of ram (pref. >=32 GB), graphic cards and processor are both important but i don't know brands too much :/

multithreading is important in this case

Atleast in my country, there exists cheap non-gamer laptops with beefy RAM and CPU specs. They are called Acer Swift 3, you can get Ryzen 7 + 1TB SSD + 16GB for $800, don't know about prices in India though.

So from my perspective(Architect) in interior design they will render different images a lot. So in Interior design best pc specs is always apreciated.
3Dmax or any other software for rendering works better with multithreding so i would suggest Ryzen overall (tho i am using intel processors). In terms of kind of Ryzen i would suggest Ryzen 7.
I cant sugest any Graphics card because better card will give you more performance and faster rendering.
Crucial point in Graphics card is amount of ram on it. 3gb is minimum but i would suggest 4gb as a nice amount while 6gb would be a perfect amount to create a nice scene with good amount of objects.
In my opinion GTX 1050TI will lack some performance so i will suggest GTX1660TI or regular GTX1660.
In terms of RAM 16gb will be more than enought. Because have low influence in rendering.
So my suggestion will be:
Ryzen 7
GTX 1660TI
16GB of RAM
SSD (256gb or more)
And optional HDD for 1tb or more.
In future i will suggest buying and external HDD for models and textures (because they weight A LOT. HELL OF A LOT).
Here is a nice article about CPU and GPU rendering. https://td-u.com/cpu-vs-gpu-renderer-which-is-better/
And it will be worth asking if she need a powerfull laptop that will work as rendering station or a slim laptop that will be light but mediocore powerfull.

I doubt the GPU is very important. Since she'll presumably be carrying the laptop around a lot, I'd focus more on weight/portability. Maybe a Dell XPS 13 or similar. It's also worth asking whether Macs or PCs are preferred for her program, as some are very Mac centric.

Is she going to be studying at a school / college / university? If so, check with them - they may have a spec they recommend, and you could base it off of that.

Also, if she wants to learn/use real time architectural visualization, more exactly lo use software like Unreal Engine 4, Twinmotion, etc, maybe a video card with ray tracing capabilities would be great,

you should definetly find out which tools she's going to use and have a look at their websites for hardware recommendations... there's absolutely no worth in asking in a forum like this instead of doing proper research.

just have a look at the currently existing comments, those are even 100% opposing.. you simply have to do your own research since this is a very specific section...

from what i can offer to this: We do a lot of CAD work, which i think might be quite close from the type of software (but i can be completely wrong) and consumer grade GPUs are worth close to nothing... we tested a 1080Ti and a Titan Xp in Catia V5 and Siemens NX since we were sponsored by NV for a university ai project.... both were doing way worse than an old Quadro K2000.

that said: if you want to do your cousin a favor, do proper research on her tools and try to find something that suits those.

For graphics-intensive stuff, a system with its own dedicated graphics card will generally perform better vs. an on-board graphics chip.

More stuff:

https://www.crucial.com/usa/en/learn-with-crucial/about-graphic-design/mac-vs-pc-for-graphic-design

Hope this helps!

You will want at least 32GB of RAM and at least a Geforce 2060 or better for the GPU (the raytracing tech can significantly improve performance in certain instances, such as most GPU-bound renderers like Octane, or texture baking if she needs to realtime-presentable scenes). If using CAD or Solidworks you'll probably want to consider a workstation (Quadro) GPU instead (mostly due to improved float point performance).

For the CPU, if you can get a laptop with the brand new Ryzen 4000 series then go for one of those, otherwise stick to Intel. In general latop CPUs aren't great for rendering and she'll probably be using the GPU for that instead (thankfully GPU based rendering has come a long way in the last few years).

Thanks guys for all the input.

We've just bought the laptop.
I'll leave this thread open until the giveaway is over.

So did the uni / program give you spec recommendations? What did you end up buying? Out of curiosity.

I remember using CAD on an old computer and the rendering times were sh*t.