Best Mac for Interior Design type work

SketchUp Computer Advice
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I’m an interior designer looking to potentially upgrade my Mac (I really don’t want to switch to a PC even though my husband is really trying to push me). I do work for my own clients but also freelance for other designers doing drawings ie. 3D images and construction drawings in layout.
I’ve been using sketchUp since the mid 2000s so I know what I’m doing with sketchUp. I do a lot of detailed models for clients, and download a fair amount of models from the warehouse, while also purchasing or outsourcing models for certain items. I have used VRay in the past but have been outsourcing that lately, so thats not important to me. I do like to use the new “ambient occlusion” but my current graphics card is too outdated to run it (I normally work with the classic graphics engine and switch when I was to export images).

I’m not very computer savy when it comes to knowing whats the best for me right now. I’ve been looking at an iMac or Mac Studio and willing to keep my macbook pro for when traveling and also looking into getting an iPad. I’m mostly looking for a new computer to do the bulk of my work on. SketchUp does crash for me more than I’d like but whats mostly been frustrating is when it runs slow and I’m not working on detailed models. I’m not sure if its because of all the tabs I have open with products I’m sourcing for clients, or something else I’m doing.

Happy to answer any questions to try and figure out whats best for me. Below is my Macbook pro’s current stats.

MacBook Pro 16" 2019
Processor: 2.4 GHz 8-core intel core i9

Graphics: AMD Radeon Pro 5500M
4 GB
Intel UHD Graphics 630
1536 MB

Memory: 32 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
MacOS: sonoma 14.6.1

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If you know MacOS and like MacOS then stick with it. You do more with your computer than just SketchUp, so comfort with the OS itself and all the other apps you use matters.

I recently went from a 2016 16" MBP to a 2021 14" M1 Max. I never had a small (13-14") machine before because they never had dedicated graphics cards, but that doesn’t matter now with Apple silicon (M1, M2, etc). The smaller size was nice when it came to packing my bags and traveling to 3D Basecamp.

For bargains on Macs, I constantly scour B&H Photo, Adorama, Other World Computing and the Apple refurbished store for “new old stock” or refurbished and even used stuff (in order of preference). You don’t have to have the absolute latest machine, but a good spec machine with any of the M# chips would be a good move from where you are now.

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If you want the laptop I would get a Pro with as much on board RAM as you can afford and the fastest processor you can afford.

If you want to switch to a dedicated desktop machine I am happy with the M2 Studio Max. This was an upgrade from my 2019 iMac that had 64GB ram.

I do rendering (send the finals to ChaosCloud) and construction documents.

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