Computer power enough?

SketchUp Pro
1

Hello,

I am needing to upgrade my iMac computer which can’t seem to handle some of the detailed work I am doing in Sketchup. I know that PCs have been known to be better for rendering, but I would rather not switch.

Can someone tell me if an I Mac Pro with this configuration will be able handle rendering large file models especially when inserting into Layout?

  • 3.2GHz 8-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz
  • 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory
  • Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16GB of HBM2 memory
  • 4TB SSD storage

Also, this is my current configuration, and it’s unbearably slow when moving large files from Sketchup to layout, I have some Sketchup scenes that are taking more than an hour to insert into Layout. The current model that I’m working on is about 281 megabytes total size, and I am using Sketchup Pro 2019 for architectural design.

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013)
3.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4 GB
3.12 TB Fusion Drive Storage

Thank you for your input.

Joel

2

Probably it is time to start thinking about how heavy your models are and how they could be made lighter. Hardware upgrades at this stage usually disappoint the user.
The W-series Xeon processors with their many processor cores would probably be great for use with third-party rendering applications, but modelling applications like SketchUp are single-threaded and don’t get much benefit.
Check your available processor choices against single core benchmark results available from for example PassMark.

2 Likes
3

Given the aforementioned file size, it would be wise to review your modeling technique prior to investing in expensive new hardware.

The difference in performance between suitable hardware and bleeding edge hardware is generally barely noticeable.