So here’s the deal. I will be learning sketchup for woodworking and I will only use it for designing and referencing dimensions, I won’t need it to render huge ho showbox uses or gardens or anything just small furniture projects.
I have seen a lot in terms of what people use vs what they need. I know what specs sketchup requires to run but not sure what is needed to run well.
I like a lot of the 2 in 1 designs for lap tops and I’m not against a traditional lap top or an all in 1 desk top. But because I’ll be using this computer for other things I want to keep my options open.
Am I dumb for asking if I can get away with “basic” requirements like 8GB Ram on an i5 processor? Do i need 12GB and a minimum i7? 16GB?
I dont technically have a budget on the computer but would like to stay on the cheaper side just because I dont want to go overkill on something that is not necessary.
What do you all use for running yours? Would It be better for me long term to spend twice as much on a computer that has a little more power?
The more geometry you add to your models, the more computing power you may need.
Look out for a laptop with a discreet Video card (aka GPU).
Intel i3 or i5 processor, or AMD 3000 series.
And a numerical keypad is very handy for entering dimensions.
If you aim, a little higher, for an i5 processor and a 1650gti video card then you’ll have longevity.
The cheapest laptops do reduce other features like hard drive storage space and RAM.
Even running lots of chrome tabs, Outlook, antivirus and a few apps combined will use over 8gb of RAM. (The more things running…the more ram you need).
Hard drive space needs depend on your cloud storage capacity. 128gb is bare minimum but 256gb much better. Most workstations have at least 1TB.
My laptop’s fine for SketchUp Pro, not so much for SketchUp Make. If SketchUp’s basically all you use it for (like me, I do some light gaming as well but that’s it) it’s fine. It’s not the best in other areas though, so if you’re doing lots on it, not worth it. It has a £1500 price tag on it, so it’s probably not worth it considering its quality in areas.
Yes agreed. Integrated video steals RAM from the system, making your 8GB even less for applications.
Sam is speaking of Solid State Drive here. Some notebooks also come with an extra ol’ spinning hard drive. Mine did and I have my Documents all on the larger ol’ fashioned HD. I also redirected the Downloads folder to the extra HD.
There are other topics in this category where we answer this same question and talk about specific models.