Hi there, for my girlfriend I want to buy a new iMac that DOES comply with ‘heavy’ 3D drawings made in Sketchup Pro 2019.
Currently Sketchup gets stuck while working in a drawing, as soon as an:
command is given a 3D model is imported from the Warehouse (for example a bank)
an order is given to copy such a bank 3D model and paste it into another drawing save of drawings
She works with many textures, to display as realistic an image as possible in 3D for her interior clients.
Currently she uses a:
Macbook Pro from late 2016
Retina screen 15 inch
2.6Ghz Intel quoad core i7
16 GB Ram
Radeon Pro 450 with 2 GB GDDR5
Since last week we have purchased an external GPU, the Sonnet Puck with Radeon RX 560. Unfortunately this did not help with the above problems.
So it seems to me to be entirely down to the processor. With monitoring of processor usage during Sketch Up Pro … the CPU usage by Sketch Up Pro shoots to 100%.
Therefore my question, which processor is recommended if we look at heavy Sketchup Pro use? So we buy the right iMac.
Ie, switch to monochrome mode when modeling and use a “Fast style”. (This means creating a “work” scene with it’s own fast modeling style and settings. ie, no profiles, jitter, endpoints or edge extensions in Edge settings. Textures OFF whilst modeling!)
Never download 3D Warehouse models directly into your work model. D/l them into an empty model first to inspect them. Or d/l to disk an open them directly for inspection. Reduce faces and remove any high-poly subcomponents.
On a PC. Mac drivers (by Apple) for all their GPUs should be OK.
Basically I would predict that no new Mac will give a performance boost big enough to justify the cost compared to what christiaanvr’s girlfriend already has. Following Dan’s link to make models lighter is the best option.
And it looks like going forward they are only offering AMD dedicated GPUs or lower end models with the integrated Intel HD graphics.
I see that they now have iMac Pros with AMD Vega graphics and coming soon is some server beast with many core Xeons and dual graphics modules each with 2 Vega GPUs.
Mac seems to be heading to more cores at lower clock speed, wereas you need high clock speed and just one core for modeling.
Don’t focus on more gb’s on the gpu (amd)…
All that said, no hardware can feed a designer’s need for speed.