What is the best iMac choice for SketchUp 2020?

I have a big LO Project to work on over the next couple of weeks so will do some testing then.
I dont use Mac sorry so can’t answer your questions about upgrades.

the chips are soldered to the graphics card, which are replaceable…

I made the mistake of switching to nvidia which doesn’t run SU as well as the AMD did, and is blacklisted by Chrome…

unless it blows up I’d leave it alone…

Yes Mike, I totally agree that “something is wrong” with Layout …
Having perused the SketchUp Forum for a while, I’ve seen a lot of the (justified) Layout rants. It seem we as users can request and complain until we are (literally) blue in the face, but we don’t have any real leverage on Trimble.
As long as SketchUp and Layout are “packaged” together, we will all keep buying each release over and over, because we love SketchUp, it is a really great and desirable program. But how well would Layout sell, out on its own?
Problem is, we want the dynamic Layout link to SketchUp (which is a VERY useful feature) to be productive. Why should Trimble totally rebuild Layout if we all keep buying (this flawed cousin) as part of the SketchUp Pro package?
This logic would suggests that Trimble doesn’t dare separate the two programs, because it would precipitate a real and honest review of Layout as a program in the open marketplace, which would probably mean the death of Layout …?
Trimble can’t afford this, so they just kick this (severely dented) Layout can down the road …
What can we do to change this dynamic? How can we change Layout?

I work on a Hackintosh…much more power for much less money. I use SketchUp and Twinmotion too…fully functional with no bugs.

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I work on a Hackintosh…much more power for much less money. I use SketchUp and Twinmotion too…fully functional with no bugs.
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OK Cayden,
Sounds intriguing, could you be more specific about what your machine consists of? I’ve heard the term “Hackintosh”, but don’t really know what that means … Are you saying it runs Mac OS, but the hardware is “something else”? If so, what?
Please elaborate!
Thanks!

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A hackintosh is a PC that runs Mac OS, which isn’t made for PC hardware, so you “hack” it. So…while you can spend 7-10,000 on the new Mac Pro, I have a 12C/24T AMD Ryzen 9 processor at 4.4 GHZ, AMD Radeon 5700 XT (which is much better than the 560x included in the base), 32GB of 3600mhz RAM, Gigabyte Aorus Master Motherboard with USB C, a 750 W Gold PSU, 1TB Nvme storage, and 2TB Hard Drive for around 1800. The best part is you can customize and OC the machine, while the Mac Pro is a money pit. I run Mac OS Catalina 10.15.2 on it… and have never had an issue. CAD files load in seconds and I can render 4K animations and videos in minutes. If you want more help in choosing parts, I would love to be of assistance. The process is complex but I’ve been through it a few times and can help you get your machine up and running.

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[quote=“caydenwilson017, post:26, topic:118067, full:true”]
A hackintosh is a PC that runs Mac OS, which isn’t made for PC hardware, so you “hack” it. So…while you can spend 7-10,000 on the new Mac Pro, I have a 12C/24T AMD Ryzen 9 processor at 4.4 GHZ, AMD Radeon 5700 XT (which is much better than the 560x included in the base), 32GB of 3600mhz RAM, Gigabyte Aorus Master Motherboard with USB C, a 750 W Gold PSU, 1TB Nvme storage, and 2TB Hard Drive for around 1800. The best part is you can customize and OC the machine, while the Mac Pro is a money pit. I run Mac OS Catalina 10.15.2 on it… and have never had an issue. CAD files load in seconds and I can render 4K animations and videos in minutes. If you want more help in choosing parts, I would love to be of assistance. The process is complex but I’ve been through it a few times and can help you get your machine up and running.

Thanks Cayden,
As you say, complex process … but it sounds very cost effective! I suppose you don’t end up with a warrantee for such an assembly? I’ll think about it, and thanks for your offer of help!

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Anytime!

iMac 27" 5K with Sketchup 2019 is the best combination.
I wouldn’t bother with 2020 version. Its trash.

I’ve used Sketchup 2019 with iMac 27" 5K (first one that came out) for almost 2years no issue even with working on files created/modified with different people. Even with multiple files imported such as PNG, JPG, CAD, 3d Obj etc. Its a FuhKin work horse beast without the fancy hardware.

WIth Sketchup 2020 im using MacBook Pro 16" latest and greatest and I can’t even finish my line work for a convention center size plot and this software has crashed more than a dozen times. I have about 24 Layers (now called ‘Tags’ so dumb).
Its ridiculous. With that said, the latest most beefed up iMac you can buy will not do you any good if the software is not optimized for it.

I don’t have any problems with 2020, on a late 2015 iMac 27" 5K retina screen, still running Mojave. Works fine for me.

And other users with new or older MacBooks haven’t reported significant problems with 2020 that I know of.

I have the same 2015 iMac 27" and I never have problems with it.
I draw, extrude, 3d model, even render Maya with ray tracing on it. I think it has NVIDIA graphics card.

Do you know any users with MacBook Pro 16" with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB? (OS Catalina 10.15.4)

This might be a new graphic card architecture and is causing the problem.
I know I can recreate my ‘CRASH’ when Resetting Workspace- 100% of the time.

I also get errors occasionally when Orbiting on certain ‘Styles’
And I also get artifacts on Layout 2020 - it looks like a mesh white overlay with tiny cubes masking my layout… can also recreate this 100% of the time. SO must be a graphic driver issues.

@slbaumgartner has a 16" MacBook on order, I think. But it hasn’t come yet.

Other than that, sorry, no. I have a 13 or 14 month old 15" MacBook but not running Catalina. Haven’t yet used it with SU2020.

Correct on both counts. Current expected delivery is next week, but I don’t know whether to believe that because the last tracking event was an export scan in Shanghai 3 days ago.

That is what I have. Do you have a model I can try that is bound to crash often?

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Unfortunately I down have a model to share, and I’ve deleted 2020version.
Back to 2019 now.

But when it was happening I had a 2D floorpan with some groupings and Components.
and a basic stage extruded to about 2ft tall. All of which was drawn natively in 2020, not using any plugin to extrude or model. Which is frustrating coz all components are basic geometry…

But if you have a 2020 version with the same MacBook, Create a new file then go to Preferences and save a ‘Workspace’ and ‘Save current workspace’

Now close Sketchup and open any file, then go back to Workspace and try to reset the workspace.
This is where mine would crash.

Do the same for layout.

I have a 700mb file with geolocation and 2D trees for a massive radius that I did for a render, and naturally it tested the abilities of the software. I, too, am curious about the iMac specifications and if it makes more sense to wait for the 2020 iMac release.

It’s not crashing, just terribly slow. I like to really push these files to their limit, placing many components and often overcomplicating things. For such files where hundreds of 2d tree conditions (forget 3d) exist, I’m not sure how to make the situation with a new computer.

I was stupid and bought the 2013 Mac Pro with a 6-core Xeon and lower graphics card. According to this benchmark site, which ranks single threaded performance, my current “trashcan” Pro is not very good. However, the newer 2019 iMac Pro with the 8-core i9 is the best performing, despite having more cores, because it’s an i9 chip not designed for servers. So we know that more cores doesn’t always negate single threaded performance.

That being said, how much more important is your GPU and the ratio of performance related to the CPU? When I orbit these heavy files with trees, sometimes the components get simplified into a simple box outline, and the orbiting gets faster, until I stop moving and the boxes turn back into a typical view setting. Is there a video on the internet demonstrating how sketchup uses GPU vs CPU? and with Sefaira, which I have yet to enjoy, are there any stats on CPU usage?

https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks

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Hey AK-Sam,
I just noticed this part of your comments back on March 4 … Are you saying that you are getting a performance improvement in LayOut by having both SU and LO mounted on an SSD? On my iMac, they sit on a Fusion drive, which as you know is a conventional hard drive coupled with a small (not sure how small) SSD. I guess Apple did this to get a read/write performance boost, but it probably isn’t performing as fast as a bigger SSD alone …
Do you think I would see any appreciable LayOut performance improvement by getting an external SSD?
Thanks, Beamer

Hi jbehre,
I have asked similar questions about the effects of GPU speed and memory size on this forum, mostly focused on LayOut performance, rather than SketchUp. Since I don’t work on files as large as yours, LayOut is the performance drain and production bottleneck for me.
I have not received any definitive answers, and as far as I know, no one seems to have done any serious tests. I’m operating on an iMac, I think the Windows PC platform is a different situation. For Mac’s, I get the impression that there is definitely a diminishing return associated with bigger/faster graphics cards. Even people with late model iMac Pro’s seem to complain that LayOut is sluggish and problematic.
If you learn anything, please let me know!
Beamer

This is because it is a software performance issue not a hardware problem - there will obviously be improvements with diminishing returns with better hardware but at the root of it is Layout.

For example - I went from a MBP with integrated graphics but with an SSD to a desktop with high-end discrete graphics and an SSD.

SU performance was transformative, Layout performance was a little better but only what you might expect from going from a 5 year old i7 to a current i7 NOT a magic bullet. Its why I have stuck on 2019 version - from experience that seems to be the most “performant” version (I have a 2020 license but don’t use it)

From what I understand Layout performance is comparable across platforms. Sluggish and problematic is an accurate description.

It goes way back - here is the mother of all threads…

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SSD affects only the time to read or write data to disk. So, it will improve the startup time of any app as well as the time to load or save a file. But unless you exceed your computer’s RAM so that it starts to swap to disk, the SSD will have no effect on performance of an app.

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