As of January 2020, we recommend AMD Threadripper or Intel i9 chips. For those uses, we recommend you select a CPU with the fastest clock speed and number of cores you can afford. If you are using the rendering features of Autodesk products or using 3rd party render engines with 3ds Max, those functions are multithreaded and can benefit from additional cores.
However, Intel i9 and AMD Ryzen 7/9 series chips often have a “Turbo Mode” which shuts down unused cores and lets the active cores run faster, so you may want to include them in your comparisons. Intel i7 and AMD Ryzen 5 chips are good options. Since you will almost always be multitasking and running other applications, you should consider a quad-core processor common in laptops today.
This also means that you may want to emphasize clock speed (GHz) over the number of cores if given a choice. This means that different applications can run on separate cores some applications are also designed to utilize multiple cores.ĪutoCAD is not optimized to use multiple cores, meaning that the primary benefit of a chip with a high number of cores will be that you can run other applications reasonably fast. As it has become more difficult to shrink the transistors’ size, CPU designers have started adding more cores, which is similar to adding more CPUs to the computer. Over the years, CPU increased its speed primarily by making its transistors smaller and thus faster. The CPU is the heart of any computer, and as a result, there are myriad options available now, primarily from Intel and AMD. Hardware Overview Central Processing Units (CPU) I have noted the importance of processor, memory, storage, graphics, and operating system and how they impact your CAD software’s performance. I’ve prepared this guide to help you choose a good laptop for use with AutoCAD, including an overview of preferred specifications, as well as specific laptops that may suit your needs. Laptops also take up less physical space and are more energy-efficient. This can range from architects wanting to maximize their efficiency while traveling to contractors getting up-to-date documents while on site. Mobility and remote work are becoming more critical in the fields of architecture, engineering, and construction.