Expert: J. B. Borge - 10/26/2004

Question
Hi! Can you suggest what sort of hardware is required to run ACAD 04 efficiently? I currently do 2D and 3D buildings, and my current system has 512M RAM and a 64Video card. Should I improve on this?

I'm thinking of getting a new computer. Mind you, the system as is works OK, but can be slow at times.

Answer
Hello, running autocad on an athlon processor (w/ 266mhz & up bus-speeds) above 1.5ghz is more than enough. Some of the misconception of using the software is that it is not built for 3D. Although, surfaces & solids can be created but it is not intuitive when it comes to future changes in the model. The 512mb ram you have & the 64bit video card should suffice.
If you're still thinking of upgrading & you think you'll be using Inventor, Solidworks, 3dMax, i would definitely recommend the 64bit atlon core. Also, graphics card such as the quadro, fireGL, or Wildcat are highly recommended. 1 gig memory wouldn't be ideal.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need anything else!
Good luck!

-JB