Number of Cores / Threads revit supports

[David_Knight]

We're looking to upgrade our PC's.  Is there any documentation on the number of cores / threads that revit will support?  I'd rather not spend money on a 6-core CPU that's not going to add any value to a system.

Thanks!

[David_Knight · Accepted solution]

Ok, I tracked it down here: http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/System-...

[mkotsamanes]

This is my experience, I am far from an expert but I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about this question.

I have a dual processor Xeon 2.4 GHz system with 24GB of ram. This works out to be 24 cores as the windows task manager interprets them. Although Revit can handle (according to the spec sheet) only 16 cores when I render all 24 cores run at 100% (possibly because I have 2 CPU's with 12 cores each).

 

When I do almost everything else with Revit a few cores bounce up and down a bit, most days I use less than 25% on average.

Personally I wasn’t as impressed with the performance boost going from a 3.0GHz dual core to a 24 core system (there was a heathy boost I was just expecting more). As my older system had about the same amount of ram and an SSD drive.

The way a multicore computer works (for the most part, I may be completely wrong here) is to divide ram and processor speed by the number of core so my system that on paper is 4.9GHz with 24 GB of ram is more like 24 systems with 200 MHz and 1GB Ram each working together on the individual tasks that make Revit (Windows, Excel …) work (screen rendering, calculations, hard drive access …). For example Windows (excel, revit) can’t and doesn’t ask all 24 cores to work together to solve a ‘simple’ math problem, rather it asks one core that isn’t doing much right now to answer the problem while another core(s) takes care to keeping the system running. Revit has to decide how to separate every problem into discrete questions then put them all back together to make the program work. Rendering is ‘simple’ every core gets a ‘bucket’ to render and the more cores the more buckets. Unfortunately there are only so many discrete calculations involved with any one application.

If you aren’t rendering spend the extra money on RAM and a solid state drive.

Don’t get your hopes up that a $5,000+ system will make everything amazing, it goes a long way but Revit is a very demanding piece of software.

P.S. Revit 2015 does run smoother than previous versions, keeping your Autodesk software updated may be costly but it's worth it.

[David_Knight]

Yes, our office currently runs I7-2600k chipsets with SSD drives.  We're adding 2 new desktops and sending the old ones down the line.  I think you're spot on regarding other botle necks.

[julianrevit7]

I'm buying a pc with dual xeon 16 cores (total of 64 cores)

revit will be using all those for rendering? or only 16 as implied in their site...?

I will be expending a lot of money and I want to be sure...

🙂

[t_mokha]

Hello mkotsamanes,

I know this post was last year but I'd like to ask if you noticed a good performance in terms of rendering, where the cores are all 100% usage.

Thanks.