topic Re: Best specs for AutoCAD mac laptop in AutoCAD for Mac Forum

Best specs for AutoCAD mac laptop

jcragg — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 02:39:17 GMT

I own a drafting & design service. I use AutoCAD / Revit / Softplan every day. I have a stable windows desktop PC that is 100% my production machine. I want to get a mac laptop for "after hours" stuff. Web browsing, word, excel, etc... Will rarely be used for AutoCAD or Revit, but I need it to be capable IF the occasion comes up. So, what do I need? I know what AutoCAD for mac has for system requirements, but I want real world opionions (experience prefered).

SO, If I were getting a windows laptop I would get a dell xps 15 (2.2ghz 6 core, 16gb, 512gb). I do not know enough about apple to know how resources are used. Do I need comperable windows specs? Does mac os use resources better / worse? I know I will need minimum 512 gb ssd (I use dropbox as a file server and need that size), but what about processor and ram?

I have my eye on a 15.4" pro with the 560x ($2499 @ BH Photo - Best Buy price match). Am I throwing money away getting the 2.2/16 system? Will a new i5 8 512 air work for what I need?

REQUIREMENTS:
512 GB SSD
Fast, I do not want to wait on the computer to do something, I want it to be faster than me.

So, with all that said, someone teach / explain / lie about the spec similarities / differences between windows pc and mac. I will be purchasing something tomorrow most likely.

Thanks in advance.

Re: Best specs for AutoCAD mac laptop

joehovarter — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 17:24:07 GMT

You don't have any replies, so I will give you my experience... I have a 13" MacBook Air (mid 2013) and I have worked on some mechanical construction jobs with it. These are relatively small drawings and not 3D. Some of the PDF underlays I have slow the viewing of the drawing down but as far as any drawing I am doing, it is without hesitation. A few commands give a slight stutter, noticeable to me but doubt most will. Overall, my perception would be a new MacBook Pro would be great, I like the mac because it is missing all of the Windows things that seem to slow a PC down. I don't know if Apple does a good job at hiding things but it seems like the whole OS resources are available where as most PC's I've used just seem like "this should be faster". If anything I would say I am lacking slightly in the graphics specs but overall no complaints.

1.3ghz Intel Core I5

8GB 1600 ghz DDR3

Intel Graphics 5000 1536 mb

512 SSD

Re: Best specs for AutoCAD mac laptop

john.vellek — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 16:05:30 GMT

Hi @jcragg,

What did you decide to do on this issue? Did you make your purchase? If so, are you happy so far with the results?