Fusion
Here are the recommended min specs. Going purely off of this, it seems that both should be suitable.
I'm far from a PC builder or pro on all thing components, but just simply looking up some benchmarks, etc., it seems that the desktop may have a slight edge in several categories. I'm not personally super familiar with mini's, but I would imagine that a standard desktop would likely be easier to upgrade down the road as well, if that's something you foresee coming up.
If you have other reasons for wanting the mini, I wouldn't feel bad about it. As I mentioned, both seem to at least hit the minimum recommended specs. Maybe someone with some personal experience can chime in on that front.
Hopefully, that's helpful. LMK if not.
Kelbie Ockey
Sr. Implementation Consultant
The desktop will have the upper hand for two main reasons:
- CAD applications (not just Fusion 360) are mostly single-core. The math and algorithms don't lend themselves to parallelization, so the higher core clock frequency is of advantage.
- The desktop is easier and likely less costly to extend with a dedicated graphics card. This might also apply to upgrading memory.
I'd check how easy it is to upgrade the mini-computer. IF there are memory modules available and discrete graphics cards then it might be a good choice.
In my not unsubstantial experience with Fusion 360, 90% of the people who experience performance problems, follow not recommended modeling techniques. So in the end it might really not matter all that much.
Rendering on the other hand uses every bit of computing power you can throw at it. Number of cores, clock frequency, It'll eat everything you've got regardless how much you've got and it's never fast enough 😉
