Hardware Recommendations Anyone?

I have been looking into upgrading my home computer.

I am open to switch over to Apple since they are so reliable and now more compatible. I was hoping to get some expert advice from CAD users on what is best

for me. Reliability speed and comfort all come before budget for me ... just an FYI.

CAD/CAFM and Multi Media are my primary uses.

PLEASE provide me with your insight/experience because no one out there knows like the actual users and experts in CAD

Kindly,

Lisette

Have you seen this?

http://www.hearne.com.au/getattachment/920efad3-b605-4490-a8bc-d673c05de0f9/AutoCAD-2013-System-Requirements.aspx

Use as the base point from which to build your awesome computer.

Apple is cool if that's what you want. No longer do we suffer from what I used to experience with Apple's stuff being too hard to get to PC users. The vast majority of business users are on PC's but today the compatibility issues have gone mostly away. Myself, I'd still prefer a real kick-butt PC. And these days prices are in the basement for desktops. I have built several i7 quad core machines with 24 GB of RAM and you can do for well under $1K...and in the right deals, you can do it for a lot less than $1K and that will include a nice video card for AutoCAD.

I have been looking into upgrading my home computer.

I am open to switch over to Apple since they are so reliable and now more compatible. I was hoping to get some expert advice from CAD users on what is best

for me. Reliability speed and comfort all come before budget for me ... just an FYI.

 

CAD/CAFM and Multi Media are my primary uses.

PLEASE provide me with your insight/experience because no one out there knows like the actual users and experts in CAD

Kindly,

Lisette

Dont go on apple , i was exploring this issue for the last six month .

im a 3d piping designer and now moving from Autocad3d to solidworks,

tell me the software's you are willing to use and ill tell you the exact specs,

few things you need to know:

1) some software are Open-GL based and other are direct3d (directx) , that's what will make the difference in choosing the graphic cards .

2)most CAD software are able to use only one core at a time of your multicore processors ( except during rendering and some other tasks ), so taking a 4922 cores will not make a difference.

3)most of the time even in large projects the proccesor will not get to their max or even half ( except during rendering it will be 100%), so buying the strongest and a winner in benchmark will not change in reality , don't fall to benchmarks , sometimes the drivers are much more important .

4) go on SSD hard drive, it will make a difference .

5) take the best RAM , the fastest and take as much as your system can get.

6) dont make love with a company . AMD are like INTEL they make Hardware , they both doing great job.

Good luck