#2 | The Computer Requirements and Models You Need as an Interior Designer, Virtual Design Assistant, and Rendering Artist

Alright, so you’re reading this post for a reason, and most likely because you’re an Interior Designer who’s looking for a new computer, but have absolutely no idea where to start. First things first, I will recommend you read my primarily dry and, yet, trying to be witty, previous blog post, PC or MAC | Does It Matter -#1 | What to Keep In Mind When Purchasing a Computer as an Interior Designer, Virtual Design Assistant, and Rendering Artist. Designed as the precursor to this post, I mainly discuss the technical details and definitions Interior Designers need to consider when purchasing a new computer. There is just too much information out there and many of us are too busy to try to earn another degree or let’s say always listen to teenagers of the Geek Squad pitch us a computer without fully understanding what we ACTUALLY NEED. So before you walk into Best Buy, Apple, or call Dell, brush up on the basics to make sure you can at least understand the equivalent of laying a beautiful and efficient kitchen design, but not necessarily drafting the shop drawings.

As I mentioned in the aforementioned blog post, you need to take into account your business goals, investment abilities, software, and project scope before looking into computer specifics. All too often I’ve found that many designers have their heart set on a specific brand or model without fully researching what they’ll need to smoothly run their business… and this was before COVID and the giant leap for virtual design. I’ll be perfectly frank here, I am a MAC girl, but due to too many requirements within my business, I re-converted to a PC when I purchased my secondary business computer, a laptop. I probably spent far too many hours cursing Windows 10 to count and being frustrated that so many games were unnecessarily loaded onto my machine, but it was the best purchase for me at the time, and I just recently purchased my new desktop, which is also a PC. To give you an idea, I don’t even have games on my phone, I know I’m boring, but to be honest, Pinterest is one rabbit hole that can grasp my attention more than any Angry Birds ever could (was that a computer game).

Even after hours of watching Youtube reviews, reading specs, talking to Dell sales support, and highlighting the quote sheet like I was reviewing a window order; I still made mistakes with the specs of that computer. I thought I was looking toward the future but didn’t fully take into account various OTHER software requirements (other than Chief Architect). And so, with much ado, we will be covering the most popular software for the Interior Design industry and their recommended minimum requirements and what that means, I will then provide a few options (which I haven’t at this point personally vetted and only linking below per other reviews and/or meeting the technical necessities).

***Again, please keep in mind that I am not an engineer, nor a tech specialist, so I’m translating what I UNDERSTAND into layman terms for other Interior Designers to understand. All final specs and details are to be verified by a qualified professional, sales rep, and/or IT Specialist prior to purchasing.

Note: I will be using the RECOMMENDED minimum, rather than the ‘minimum’ per software since my goal is to provide you the basics for you to have growth and maintain a computer that provides you more future options.

*This blog post contains affiliate links where I will earn a small commission from your purchase. All support is appreciated.

Chief Architect Interiors & Premier X13

Windows & Mac (limited) Compatible

Memory: 32 GB of RAM + Minimum 512 GB SSD

Video/Graphics Card:

Desktops: Windows 10: Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 Series or AMD Radeon™ RX 6000 Series
Mac OS 10.15/11: AMD with 4GB+ Memory

Laptops: Minimum 15" screen | Intel i7 | 8 GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070

*Real Time Ray Tracing coming in Chief Architect X13 requires a Windows 10 computer with a Nvidia RTX or AMD Radeon™ RX 6000 Series video card (via Chief Architect Blog, Computer for Design and Gaming).

Processor (CPU): Recommended
6+ Core Intel i7+ or AMD Ryzen Class Processor
Mac M1 or ARM processors are not supported (as of February 2021)

Home Designer Pro 2021

Windows & Mac (limited) Compatible

Memory (PC & Mac): 16GM of RAM + 50 GB+ of Harddrive space

Video/Graphics Card: 4 GB or greater gaming video card

Computers with ARM or Mac M1 processors are not supported.

For laptops, a minimum 15" screen.

Learn more via their website.

*I recommend if you plan on growing your business to consider purchasing the specs for Chief Architect. This will allow a longer life span for your computer than meeting just the recommended minimums for HD Pro.

Interested in learning Home Designer Pro? Check out Kelly Fridline’s course Home Designer Pro for Interior Designers for a pre-recorded, learn as you go option specifically tailored to the Interior Design Industry. Available 40% off when you follow the link here.

Sketchup

Windows & Mac Compatible

These specs do not take into account any rendering plugins.

Per the Sketchup System Requirements page:

2.1+ GHz processor

Memory: 8GB RAM (aim for 16 GB) + 700MB of available hard-disk space

• 3D class video card with 1 GB of memory or higher and support for hardware acceleration. Please ensure that the video card driver supports OpenGL version 3.1 or higher and is up to date.

Autodesk AutoCAD 2021

Windows & Mac Compatible

Note: AutoCAD 2021 is different than AutoCAD LT.

Per the AutoCAD 2021 System Requirements page on the Autodesk website**:

PC / Windows

• Operating System: 64-bit Microsoft® Windows® 8.1 and Windows 10

• Processor (CPU): 3+ GHz processor | Memory (RAM): 16 GB | Video Card (GPU): 4 GB GPU with 106 GB/s Bandwidth and DirectX 11 compliant | Hard drive Space: 7.0 GB

Mac:

• Operating System: Apple® macOS® Big Sur v11 (requires Update 2021.1), Apple® macOS® Catalina v10.15, Apple macOS Mojave v10.14, Apple macOS High Sierra v10.13

• Model: Apple Mac® models supporting Metal Graphics Engine Apple Mac models with M series chip are supported under Rosetta 2 mode**

• Processor (CPU): Intel Core i7 or higher | Memory (RAM): 8GB or higher | Hard Drive Space: 3GB | Video/Graphics Card (GPU): Mac native installed graphics cards

Autodesk Revit 2021

Windows ONLY Compatible.

Available on MAC via Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop, VMware, or Citrix.

Per the Autodesk Revit 2021 website System Requirements:

PC/Windows:

• Operating System: 64-bit Microsoft® Windows® 10

• Processor (CPU): “Single- or Multi-Core Intel®, Xeon®, or i-Series processor or AMD® equivalent with SSE2 technology. The highest affordable CPU speed rating recommended. Autodesk® Revit® software products use multiple cores for many tasks.”**

• Memory (RAM): 16 GB RAM | Video Adapter**: DirectX 11 capable graphics card with Shader Model 5 and a minimum of 4GB of video memory | Disk Space (HD): 30 GB free disk space

MAC: to run Revit on a Mac there are various options, but if you plan to use Revit as your primary BIM software investing in a PC may make more sense (personal opinion). You can learn more about the options for MAC here.

Lumion 11

Windows ONLY Compatible.

Available on MAC via Boot Camp (not officially supported).

Per Lumion System Requirements as noted (and quoted) from their website:

• Operating System: Up-to-date Windows 10 64-bit

• Processor (CPU): AMD Ryzen 5 2600, Intel Core i7-4790 or better

• System memory (RAM): 32 GB or more

• Graphics/Video Card (GPU): Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070, AMD Radeon RX 5700XT or better - GPU Memory: 8 GB or more

• Hard drive space: minimum 40 GB of free disk space in the drives where the Windows User Account and Documents folder are located in.

Adobe Creative Cloud

PC & MAC Compatible

Per Adobe Creative Cloud System Requirements noted (and quoted) from their website:

PC/Windows:

• Processor: Intel® or AMD processor with 64-bit support

• Operating system: Windows 10 (64-bit) version 1809 and later

• Memory/RAM: 4 GB or more

• Hard disk space: 4 GB of available hard-disk space; additional space is required for installation

MAC:

• Processor: Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support

• Operating system: macOS Sierra (version 10.12) and later

• Memory/RAM: 16 GB or more

• Hard disk space: 4 GB of available hard-disk space; additional space is required for installation

***Again, please keep in mind that I am not an engineer, nor a tech specialist, so I’m translating what I UNDERSTAND into layman terms for other Interior Designers to understand. All final specs and details are to be verified by a qualified professional, sales rep, and/or IT Specialist prior to purchasing.

**Not all the computers and accessories below meet the requirements for every software above. It is YOUR responsibility to review your business goals, budget, and software prior to purchasing.

*This blog post contains affiliate links where I will earn a small commission from your purchase. All support is appreciated.

Computers for under $2k

Because of the price bracket of these computers, they may not meet all specs needed and/or vary in quality specific for the Interior Design Industry.

Laptops:

Desktops:

Computers for under $3k

Laptops:

Desktops:

Computers for OVER $3k

Laptops:

Desktops:

Monitors