Chief Designer

[ChiefChrissy]

Hi.  I am purchasing a new computer and want to confirm that what I am looking at will be good for using chief architect software.  I am interior designer with mostly smaller projects with some aspect of rendering. 

I am currently using: 

MacBook air 13" Mac OS Monterey 

Graphics Intel UHD Graphics 617 1536 MB

Memory 8 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3

Processor 1.6 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5

and I find that it works for most small projects but rendering is VERY slow and if I have a larger project, it's too frustratingly slow.   I would like to stick with a mac.  I understand that ray tracing capability is not available with a mac but need to stick with mac for other reasons. Here is what I am comparing: 

option A  Mac book Air 15"   M2 chip, 8 GB unified memory, 512 GB SSD.  OR

option B Mac book Pro 14"  M2 pro chip, 16 GB unified memory 512 GB SSD

 

screen size not a huge deal for me because I have another monitor I use.  I have to transport laptop between office and home often so smaller is not a deal breaker.   There is a $500 difference between the two options above and obviously the Pro is going to be better than the Air but wondering if it is really necessary?  Would option A last me for 5+ years or will it be obsolete soon or not keep up with Chief Architect standards? 

Thank you for reading!  

[Chrisb222]

I think you'll want the additional RAM in Option B. Or upgrade Option A to 16GB for $200.

 

Rendering speed won't be a problem with either choice, I use a Studio / M1 Max and it flies. But it has 32GB unified memory, so that may be a factor...