Tporter Posted October 23 Share Posted October 23 hi all, I'm just getting started in the residential world of drafting and design, wanted to ask around from the people that have been doing it what exact PCs they have or what I should get. I saw the recommended ones to look for on the website but after researching some I get answers on why maybe I wouldn't need a specific spec etc so just wanted to hear what people actually have or would tell me to get so I don't go wasting unnecessary money. thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristianA Posted October 23 Share Posted October 23 I would see if you can get a PC that is packaged with a decent Nvidia card (RTX 5060ti min) and 32gb min. of RAM. A good Nvidia card by itself can go for $1000+ and the GPU will probably make the biggest difference in performance in Chief. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joey_martin Posted October 23 Share Posted October 23 Honest, but somewhat unpopular answer here. I have been using Chief for over 20 years and about every 5 years or so I will pick up an off the shelf HP, or like this last time I was with my wife in Sams Club and came across this machine... Works great for Chief. Never any issues and does everything I need it to do. While others were spending $3K on custom machines, I spent half and went to Florida and sat on the beach with the other half. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DBCooper Posted October 24 Share Posted October 24 Did you see Chief's blog with tips about what to buy? https://www.chiefarchitect.com/blog/computer-for-design-and-gaming/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madsnyds Posted October 25 Share Posted October 25 OMEN MAX Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 9 275HX (2.70 GHz) Installed RAM 32.0 GB Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU (16 GB) Intel(R) Graphics (128 MB) Storage 954 GB System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor I frequently use ray trace and it takes seconds to load Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobDesLLC Posted 19 hours ago Share Posted 19 hours ago On 10/23/2026 at 2:26 PM, Tporter said: hi all, I'm just getting started in the residential world of drafting and design, wanted to ask around from the people that have been doing it what exact PCs they have or what I should get. I saw the recommended ones to look for on the website but after researching some I get answers on why maybe I wouldn't need a specific spec etc so just wanted to hear what people actually have or would tell me to get so I don't go wasting unnecessary money. thanks This is my current CAD and rendering machine: Thermaltake Core P5 Tempered Glass V2 Black Edition Open Chassis ASUS AMD AM4 Pro WS X570-Ace ATX Workstation Motherboard AMD Ryzen 9 5950X G.Skill RipJaws V Series 128GB (4 x 32GB) 288-Pin SDRAM PC4-28800 DDR4-3600 (2) SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen 4 Crucial BX500 SSD 2TB MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 3090 24GB MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 3060 12GB Thermaltake Toughpower TF1 1550W 80+ Titanium PSU (4) LG 32UD60-B monitors HTC Vive Pro 2 VR goggles I built this specifically for X15 and Lumion. It's a few years old now but it performs strong. I suggest looking at the optimum hardware specs for each program you want to use, then decide on what your actual hardware needs are (not just Chief Architect). Add some headroom for a little future-proofing, then shop for hardware. Before buying, look into reported hardware/software conflicts and adjust your buy list as needed. This is actually a good exercise for AI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAmichael240114 Posted 3 hours ago Share Posted 3 hours ago (edited) Just replaced my existing MSI laptop of 14 years with this one. Price is $NZ + compatable monitor Edited 2 hours ago by CAmichael240114 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
para-CAD Posted 2 hours ago Share Posted 2 hours ago This is not the optimal time to be buying or building a computer. I was on the alienware site and their area 51 gaming rig starts at $6000 and tricked up it’s $11,000. This is absolutely insane. I once had Puget systems build a computer back in 2017 and it cost 6K, but it’s still rocking. It has a 3090 card and 168 gigs of RAM. I put into NVME hard drives, the Samsung Pro series. Nowadays, I just use a Mac laptop, M4 MAX MBP but if I needed more options for like running local LLMs, I would go with an Apple Studio, but those get expensive really quickly. DB Cooper shared the actual chief link to minimum standards and preferred standards. That’s probably the best place to start. And check out Costco. They’re the same concept as Sam’s Club, and they have very good return policies on electronics if there’s ever a problem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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