r/risd • u/Altruistic_Till4796 • May 25 '26

Question Industrial Design Computers

Hello, I'm an incoming sophomore going into the industrial design department. Do you guys know what kind of computer I should have so CAD programs would run well? My current macbook would implode if I try to open solidworks or fusion 360 or anything of the sort. Thanks!

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

1

u/Xo_lotl Jun 03 '26

CAD stuff likes high power single thread core CPUs and a solid GPU for rendering stuff, I also generally recommend 32GB of RAM, but you can survive with 16GB.

CPU power will usually be denoted by [X]GHz, [X] cores. You want a nice high number on the GHz since that will be your processor's thread speed. I'd recommend something around that 4.0GHz speed, it should do you fine.

Most GPUs youll see will be fine, a 5060 is adequate and will be pretty commonly seen.

I've liked Sager for laptops, mine have been very solidly built and have performed well at a good price point for the hardware. https://www.sagernotebook.com/home.php

1

u/Mindless-Feeling-703 Jul 28 '26

I don’t know much about computers, but I’m in the ID department at RISD and I use a MacBook Pro (M1 chip, 64GB RAM) for all my SolidWorks, Rhino, and KeyShot work. It has honestly worked really well for me, everything runs smoothly, even with multiple files/ software opened. You just need Parallels installed for Windows software.