Hi,
I am a budding designer who would like to have a portable computer to create small Revit models. This is however a future goal. I am not presently going to use my Mac for Revit but would like to in a year or two from now. I am totally new to Macs and I am not extremely savvy about the latest capabilities of processors and graphics cards.
I have recently puchased a Macbook Air 2011 with 4GB RAM 1.8 Ghtz, i7 Processor with 4MB shared L3 Cache and 256 GB Memory. My reasoning for purchasing the most high end model was 1) I wanted one portable computer plus I wanted it to handle all my needs 2) To keep up with latest technology so I can keep it for as long as possible and 3) Because I think that I will be able to use it for some Interior Design work, namely Photoshop, Illustrator and Revit.
However, there is a cheaper model, $400 bucks cheaper that comes with 4GB RAM 1.7 Ghtz Processor, i5 Processor with 3MB L3 Cache and 128Gb of memory. I have two weeks to exhange my model for this less powerful model and save $400.
Hopefully, my hopes about the Air's capabilities are not unfounded. My hope is this:
I would like to create small interior design models, under 50 MB with textures and materials using my Macbook Air. I would also like to render the models but if worse comes to worse, I will use a desktop to render them. However, I would like to be able to build models with it. Also, i would like to edit the renderings that I create using photoshop as well as other color manipulation activities. I don't think my use of Photoshop or Illustrator will be intense, as I am not a professional.
1) Anyway, will I be able to do what I want with either of the above the machines?
2) Will the i7 give me an advantage besides a slight speed improvement?
According to my research there is only 7-10% increase in speed with i7 processor. However, if my intent is not to focus on rendering but on building small models, I think what I most need is RAM. My understanding is that a lot of the calculation of rendering is handled by Graphics Card. Both of the models above have an Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor with 384MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory.
3) Since technology changes so fast, it might be wiser to downgrade to the lower model and purchase the next generation of Air's with better graphics. This is a large purchase so I would like to make it last as long as possible, but if my hopes of using this to build 3D models are unfounded then maybe going for the lower model will be enough to last the increasing waves of technology and still be useful four or five years from now.
Thanks and sorry for the lengthy post.
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