November 05, 2012, 05:34:30 pm
Well, I don't know what software you use, but if you use SketchUp + Lumion, then you should be fine with:
8GB RAM
SketchUp can't use more than 4, anyway. I'm perfectly happy with my 8GB... RAM usage never goes beyond 70%, even with SketchUp and Lumion both open. 32GB sounds like a waste.
Core i5
The only difference between Core i5 and i7 is that in the i7 each core can handle 2 threads. But SketchUp is not multi-threaded, and Lumion benefits more from a single fast thread than from multiple threads... So the hyperthreading in the Core i7 becomes a waste.
GTX 670 or 680. Try to get a model with more memory.
Don't buy ATI cards, as you won't be able to use them with some GPGPU renderers such as Octane, Cycles and the upcoming Thea GPU... and also because ATI has some problems with SketchUp (I bought a notebook with ATI and could not use it with LightUp for SketchUp)