This is (or should not be) a small task. We did this at our company and it turned into a 4 month test. I would not limit yourself to just one computer spec. Take a good look at how you are currently using the software and where you plan to go as future use will affect your specs. I see that you have 16GB RAM speced and to be honest, from our testing there was little to no performance gain after 8GB RAM....this was a very consistent result....the RAM will however make a sizable impact on your end-users when they start multitasking Revit with other applications...but if they are not doing a lot of that 16GB RAM may be excessive (and expensive) From that point...you will want to figure out how many slots you will need/want to get to the 16GB...thinking ahead to future upgrades and cost. Test the processors...we tested 3 or 4 different ones...(I think I would go up to a 12MB L3 Cache over the 8MB...which may actually out perform other processors with faster clock speeds.) Windows 7 64 hands down!!! As far as the graphics...in all honesty they have a very small affect on anything. I know a lot of companies that are spending $80 or less on them as they are probably the lease important peripheral to consider. Also consider your harddrive for testing. Aside from all this...you want to test your infrastructure too...the best systems will be impacted by your network. Also, you will want to test any enhancement out there...look at the model performance technical guide...read forums...anything you can think of. Specing a new machine is not just about hardware...if there are tweaks and enhancements that make an impact then you should include them. Aside form all that...you should also be testing these configurations and enhancements on live projects to accurately gauge the impact. Using the AU Benchmark does not accurately curse anything about your companies live projects and is in my opinion not a good way to figure out your new systems. HTH
Edited on: Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 2:51:54 PM
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