AutoCAD 2012 System Requirements
Posted By CADDManager On 2011/03/28 @ 7:51 AM In AutoCAD | 10 Comments
While the requirements have not changed much for this release…
If you are not on Windows 7 yet – it may be time to move. If you are not on a 64bit system yet – it may be time to move. If you have not loaded up your system with RAM – time to slam some more in there. Older OS’s and 32bit will still work, but the demands of the software keep increasing. RAM is always a welcome addition and is an inexpensive upgrade for most.
Here are the AutoCAD 2012 32bit requirements for AutoCAD:
- Microsoft® Windows® 7 Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, or Home Premium (compare Windows 7 versions); Microsoft® Windows Vista® Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, or Home Premium (SP2 or later) (compare Windows Vista versions); or Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional or Home edition (SP3 or later)
- For Windows Vista or Windows 7: Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® dual-core processor, 3.0 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology; for Windows XP: Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 1.6 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology
- 2 GB RAM
- 2 GB free disk space for installation
- 1,024 x 768 display resolution with true color
- Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7.0 or later
- Install from download or DVD
And the 64bit requirements:
- Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, or Home Premium (compare Windows 7 versions); Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, or Home Premium (SP2 or later) (compare Windows Vista versions); or Microsoft Windows XP Professional (SP2 or later)
- AMD Athlon 64 with SSE2 technology, AMD Opteron® processor with SSE2 technology, Intel® Xeon® processor with Intel EM64T support and SSE2 technology, or Intel Pentium 4 with Intel EM64T support and SSE2 technology
- 2 GB RAM
- 2 GB free space for installation
- 1,024 x 768 display resolution with true color
- Internet Explorer 7.0 or later
- Install from download or DVD
If you are going to delve heavily into the 3D side of things:
- Intel Pentium 4 processor or AMD Athlon, 3 GHz or greater; or Intel or AMD dual-core processor, 2 GHz or greater
- 2 GB RAM or more
- 2 GB hard disk space available in addition to free space required for installation
- 1,280 x 1,024 true color video display adapter 128 MB or greater, Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater, Microsoft® Direct3D®-capable workstation-class graphics card
My personal recommendations for any new machine:
64bit – Windows 7 – 8 gigs of RAM (or more) – Kick up the GPU strength also
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10 Comments To "AutoCAD 2012 System Requirements"
#1 Comment By Adam On 2011/03/28 @ 10:55 AM
we just purchased a number of statios for ADT 2011:
Lenovo E20 – 4222
6GB ram
Quadro 2000
working great!
Happy Cadding
#2 Comment By Sergey On 2011/04/17 @ 11:46 PM
Remember system requirements are not a one size fits all as there are a number of factors that affect how much resources you require. The factors can be from the complexity of your drawings, 2D or 3D, visual styles such as a 3D part as wireframe takes less than one with a smooth shaded view, and certainly the size of your drawings.
#3 Comment By tony On 2011/06/27 @ 6:01 PM
I have a Windows 7, AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 2.9 GHz. Is my system compatible with this? How does 2.9 Ghz differ from 3.0Ghz?
#4 Comment By Jeff On 2011/08/25 @ 3:14 PM
We are looking to buy new hardware with the future in mind. Any thoughts on performance enhancement between a quad and a 6 core CPU?
#5 Comment By CADDManager On 2011/08/26 @ 12:23 PM
I have not tested or compared two systems like you are mentioning. What I have heard is that it does not make much difference to “gamers”.
Does anyone out there have a comment?
#6 Comment By Dave_T On 2011/09/07 @ 4:00 AM
Hmm, we are currently undergoing a review of CAD stations as our 6 year old P4(3.2Ghz), XP, 3.5Gb are struggling with 2011. That being said they have done a good 6 years! Most of the issues relate to the 128Mb ATI V3100′s. We will replace & redistribute the stations to general staff.
Looking at:
Windows7 (64bit)
2x500Gb 10k Sata mirrored drives (dealt with too many HD problems over the years)
16Gb RAM
ATI V5800
i7-2600 (3.4) although Dell recommend sluggish, low ranked Xeons (probably all that fits their motherboards)
Budget £1k/unit
Any thoughts???
#7 Comment By CADDManager On 2011/09/15 @ 1:05 PM
Dave
This looks like a very good machine. I agree on the move to SATA drives.
Mark
#8 Comment By Jeff On 2011/09/21 @ 8:37 PM
Dave, We are in the same boat as you
Any thoughts on the 17 being a consumer CPU?
It is faster but with a xeon CPU you can run 2 CPUs and get more throughput from multiple threads. I don;t think you can run multiple CPUs with an i7. Seems to me that the xeon lets you build more for the future. One CPU now and add a 2nd when needed.
Both Dell and HP reccomended the Xeon over the i7
And why the 2 HD’s We have everything working off of a file server and only 1 260GB HD on each workstation. No production files are stored on the HDs.
#9 Comment By oliver On 2011/12/03 @ 3:33 AM
Hi hello,
Kindly please advice me if a CORE-2 DUO with 2G RAM, 2.1Ghz-processor, 128 dedicated graphics is enough to run an AUTO CAD PROGRAM in windows?
Thank you very much..
#10 Comment By Martyn Cowley On 2012/01/14 @ 3:14 AM
Jeff: fine if you have a file server, otherwise a mirror RAID is essential – I have just had a HD fail but could carry on with the remaining disk without losing anything.
I though AutoCAD was only multithreaded for regens (?) and then only across two processors, not cores, so the only advantage in a multicore processor was that Windows separated other programs to the other cores, so that AutoCAD did not have to share the processing time on a single core. This would seem to indicate that raw processor speed was more important.
But (there’s always a but) throughput of data to and from the processor must be significant when dealing with large files or multiple xrefs/underlays so then we get into cache sizes, memory speed and number of memory channels. Looking at the specs of the array of Xeons and trying to work out which is best (all else being equal) is a nightmare.
Or would any differences in processors be overridden by RAM and graphics card?