The best laptop for Revit will depend on whether or not you are a student or a professional:

As for prices:

1. If you are constantly on the move, a portable laptop with that much GPU power  will be more expensive.
2. If you work mostly at an office, you can buy heavier machines which are less expensive.

A faster but easier way to buy a laptop is to look at the size of your projects:

A) If you work on 10 story houses or small buildings ( files in the ~50MB range), you only need to spend 600-700 dollars. (4GB vRAM GPU).

B) If files are in the range of 1GB which means large models a 6GB vRAM GPU and a very high clock CPU with 16-32GB RAM is a MUST (900-1300 dollars). 

**Most people FALL in the A category!

What about workstation GPUs?  

If we are talking about Revit, they’re useless for most people.

In fact,

90% of the people reading this don’t even need a 6GB vRAM GPU. 

Why?

The GPU HELPS when using viewport (rotating model in 3D).

However, Viewport & Drafting are mostly CPU tasks (they use the CPU) .

Best Laptop Specs for Revit

Let us be a bit more specific about the hardware you need (you can find more details at the end).

Keep the following in mind when reading these recommendations and laptopreviews:

small=3-10 story building / house
Big=facility/large building

 

CPU

Although recent versions of Revit have VERY multi-threaded functions  (they use lots of CPU cores)…

The large majority of design tasks are not multithreaded. This means more cores on a CPU aren’t going to make things faster when drawing.

What about rendering?

Rendering in draft quality is instantaneous regardless of CPU.

Rendering at higher quality is faster with more CORES. However, most modern CPUs have at least 4-6 cores. 

Recommended CPUs:

Students & small models: Any 8th to 13th gen Intel Core i5 or Ryzen 5 CPU. Ex: Core i5 13420H / Ryzen 5 7535HS. Older generations CPUs ( Ryzen 5 5600H / Core i5 10300H) are OKAY too. They’ll be somewhat slower when rendering but have more or less the same performance when drafting. 

Pros / bigger models: A high performance recent “H” CPU (Ex: Core i5 13420H / Ryzen 5 7535HS) is good but a  Core i7 or Ryzen 7 is recommended: . Ex: Core i7 13650HX / Ryzen 7 7745HX

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GPU

A dedicated graphics card ( ‘vRAM‘ – video RAM memory), is EXTREMELY USEFUL for viewport actions: smooth zooming, navigating and rotating a 3D model. The bigger your model, the more ‘vRAM’ you’ll need. 

Student or small models:  Even 2GB vRAM GPUs like the MX450, MX550 will do. However, 4GB vRAM GPUs like 1650GTX & 2050RTX are overkill but they’re not that much expensive.
Pros or large models: 4GB vRAM as a minimum: 1650GTX, 2050RTX, 3050RTX. 6GB vRAM GPUs are future & bullet proof:  RTX 2060, RTX 3060, RTX 4050, etc.

Warning: Do not spend money on 8GB vRAM GPUs UNLESS you’re also using third-party GPU renderers. Rendering in Revit is a CPU-task and viewport or navigating through a complex 3D model will vastly improve with more RAM as opposed to having more vRAM.

RAM

8GB: Good for small to medium models or ~50MB files .

16GB:  +700MB files. Useful for multitasking too. Ex: Revit+  Sketch Up, PhotoShop, NavisWorks.

32GB: Improves rendering times however  performance gain beyond 32GB is too small.

No need to buy a laptop with high RAM out of the box, you can always upgrade RAM later.

Storage

SSDs is a MUST.  Solid State Drives massively increase any read/write file data related task. You don’t need to be picky about PCie 4.0 vs PCIe 5.0 and such, there are no significant performance gains with different types of SSDs.

Display

You’re going to be staring at this thing for how many hours a day? Right. So besides using the 20 / 20 rule, you want a large and if possible a high resolution display. A matte finish is a nice bonus but you can always buy an antiglare screen filter .

Top 5 Best Laptops For Revit

When you pick a laptop out of this list, keep in mind:

A) All of these laptops have fast CPUs with the recommended specs so performance difference when applying functions are nearl the same. 

B) VIEWPORT & Rendering will be different depending on the GPU & RAM. Remember, if you work with 500MB-1GB files (large models or due to bad practice) you need a 4 GB vRAM GPU-6GB vRAM after that you need to max out RAM.

C) For files in the range of ~50MB. A laptop with a Core i5 or Ryzen 5 CPU + a 2-4GB vRAM is all you need.

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1. MSI GF63

Best Budget Laptop For Revit

  Core i5 12450H

  8GB DDR5

  RTX 2050 4GB vRAM

  1TB PCIe NVMe SSD

   15” 144Hz FHD

  5.1 lbs

  2 hours

If you are either an architect, civil engineer  or interior designers working for a small firm that has a small team of CAD engineers. It isn’t likely you’ll be working with projects that require an insane amount of ‘vRAM’ in other words a powerful dedicated graphics.

Most of your work will be limited to buildings, apartments, small houses and schools, etc, and for that you need NOTHING more than a 4GB vRAM GPU. In fact, the 4GB vRAM GPU on this laptop is OVERKILL because Revit isn’t  GPU-dependent except for viewport (rotating a model in 3D).

  Hardware

A 4GB vRAM should be enough to viewport even buildings with  20-40 floors. 

The truth is that these type of models given at small firms can run on integrated graphics but you’ll start to lag if you have to work on the details inside every floor. Viewport and walkthroughs (after being renderers) will flicker and run somewhat slow. Having a 4GB vRAM GPU prevents all of that and makes navigating through it smooth. 

In fact, you’ll probably be fine with a 2GB vRAM GPU. However, the price difference between a laptop with the 2050RTX and a cheaper 2GB vRAM (MX450) isn’t that far off.

3050RTX/1650GTX vs 2050RTX:

The most powerful 4GB vRAM GPU is the 3050Ti  followed by the 3050RTX however both are on average 100-150 dollars more expensive. Are they worth the extra cash? No. 

vRAM is the same and though they have more CUDA cores they do not help with rendering on Revit because that’s entirely CPU-dependent.  As for the 1650GTX, it has pretty much the same performance as the RTX 2050. However, they will usually come with a slower (sligihtly older) CPU.

vRAY & GPU Rendering

However if you’re using GPU renderers like vRAY then the 3050Ti may be worth the extra cash ONLY if the render previews have very highly detailed textures and take long to render. This will improve your workflow as you try to find the best textures/shaders for a given design.

CPU: Core i5 12450H

This laptop is by no means the fastest or the latest. However, it’s still somewhat recent (we are in the 14th generation now) which is CRUCIAL if you want high clock speeds.

The problem with possible cheaper 1650GTX laptops (GPU has the same performance as the RTX 2050) is that they usually come with older CPUs. Some even have a 9th generation Intel Core i5 CPU!

Of course, you can make do with those CPUs and your workflow will be slightly affected. Rendering may take 10 min longer and so on but nothing that will compromise your workflow significantly.  However, 2050RTX laptops cost just as much as 1650GTX laptops and even if a 1650GTX is found cheaper it isn’t going to be that much cheaper and the price difference isn’t just worth the loss in clock speed performance.

What about Ryzen CPUs?

Ryzen Core i5 CPUs in fact are either better or as good as the Intel counterparts. Simply because they have better multi-core performance (this means each core runs at almost the same clock speed ACROSS all cores which isn’t always the case with Intel). Better multi-core performance means FASTER rendering and also SLIGHTLY faster viewport. 

I could not find a cheap 2050RTX laptop with a RECENT (6th or 7th gen) Ryzen 5 however, hence why I’m posting this model.

RAM & Storage: 8GB RAM DDR4 vs 8GB RAM DDR5

Despite being recent, this laptop does not support DDR5 which is the fastest RAM technology on laptops as of 2024. If we are talking about budget laptops with budget dedicated graphics, they’ll mostly be found on 7th generation Ryzen 5 Laptops. Ex: Ryzen 5 7535HS . Since those CPUs only support DDR5 and not DDR4.

Performane gains with a DDR5 vs a DDR4 however isn’t significant for Revit. I’d estimate it to be around 5% faster in viewport and even less on functions (editing).

You’ll get a MUCH higher performance gain if you upgrade RAM from 8GB to 16GB RAM. The performance gains will be seen on viewport (though slightly if you have dedicated graphics) but more importantly RENDERING.

Storage: 1TB should be PLENTY to store pretty much every project you’ve worked on for the company for the next 5 years including lots of BIM software installed. If you decide to buy another laptop that doesn’t have 1TB or even 256GB, then you can just do the upgrade later: how to upgrade Storage .

MSI GF63
PROS	CONS
Recent Core i5 Cheapest 2050RTX Laptop Spacious 1TB SSD RAM & Storage Upgradeable Relatively thin & compact Perfect for students & professionals	Somewhat Heavy Low Battery Overkill for small models & interior design work

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2. Lenovo LOQ

The Best Laptop For Revit 2024

  AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS

  16GB DDR5

   NVIDIA RTX 4050 6GB vRAM 100W

  1TB PCIe NVMe

  16” FHD

  5.7 lb

  2 hours

You’ll get the best performance/money ratio with a 6GB vRAM dedicated GPU as far as models with very cool looking shaders/textures through vRAY & viewport of large models in Revit is concerned.

Going beyond 6GB vRAM isn’t a bad thing but the performance gains will be increasingly smaller and insignificant even if you work with large models.

GPU: 4050RTX (6GB vRAM) 100W

4050RTX 100W vs All other 6GB vRAM GPUs:

When you shop for mid-tier dedicated graphics on laptops. In other words, 6GB vRAM dedicated graphics. The most important single spec of said laptop (after the CPU) is “GPU wattage“.  This concept is useful for gaming but can be extended to viewport & rendering since higher wattage means each “CORE” within your GPU will do its graphics processing at higher speeds.

CUDA Cores vs vRAM

You already know vRAM is the memory where your model is stored for FAST 3D manipulation, it pretty much acts the same RAM does for software/windows.

CUDA cores acts the same way CPU cores do. They have clock speeds and a GPU can have many (thousands as opposed to a dozen or less). These little cores do all the graphics & image processing for most graphics related tasks such as viewport/rendering shaders/etc.

If you have more CUDA cores running at faster sppeds, then obviously the graphics processing will be faster and the performance with 3D objects & images will be faster. This is why you always pick a GPU with as much ‘wattage’ as possible.  Since higher power input means more energy for each of these little ‘CUDA’ cores to run FAST. 

When you pick a higher wattage GPU as opposed to a lower wattage GPU (they can be the exact same GPU just running at different power), the most obvioust performance gains will be seen when using GPU-renderers (vRAY). However, if you’re NOT using third party renderers besides the default rendering engine on Revit, you DO NOT NEED to worry about GPU wattage.

Unfortuantely, wattage isn’t listed by manufacturers.

Thus you need to do some research on a model (by going to the official website and grabbing the pdf spec sheets) to find out what the wattage is before purchase.

Large models: 4GB vRAM vs 6GB vRAM?

I’ve had to work with large models on several occassions last year and as far as viewport (3D manipulation & navigating through a model) is concerned me and my colleague so no performance difference between 4GB vRAM and 6GB vRAM.

However…when we worked on a file in the range of ~2GB basically the design of a residential building in a block. The model included all houses around the block AND the residential building had VERY detailed interiors with plugins to add high quality objects and such.

Viewport was faster with the 6GB vRAM GPU (60fps) compared to the 4GB vRAM GPU (35-40fps). This difference is significant and definitely results in a smoother workflow. It isn’t going to be faster but you can extrapolate the results to much bigger models. 

CPU: Ryzen 7 6800H & Core i7 12800H 

This laptop has a 13th gen Core i7 but it makes little difference whether you get a 12th gen Core i7 or even a ryzen 7 from the 6th or 7th gen as far as drawing/viewport is concerned.

However, there’s going to be performance gains when rendering if you pick the most  recent Ryzen 7 or Core i7. Depending on the model, rendering (with the revit engine) of a three story house on a 500m sq area with details outside may take around 20 min as opposed to 30 with models that have a Core i5 or older Core i7/Ryzen 7 CPUs.

Lenovo LOQ
PROS	CONS
Most powerful Ryzen 7 on laptops Best CPU for rendering Cheap High wattage 4050RTX Best for super complex models	Overkill for most Revit users Heavy Low Battery

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3. Acer Aspire 5 15

Best Cheap Laptop For Revit 2024

  AMD Ryzen 5 7530U

  8GB DDR4

   Radeon Vega 7

  512GB PCIe NVMe SSD

  15” FHD TN Anti-Glare

  3.83 lbs

  7 hours

    Windows 11 HOME

That may be scary to some of you but in fact for most people using Revit (I’d say about 50%) especially interior designers, there’s no need for dedicated graphics.

That’s because small models (one house, small apartments) use so little memory they don’t need anything beyond the memory that comes by default on ‘integrated GPUs’.

GPU: Integrated 

Of course you still need to be picky about what integrated graphics(or rather CPU since they come in pairs) to pick. Otherwise, viewport will be slow especially as houses get larger.

Intel Xe or Vega 7

The integrated GPUs on Ryzen CPUs (Radeon RX Vega 5) and Intel CPUs (Intel Xe) are the two fastest integrated graphics as of 2024. They can be found on the latest “budget” Core i5 and Ryzen 5 CPUs (12th, 13th gen Intel and 5th,6th and 7th for Ryzen).

Faster versions can also be found on Core i7/Ryzen 7 CPUs but it makese no sense to buy those since they’re just as expensive as laptops with dedicated graphics.

GPU	CPU
Intel Iris Xe 80 (1600Mhz)	Core i5 1135G7
Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs	Core i5 1230U
Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs	Core i5 1345U
RX Vega 7	Ryzen 5 5500U
RX Vega 7	Ryzen 5 7530U
Radeon 610M	Ryzen 5 7520U

You have to be very careful when shopping for Ryzen 5 CPUs however. As shown in the table not all of them have a RX Vega integrated GPU. Some have the Radeon 610M which is SIGNIFICANTLY weaker than both the Intel Iris Xe & RX Vega GPUs.

RAM: 8GB DDR4 (Upgrade To 16GB)

Viewport and navigationg through larger models (bigger than examples what we discussed) will lag if you just have 8GB RAM which comes with this laptop by default. It is paramount you do the upgrade to 16GB RAM. The extra RAM can act as reserved ‘memory’ for the iGPU to do the processing.

This laptop has an additional slot for RAM upgrade. The process is relatively easy.

CPU: Core i5/Ryzen 5 vs Core i3/Ryzen 3

It’s very important you choose the graphics cards I outliend in the table. The Ryzen 5 on this laptop is significantly faster than the Ryzen 3 and the iGPU is also significantly more powerful. If you buy the cheaper ryzen 3 versions you will have a MASSIVE performance drop when using viewport.

However, you must make sure to get the recent CPUs from Ryzen ( 5th, 6th or 7th gen ) or recent ones from Intel (  11th , 12th or 13th gen ). If not, the performance loss due to lower clock speeds and lower multicore efficiency will have a massive impact on the deisgn process even if we are talking about simple 3D models of a single apartment.

How to improve viewport performance despite slow-hardware?

If you buy either a laptop like this model or a weaker Ryzen 3/Core i3 and you find yourself working with a bigger model that suddenly slows down on viewport, you can improve performance by upping RAM to 16GB. If that’s not enough, then get used to good practice design.

What does that mean? Say if you’re working on small-medium models that weighs around 200MB, then it is likely you’re using too many functions and unncessary parts, shades and so on. You can either split the file and work on the split files separately (for faster viewport) or purge the whole file.

Acer Aspire 3
PROS	CONS
Best for small 3D models & interior design work Latest Ryzen 5 Powerful integrated graphics Relatively lightweight Long battery	Lacks dedicated graphics Not good for high quality rendering & large models

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4. Surface Laptop Studio 2

Best 2 in 1 Laptop For Revit

  Intel® Core™ i7 13th gen

  16GB LPDRR5 RAM

  NVIDIA RTX 4050

  512 GB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD

  14.4”  2400 x 1600 2 in 1 Tablet-Laptop w/ Stylus

  4.37lbs

  5 hours

  Electrical , Computer , Chemical , Software
  Civil, Mechanical , Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineers

 

Hardware Overview: Surface Laptop Studio 2

GPU: 4050RTX/ Ada RTX 2000 / 4060RTX

The Surface Laptop Studio 2 has THREE configurations for GPU. The first one is a 6GB vRAM GPU, the second has 8GB vRAM and the third one also has 8GB vRAM but it’s a ‘workstation’ GPU. We’ll disuss what that means later.

But basically all of those are OVERKILL for Revit alone. Most users will never find the 6GB vRAM or 8GB vRAM GPUs useful.

So the best choice is the 4050RTX model. The GPU is a little overkill but it’s also MUCH cheaper than the other two models.

They all come with a 13th gen Core i7 with SUPERB single clock speed and multi-core performance. So you’ll be covered in all instances with this set up: drafting, viewport and rendering will be as fast as today’s hardware allows.

RAM & Storage: Not upgradeable

None of the Surface Laptop Studio and none of the other Surface Devices (we’ll discuss soon) are upgradeable. Well in theory they are but it’s very risky and difficult. Thus you must buy the studio or the next devices with as much hardware as you’re going to need. For Revit purposes and BIM Software: 16GB RAM w/ 512GB Storage is the maximum and 8GB RAM w/ 256GB the minimum. 

RAM used on these devices is DDR5 if you choose the latest models. 

Other Surface Devices

The Surface Laptop Studio 2 is just one of the many Surface Devices that allow you to write with the stylus and draw/design with the stylus on BIM/CAD software like Revit. There’s also:

• Surface Laptop
• Surface Book
• Surface Pro

 

Surface Pro

The Surface Pro however is an even more interesting model than the Surface Laptop Studio 2 because it’s much cheaper and the CPU and iGPU of the most recent generations pack a lot of punch of BIM software like Revit. Most of the models ran by civil engineers or interior designers will show no lag on the Surface Pro as long as you meet the two conditions:

• You pick a recent model (which means a recent CPU). Anything from the 7th gen is fine (Currently the Surface Pro is on the 9th).
• You make sure to have 8GB RAM. (Some models especially the super old ones have only 4GB).
  • An Upgrade to 16GB will massively improve performance (as discussed earlier).

Drawing/Sketching

Whether you buy the Surface Book, Laptop Studio or the Surface Pro. The drawing features and functions are pretty much the same. The sensitivity & accuracy when drawing is the same too. In fact, even if you go for much older models , the functions and accuracy are still the same. If you buy the cheaper models, you just need to update the software.

RAM: 16GB RAM is best

Where as 8GB RAM is OKAY for laptops with dedicated GPUs. If you end up with an integrated GPU as in the case of the Surface Pro,  you want 16GB RAM to make up for the lack of dedicated GPU. We discussed earlier how this works. 

If the Surface Pro 9 is too expensive and you’re okay buying a Surface Pro 7 or even the Surfae Pro 6 then it having 16GB RAM becomes even more important not just for viewport but also to speed up performance when draftin/drawing. The extra RAM will make up for the lack of CPU power from the older models.

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5. Dell Precision 7780

Best RTX A5000 Laptop For Architecture

  Intel Core i9 13950HX

  64GB DDR5 RAM

 
NVIDIA Quadro RTX A3500

  1TB NVMe SSD

  17.3″ FHD (1920*1080)

  6.7 lbs

  1 hours

This is a workstation laptop.

It’s listed here mostly for informational purposes. I don’t think I’ve never seen ANYBODY need a workstation GPU just for Revit.

They’re certainly useful for other software but Revit is just limited to interior design work, house plans, buildings that do not need that much vRAM. Nor is the rendering engine as hardware demanding say as 3DS Max or Maya.

However….

Leaving Revit aside. You may find it useful for other software that needs lots of GPU rendering work and a very fast CPU to work/apply functions on extremely large BIM models with LOD=500.

The advantages of workstation laptops compared to regular laptops are not really down to the GPU but rather:

• Bigger / better cooling system : Since they’re bigger and thicker, it’s just more ideal for high-end hardware that needs a lot of cooling. The extra space will allow for the CPU & GPU to work at optimum temperature levels.
• Support up to 64GB or even 128GB: On Revit and most BIM software, you may be surprised to find out that those extremely complex models with LOD=500 are going to require more “RAM” rather than vRAM.
  • For example: Plumb work and mechanical designs of buildings, when very detailed and used in conjuction with other software, can make files as high as 10Gigabytes and this EASILY takes 40-50GB of RAM !!!!  In this scenario a WORKSTATION is a good option IF YOU NEED more than 32-64GB as there are regular laptops that support 64GB RAM.
• Display: Workstation laptops are HUGE, a bigger display means a higher canvas, combine it with a higher resolution like QHD and your workflow will improve massively since you’ll a better  view of plans.

Workstation GPU vs Gaming GPU

There is goign to be a slight performance gain when working with files that step into the 10GB range.

But the biggest difference would be the reduction or complete elimination of “artifacts” floating around , “hardware error boxes” and “visual innacuracies”.

However…

That’s all speculations. I have personally never dealt with the above (nor that I’ve noticed or made a significant impact to my workflow). Artifacts & visual innacuracies completely dissapeared once I upped my RAM to the size corresponding to the complexity of my model

Workstation laptops: So why are they Recommended?

They’re just being diplomatic about it.

In other to prevent you NEVER face any error boxes whatsoever no matter what you do with the software.

What MAY come in handy (outside of Revit) is the extra vRAM they have. But that’s on desktops. On laptops the most powerful workstation GPU has the same amount of vRAM as the most powerful gaming GPUs with the latter being on average half as expensive.

Either way, if you have to work with such models. You’d be better off using a desktop!

Dell Precision 7780
PROS	CONS
One of the fastest CPUs RAM upgradeable to 64-128GB	Not so useful for Revit Mostly useful when lots of RAM is needed Too expensive Low Battery Very Heavy

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Workstation GPU Performance & Prices: Buyer Beware!

If you MUST buy a workstation GPU because you’ve been forced to buy one (or perhaps you see yourself using software / plugins outside of Revit that explicitly require one) then it’s important for you to distinguish what workstation GPUs are USELESS and OBSELETE and which ones are WORTH your money. 

I’m sure you don’t want to pay 2k for a 5 year old GPU that cannot perform better than our 700 dollar laptop.

Please use the following table to get an idea of where each workstation GPU stands compared to regular laptops:

Workstation GPU	Consumer Equivalent	Cores/Shaders	Clock Speed	vRAM
P500	MX150-	256	1519	2GB
M620M	950M-	512	1018	4GB
P1000	1050GTX	512	1519	4GB
P2000	1050Ti	768	1468	4GB
T2000	1650/1660Ti	1024	1785	4GB
RTX 5000	2080RTX+++	3072	1350	16GB
RTX A5000	~3080RTX	6144	1695	16GB
Ada GPU	GPU Equivalent	Cores/Shaders	Clock Speed	vRAM
RTX 5000	RTX 4090 –	9728	1680Hz	16GB
RTX 4000	= RTX 4080	7424	??	12GB
RTX 3500	RTX 4070 –	5120	??	12GB
RTX 3000	RTX 4070 —	4608	??	8GB

++ much faster. – weaker . = similar performance. There’s a much bigger and complete list in the next section!

What about MacBooks? Which is the best apple laptop for Revit ?

Unfortuantely, Revit, as of 2024, still doesn’t have a Mac version. However, there are a few ways you can get Revit installed on a MacBook as shown in the official site here.

As for what MacBook or what hardware on MacBooks is best for revit, it depends on how you’re going to launch Revit:

1. If you’re going to use a MacBook to NATIVELY install Revit, there is a way (although the official site doesn’t mention it). You have to a buy MacBook with an Intel Chip which are the ones released prior to 2020.  For example, the 2019 16” MacBook Pro has a Intel Core i9 and a 4GB vRAM GPU (Radeon RX 5500M). You can install Windows on that OSX (natively) through BootCamp and then install Revit. This works fantastic for medium-large models especially if you find a MacBook Pro that has RAM upgraded to 16 or even 32GB !
2. If you want to buy the latest M1 & M2 & M3 MacBooks, you are limited to using a virtual machine to launch Windows then Launch Revit within it. This massively reduces the amount of resources available to run Revit (because they’re being used to run the VM, OSX and background processes) and also the communication between hardware and software (within the VM) isn’t as fast as it would be if Revit was natively installed. So this is a good option IF your models are very small and limited to houses with no details within.
3. If you can access a workstation remotely (be it a desktop or cloud service to launch Revit) you can use any laptop to work on Revit remotely, this includes any MacBook. 

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How To Buy The Best Laptop For Revit

If you are on a budget and need to buy several machines for your team then you want to give this section a good read so you don’t spend money on unncessary power.

Project Size

The best way to get the right hardware is to look at your files. If files are large you need a higher CPU and better graphics. If files stay below 100MB, then you don’t need to worry on either as much.

If you don’t have access to files then imagine this:

• 10-15 story building for a private school, a small medical center or maybe a bunch of offices and the focus is just outside, then you  need NO MORE than 4GB vRAM dGPU ~700$.
• Two-three story houses or apartments only need  2GB vRAM GPU laptops.
• Working  collaboratively on bigger projects, like an entire high school campus with highly detailed interior design will be bog down to 1 fps when using viewport. In this scenario, you’ll need as much vRAM as you can afford. 

Revit System Requirements For Laptops

*These recommendations are  based on a lecture by AutoDesk University, my past experience and input from several users through our facebook page. They apply to BIM Software including the Revit packages: Revit Structure, Revit Architecture & Revit MEP.

CPU

For Revit the CPU is way more important to have a speedy workflow than the graphics card. However, when you pick a good graphics card you’ll automatically get a fast CPU since they come in pairs on laptops. Nonetheless, if you know a thing or two about how the CPU interacts with the software you can get the best bang for your buck.

a) Revit Functions

Is Revit Multi-Core?

Yes and No.

Revit  started as a single-threaded application (having more cores did not improve performance).

Over time more functions and design tasks were given multi-threading but it will never get to the point where having more cores will be better than clock speed.

As of 2024, Revit is still very very multi-threaded.

Though it has upped the  multi-threading on more tasks only the tasks where things need to be ‘rendered on the go’ or visuals have been affected. Ex: calculating walls and pipes intersections, loading all elements in views, etc.

Here’s a list of all multi-threaded functions.

Multi-threaded functions are still a small fraction of all the functions and tools you’ll use and it’ll probably stay like this forever due to the nature of how most of the calculations are carried out (step by step processes).  Add that to the fact that most CPUs today have 6 or even 8 cores at a very affordable price, clock frequency or clock speed becomes the single most important spec to look at when shopping laptops for BIM software.

How much clock speed is fast?

For a fast workflow, from the list: 

~Ryzen 3 or Core i3 if all you do is render how a building/house looks from outside.

~Ryzen 5 or Core i5 f working with small models that are more detailed as you navigate within.
~Ryzen 7 or Core i7 for detailed large buildings.

~Core i9 or Ryzen 9 for very detailed and complex design inside very large buildings: plumbing system, detailed building structure, electrical structure, etc…

b) Rendering

Rendering is a multi-core task and it isn’t restricted to revit. Any software that has to do rendering will make good use of multiple cores. The more you have the faster .

Now if you’re doing a simple render on a two story house, most modern CPUs will do it in a minute or two. The more details and the more realistic the product looks, the longer it’ll take .

• If you are a student: You’ll be limited to small buildings. Render with high quality will only take 20 min with one of the recent Intel Core i5 or Ryzen 5 CPUs which have about ~6 cores running at 4GHz. Draft quality might take 1 min.  
• If you are a professional, you’ll likely come across bigger AND way more detailed high quality renders. If you don’t want to wait 1-2h, get at least a 6 core CPU though (~600-750 dollar laptops).
  • However, I would consider investing on a Core i7 Ryzen 7 (8 cores running at ~5GHz) or use Cloud rendering if you want much faster high quality renders. Draft quality as usual it’s instantaneous.

GPU

The newest workstation laptops will have an Ada RTX GPU which has much faster CUDA Cores (or shaders) due to both the architecture being different as well as the implementation of AI optimized image processing. However, since Revit’s rendering is CPU-based , they are no more useful than other ‘gaming’ GPUs with the same amount of vRAM. 

However, if you’re running 3DS Max (which is pretty common among Revit users) or GPU-based renderers, they can DEFINITELY speed up the rendering processing massively. 

3. RAM

256GB vs 512GB vs 1TB (SSD Space)

SSDs are universal on recent laptops. You aren’t likely to find an HDD so getting an SSD isn’t the problem, the problem at least for 3D modeling software is space:

256GB: The most common space found on laptops and desktops. You can install Windows, Revit and still have about 100GB left (Windows ~50GB + Revit 40GB) , the problem is you never have just revit you’ll also be adding PhotoShop, Navisworks and probably AutoCAD + other software. If you are a student, you are likely to be okay with this much there will be no need for upgrades.

512GB: This is the minimum for someone who’s already working as an engineer. Revit Files can take up to 700MB each . You don’t have to buy a laptop with 512GB (most will charge you way more money for 512GB) , what you can do is buy a separate SSD (~40 bucks) and do the upgrade yourself. I have a tutorial on how to do the SSD Upgrade  here.

Display

It isn’t a concern for laptops because there isn’t much variety of displays on laptops, most saves for those laptops that cost 2000 dollars, will have the same specs: same resolution, type of display (matte vs glossy), etc.

Matte Display

I would personally try to find a laptop with a matte display if you have sensitive eyes because they’ll be easier for your eyes as the amount of glares is massively reduced.

IPS vs TN

Most laptops have IPS displays and they’re ideal for the best color accuracy. Most Revit users will see zero difference between these two types of displays though. It’s only going to be a concern for photographers and Photoshop users or anyone who has to ‘print’ work.

Resolution

The only real thing you have some control over is the resolution. More resolution means more screen space. More screen space means larger canvas and quicker access to interface bars with tools/functions as they’ll be right next to your canvas.

Most laptops have 1080p, FHD (Full HD) resolutions and that’s totally fine for Revit. You would be better off with 2k or 4k displays but the problem is that theyre only found on laptops above 1500 dollars . If you do have that much money, then make sure you choose a UHD (not QHD) display. UHD = 4k resolution.

Comments

If you know you are going to work on very large projects on Revit with a low budget. Not all hope is lost, you can also eliminate any lag by optimizing  file management. Use worksets, linked files, and a clean family library and you may not even need to find a new laptop or computer. Revit isn’t as hardware demanding as people would like you to believe (at least for more users). 

If you have any questions or comments please leave a comment below.