New CPU for Architecture Software

[eastwoodv1]

I use a program called Chief Architect when I am designing houses to build. When i go to 3D view or do the Ray Tracing option my CPU bogs down and it goes really slow. What are good CPU's for 3D design and ray tracing? Should i update to a different graphics card as well? Any information would be great. Thank you
My current processor is a i7 6600k with a
Graphics Card -MSI GTX 1060 6GB.
16 GB RAM

 

[Darkbreeze]

First of all, you want a workstation card, not a gaming card, for running high end 3D or CAD applications. Even then, many CAD applications like to see a specific card being used, so if you want optimal performance the best thing to do is go the software's product page and see which workstation graphics cards THEY recommend or require for optimal use with their software.

Granted, workstation cards are expensive, but it is what it is. Also, the new Nvidia cards that are about to be released are supposed to natively support ray tracing, at the hardware level, rather than having to rely on the CPU to do it at the software level. This might be a better option if you can wait a bit, as the 2000 series Nvidia gaming cards will likely support much, if not most, of what current workstation cards can do. Maybe even better, hard to say yet since they haven't been released. They'll also likely be a lot cheaper than even a low end workstation card of any reasonable capability.

Also, I'd download and install HWinfo and take a look at how much system memory is actually being used when you view 3D or ray tracing processes. You can also use Windows resource monitor to do this, but HWinfo is probably a bit more accurate for this purpose. You may need to bump up to 32GB.

Chief architect is well known for performing much better when you have more cores and is highly optimized for multithreading. If you decide to upgrade the system I would, at least for now until we see what the 9th gen Intel CPUs bring to the table in terms of cores and performance, that you maybe look at an AMD Ryzen CPU like the 2700x with 8 cores and 16 threads.