Hidden Beast in Your CAD Workstation

Our clients are mostly landscape architects and irrigation designers, but many are also gamers. High-end CAD workstations usually have a pretty beefy GPU in them because CAD, Civil 3D, Revit, etc. all require a Direct X 12 compatible GPU with at least 4GB, and usually more, of video memory (VRAM). This is exactly what gamers go for when picking a graphics card – especially more VRAM – which is why we suggest looking for a "gaming" computer when making computer suggestions.

Some CPUs feature "onboard graphics" where the GPU is integrated, Unfortunately, these integrated GPUs share the regular system memory as their VRAM and operate much more slowly than a dedicated graphics card, so they aren’t recommended, even though they do work, as they support the full DirectX 12 specification. I should also note that integrated graphics has come a long way in the past decade. Previously the last resort, incapable of the simplest 3D functions, they’re now much more robust. In the case of AMD, their integrated graphics are full-blown Radeon GPUs, except they’re cut down a bit and still share system memory as VRAM. So although integrated graphics is still somewhat of a last resort, it’s at least very capable. IFor example, Intel's and AMD's integrated graphics chipsets are supported in the latest version of AutoCAD, as shown in the official Autodesk Certified Graphics Hardware chart.

I’d like to point out that a dedicated GPU is not absolutely necessary in running CAD or Land F/X. As long as your graphics chipset is Direct X 12 compliant, you can run it without any errors. It may be quite sluggish when you’re just panning and zooming, but it will work in Hardware Accelerated mode. You can even run in software mode if you have an ancient, or very underpowered, graphics chipset. But you can only get that buttery smooth, high-fidelity, look from a good dedicated GPU.

The amount of VRAM on graphics cards isn't very telling of their performance, but it’s an easy way to categorize them. When picking a GPU these days, the bare minimum you want is 8GB of VRAM. This is actually a little overpowered for average CAD work, but cards with less than that will have a lot less horsepower overall. A really good spot is 12 to 16GB of VRAM. These cards are going to be mid-tier, providing great CAD performance and gaming on the side (in case that’s something you do). Anything above 16GB of VRAM will get you into the top tier, but cards of this range can cost more than $2,000 and are seriously overpowered for CAD work.

3D design applications like Revit, Sketchup, and Rhino will also benefit greatly from a good GPU – even more so than CAD. Designers who do much, most, or all their work in 3D commonly have Pro GPUs in their computers. NVIDIA and AMD both offer Pro lines of their respective graphics cards (previously Quadro for NVIDIA.) These cards will have a more robust compatibility, capability, and often more VRAM than their regular counterparts. They’ll also carry a massive price tag, and are rarely worth it over their less-expensive counterparts.

A dedicated GPU can also provide a good number of outputs, or monitors you can connect to it. A modern GPU can output to 3 or 4 monitors, depending on the card and manufacturer. Onboard graphics might allow for two outputs. Each output should be able to support up to 4K resolution or more, depending on the connection type and refresh rate. It’s standard for designers to have two or more screens – and sometimes many more.

The main suppliers of commonly used GPUs are NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. For powerful GPUs, it's mainly been NVIDIA and AMD for many years, but Intel has recently come out with their Arc line of dedicated graphics cards. These are evolving into pretty decent cards, so they’re worth a look. For driver and compatibility maturity, however, NVIDIA and AMD are the best choices. Keep in mind that we’ve seen some recent issues with some NVIDIA graphics drivers lately.

On that note, it's good to mention that you should always stay up to date with your GPU drivers. Updating at least every six months, if not more often, is a good idea. With the NVIDIA or AMD app installed, it's as easy to update the drivers installed in just a couple of clicks. If you’re suffering from a specific bug, you can also keep an eye on their driver changelog before updating to see if any bugs have been addressed.

• NVIDIA drivers
• Intel drivers

Sadly, graphics cards have become extremely expensive since COVID hit. Due to tariffs and shortages, memory and SSD hard drive prices are seeing the same issue. In short, high-end graphics cards have never been more expensive. Ebay is the only venue, it seems, where you may luck out and get something for a good price. Facebook Marketplace can be another good source, but either way, buying used seems to be the only way to go unless you have deep pockets.

If your computer is aging and needs replacement, but it has a really powerful graphics card, you may want to just buy the other components and then just carry over the card into the new system. It may not be worth it to have to invest another $1,500 just for a graphics card if you already have a really great one. A good example would be the NVIDIA RTX 3090, which is a 24GB graphics card with a lot of horsepower. But it’s also over five years old. That’s about the age where you want to start looking at replacing a system, but you definitely do not want to throw out that video card. Alone, that card can sell for about $900 on eBay as of this writing. There are many graphics cards exactly like this, and they will carry over and keep working away fine in modern systems.

This brings me to the next logical step: researching graphics cards. At this time, there are some really great independent resources for benchmarking and testing feature sets to determine whether a graphics card is worth your money. Currently, the best resource out there is YouTube. Specifically, the channels Gamers Nexus, Hardware Canucks, Hardware Unboxed, JaysTwoCents, and many more, are rife with information, benchmarks, and some of the down-and-dirty details you didn't even know you needed, such as whether some third party card manufacturer has a major fault in their cards.

If you’re in the market for a new graphics card, I’d definitely recommend going with AMD Radeon or Intel Arc graphics. The prices are so much better and performance is right up there with NVIDIA. However, if you use your graphics card for local AI inference or training, you kind of have to go with NVIDIA at the moment, as nearly everything that runs locally does so through CUDA, which is currently proprietary to NVIDIA. If you’re just a CAD user and don't game or run AI locally, then definitely give Intel Arc a shot.

• RTX
• Radeon
• Intel Arc

One more consideration is that even if you have all the money in the world, computing power isn't everything. You should also consider heat generation, and power consumption. There’s absolutely no need for a 32GB monster card for just CAD work. Consider the case you’re using: Does it have the massive amount of space this card requires? In fact, small form factor (SFF) computers have made a major comeback. Cramming as much power as you can into a tiny case while still giving it the airflow needed to keep cool is pretty big right now.

If you’re a gamer, or if you’ve just realized from this post that you have a good GPU and want to start, I also wanted to throw in some quick mentions of some great games some of us here are playing:

• Wreckfest 2
• Pathogenic
• ARC Raiders
• Underdogs
• Monster Hunter
• Mars First Logistics
• Dorfromantik
• Little Nightmares (There’s also a Part 2 and 3 I recommend checking out.)

So if you’re a designer by day but rock an unspeakable gamertag by night, I hope this gave you some good direction on your moves ahead. May your GPU live 100 years and never drop a frame.

Happy GPU hunting out there!