Computer Recommendations

Computer Recommendations for 2024-25 school year
Computers are dramatically affecting the way designers see and think about design. To address these issues studio courses will address how technology impacts the design process.
The required design related software places very large demands on the hardware. Design illustrations can take time to completely render on the best computers. As students' progress through the program their resulting design illustrations become more complex and place further strains on aging hardware. Thus, the minimum requirements are based on recommendations of the most computer intensive software and looking to the future when students will be required to do more complex presentations when their computers are 3 years old.  The studio are equipped with desktop machines that easily run all needed software and are avaliable to INTD students 24/7.

Waiting until your sohomore year to purchase a laptop is highly recommended so that the hardware is as new as possble.

Mac and Windows syatems are acceptable.  Buy as much as you can afford.  Trying to save tons of money now will only require you to purchase another laptop later.

MINIMUM System Recommendations

Mac users MUST buy a MacBook Pro (MacBook Air will not work) AND purchase Parallels to be able to run REVIT on Window operating system.  Purchase Parallels hereat an educational discount and then download the lastest Windows operating system from the same site.

14" screen min

CPU:
Intel: i9 series or better processor*
Macbook Pro: M3 Pro or better*

GPU:
PC's = Descrete separate video card (not buidlt into CPU)
MacBook Pro = GPU in M3 is fine

RAM:
PC's = 64 GB*** 
Macbook Pro = 32 Gb***

1 TB SSD hard drive**

3-button mouse
3 yr extended warranty highly recommended

* 2.2 GHz. Minimum: Upgrade to best processor with the highest clock speed as you can afford

** Upgrade to largest hard drive as you can afford

*** buy as much as you can afford

 

Typical software:
CAD software
 AutoCAD & REVIT – free download to students.  IT MUST MATCH VERSION FOUND IN STUDIOS. 

SketchUp Pro Version for students

Podium V2 - make sure you buy the highest version

Word processing*
ETSU Microsoft Office free download* the only file types accepted for grading are doc/docx or pdf. You must learn to convert to those files types if you select one of the non-preferred packages

ETSU Adobe Creative Suite Creative Cloud Student Version - monthly subscription

Misc
Cloud storage: backup purposes comes with Onedrive cloud storage from ETSU.

Appropriate backpack or sleeve

Estimated approximate total cost: $2500 plus tax - all computer prices are estimated and vary greatly from place to place and time to time