How to configure your workstation for Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D 2024

The CAD software AutoCAD Civil 3D was developed by AUTODESK for civil engineers, urban planners and landscape planners involved in infrastructure development. With AutoCAD Civil 3D, surveyors for civil engineering are able to display height information of objects in 3D. AutoCAD Civil 3D supports the Building Information Modeling (BIM) way of working with integrated features to improve design, construction, and construction documentation. Do you want to handle larger and very complex projects more easily and quickly with appealing geometry? We configure the optimal business workstation for your individual AutoCAD Civil 3D applications and offer you the possibility to test the system with a trial license for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2022 via remote access. Contact us and arrange a free remote test. Following our hardware expertise for Autodesk Civil 3D 2024.

Which CPU is right for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2024?

Intel Xeon processors have been in powerful workstation standard for years. Intel Xeon CPUs are preferably used in combination with ECC memory for high-precision calculations. AutoCAD Civil 3D feels particularly comfortable with high-frequency Single Xeon CPUs with 4- or six-core processors and a high clock rate. Another advantage of Intel Xeon processors is the use of stable ECC (Error Correcting Code) RAM. Alternatively, we recommend a business workstation with Intel i7-7800 with 8 cores and up to 4.00 GHz for high-performance projects and an Intel i9-10900X with 10 cores and 4.50 GHz in Turbo Boost for more complex tasks. AMD has had more than one real alternative to Intel processors on the market for some time with its Ryzen Threadripper series. Currently, only a few business workstations with AMD processors are available.

Maximum memory for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2024

To achieve optimal performance in AutoCAD Civil 3D, memory plays an important role. Use ECC modules with automatic error correction. Standard are at least 16 GB RAM. In perspective, we recommend the use of 32 GB RAM with the same memory bank allocation. Pay attention to the use of high-quality brand memory and use the Quad Channel mode with a symmetrical assembly of the modules. The Quad Channel mode offers you the best performance. The prerequisites for Quad Channel Mode are the distribution of the RAM modules in each of the memory channels to four identical RAM modules, the identical capacity of the modules (4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB or 32 GB modules), the identical DRAM technology of the RAM and the identical DRAM bus width of the DDRRAM modules used. For more demanding tasks, we recommend 64 GB DDR4 RAM.

Optimal 3D graphic card for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2024

To be able to work optimally with two and more displays, we recommend using an NVIDIA Quadro RTX A2000 with 6 GB GDDR6 memory, Open GL 4.68 and DirectX 12 as a starter. When selecting your graphics card, make sure that the graphics chip and graphics memory have a high clock frequency. For larger rendering tasks, graphics cards such as an NVIDIA Quadro RTX A4000 with 6144 CudaCores, an NVIDIA RTX A5000 with 24 GB GDDR6 VRAM are the optimal choice. As an alternative to NVIDIA, we can recommend the following graphics cards from AMD: AMD Radeon Pro W6600 with 8 GB GDDR6 and for more demanding tasks an AMD Radeon Pro WX6800 with 32 GB VRAM with ECC support and 1.11 TFlops maximum speed at double precision (FP64). If you intend to use other CAD programs, make sure that the selected graphics card is certified for them.

Speed advantage hard disk for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2024

From our experience we can recommend SSD hard disks without reservation. Use a solid state hard disk with 250-500 GB for your operating system and CAD software. You can store your data on the server or a NAS system. A significantly faster data access can be achieved via the PCIe / NWMe interface with M.2 SSD hard disks.

The perfect screen for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2024

Two 24 inch displays are standard for CAD applications. We recommend the HP Z24n with the optimal resolution for AutoCAD Civil 3D of 1920 x 1080 or 1920 x 1200 pixels. 4K displays with a resolution of 3940 x 2160 pixels are supported from AutoCAD 2017.1, but still deliver unsatisfactory results in many areas.