Like I said, if you’re going top end then AutoCAD now works great with both Intel and AMD. If you are on a bit more of a budget then stick with Intel - Their 12th Gen Core CPUs really hit the sweet spot for performance/price. 

The assumption is often made that the more expensive the processor the better it will perform, but this is very dependent on the apps you are going to be using. Xeon chips are not a great option for AutoCAD, the extra features they bring to the table, like EEC memory support, large cache and enterprise-level reliability don’t benefit AutoCAD performance and come at a large financial premium. Stick with Intel’s Core series chips or AMD’s Ryzen chips for the best performance in AutoCAD. Threadripper however is technically an option if you are also going to be using the system for heavy rendering, but I’ve not seen many users multitask in this way.

2D design work doesn’t ask much from your graphics card. In professional environments, we do recommend using professional-grade graphics cards to guarantee a stable and reliable platform. Autodesk certifies the NVIDIA Quadro range of graphics cards to maximise system compatibility and reliability. Quadro’s drivers are also highly optimised to run Autodesk products, ensuring the very best performance possible for end-users.

Remember I said there would be a special shout-out for students and start-ups? Well your GPU is it, when on a budget, opt for a GeForce GPU. Yes, they are not certified by Autodesk, and yes they are designed for gaming…but you won’t be paying for Autodesk support and the money you save on your GPU can be better spent elsewhere in your system or even in your education or business. In using a GeForce GPU ensure you download the Studio drivers as these drivers are more optimised for workstation work.

Yeah, it will run, but it will be slow and even a basic GPU will give you twice the performance in GPU-accelerated tasks. There is also the question of video memory, but I’ll answer that next!

We recommend a low to mid-range NVIDIA Quadro graphics card with at least 2GB VRAM for 2D workflows. If you plan on working on 3D models or use another 3D design application such as Autodesk Inventor, we would recommend a 8GB+ NVIDIA Quadro graphics card, like the RTX A4000. It’s also worth keeping in mind that a reasonable Graphics card, say 6GB+ will also give headroom for 4K and above screens as well as multi-monitor setups.

While the exact amount of RAM you need is going to depend on the size and complexity of the models you work with, we generally recommend a minimum of 16GB for all our systems. AutoCAD, including light rendering, is actually fairly light on RAM requirements. Autodesk only recommends 8GB of RAM. However, given the relatively low cost of RAM - and the fact that most users tend to have more than just AutoCAD running on their system (think Chrome, Office 365, Cloud Backup, Internet Security…you get the idea) - we feel that 16GB is a better starting point. If you will be working with very large, complex models or having a large number of files open at the same time, however, you may consider upgrading to 32GB or more.

OK, you have basically two options, a mechanical hard drive or some type of solid-state. Mechanical drives are awesome for long-term storage, they offer vast amounts of space for relatively little money.  SSD and M.2 SSDs, on the other hand, are more expensive, but offer huge performance gains for the money. The faster M.2 NVMe drives in this segment are worth considering as they will help with system boot and application load time - I did a whole video on these which I will link below. Once in AutoCAD NVMe drives not going to make a noticeable difference in performance. My recommended minimum for AutoCAD is to have at least one good-sized SSD.

For everyday use, a single drive will do you just fine, but if you want a pro-level setup then you would be best to think about having up to three drives...oh yes, getting the best performance means a little more than your normal setup.

Your first drive will be for Windows, AutoCAD itself and any other applications you use, like Inventor, Microsoft Office etc. An SSD or M.2 NVMe if your budget allows is what you want here. 

Second, you want a working drive for your active projects, models and other live files.. Mechanical drives are OK for this, but again if your budget allows SSD or NVMe will ensure a slick workflow.

Finally, if you are looking for the ultimate setup you can add a third drive, this could be an SSD or mechanical drive for long-term backups. In most larger or more mature work environments, network storage will be replacing this third drive, allowing you to backup your data away from your PC.