Students are required to have their own personal computer upon entering the second year studio course. Required hardware configuration 2012‐13 (minimum requirements in parenthesis):
Processor
- 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 Quad Core Processor (2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 Quad Core Processor )
***PLEASE NOTE*** Not all Core i7 Processors are Quad Core, look for quad core or QM in the processor model description
RAM
- 8 GB RAM (6.0 GB RAM)
Hard Drive
- 1Tb Hard Drive (500 GB)
Display
- 15.6” High Definition LED Display
Video Adaptor
- 2GB Dedicated video card NVIDIA Quadro or ATI Radeon HD brands (1GB Dedicated video card NVIDIA or ATI brands)
Network
- 802.11N wireless internet adapter
- Ethernet 10/100/1000
CD/DVD
- 8X CD/DVD Dual Layer Burner
External Storage Media
- 4GB USB Thumb drive (2GB)
- 1TB External USB Hard Drive
OS
- Windows 7 64bit Edition (64bit necessary to utilize 4gb+ of RAM)
Service
- 2 to 3 year Basic Service Plan
Required Software:
- Adobe Creative Suite 5 (Design Premium) ‐ ~$370 through campus licensing CDW (see tigerware)
- Rhinoceros ‐ $195
- Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus (free through tigerware)
- Autodesk AutoCAD (free through Autodesk Student Community website
- Google Sketch Up 8 (free through Google)
Additional Autodesk Software (3dsMAX, Maya, etc.) is available for free through Autodesk Student Community website.
*PLEASE NOTE: Apple brand laptops and workstations are not recommended for course work in the School of Architecture. Autodesk Programs are Windows only programs, as is Rhinoceros. Running these programs would require additional software and technical knowhow and will not utilize the full performance of your computer’s hardware. While there are programs that allow Apple computers to run Windows operating systems, these programs do not offer the best performance when running the required architectural applications.
