The computer 2020 rendering wants — and the one you actually need.

Photoreal rendering is a GPU workload. The realistic engines in Design Flex — and especially the path-traced option in recent versions — lean on the graphics card hard, and the difference between an integrated GPU and a serious one is the difference between an overnight render and a coffee-length one. That is why every hardware thread in every 2020 forum converges on the same advice: buy the biggest GPU you can justify. (For Cyncly’s current per-version figures, check their system-recommendations page — they move with each release.)

• Money. A render-capable workstation or laptop is a four-figure purchase per designer, again every few years as engines get hungrier.
• Time. The render occupies the machine you design on. One computer, one image at a time; a five-view presentation is five waits in a row.
• The odd one out. Mac-based designers know this wall best: 2020 Design is Windows software, and the workarounds all end at the same GPU question.

The spec stops mattering when the rendering doesn’t happen on your computer. RenderFactor renders 2020 projects on cloud GPUs — an NVIDIA L4 per camera, every camera at once — so the machine under your desk only ever runs the easy job. No graphics card, no plugin, nothing to install: you export the project the way Flex already exports, drag the folder into a browser, and the pictures come back in seconds to minutes at up to 1920 × 1080 with a 16-bit master and a scene-linear EXR beside each one.

The arithmetic is the point. Spread a render-capable workstation over its few years of useful life and it costs about what a seat here costs — and it still renders one image at a time, on the machine you need for the next design. The wider picture is on the 2020 Design rendering guide; what the renders themselves control is on cameras, lighting and materials.