17 replies to this topic

[Cyberdemon]

Sneblot, on Aug 25 2010, 09:19 AM, said:

Hi I was wondering if anyone could help me out with my choice of laptop? I am about to at Nottingham Trent on their Product Design course and I was wondering what type of specs I should be looking out for when it comes to a mobile workstation capable of running solidworks at its best (for a laptop that is). Also which manufacturers should I be looking at for best build quality/durability at a decent price?

Thanks for any help given to me on this.

Sneblot

"Best" is super subjective. It really depends on your needs and your budget.

If you have the budget - any of the Dell Precision or HP Workstations will offer good performance for a mobile workstation.

With that said, as a student you will not be pushing so much data that you necessarily need a workstation. Picking up a good consumer laptop with a fast CPU, fast dedicated consumer (Geforce) video card, and 4-6 gigs of ram should be plenty. Solidworks tends to play pretty well with consumer video cards from what I've seen. You may sacrifice a little on the stability side of things, but most people running workstations need it for very complex assemblies with hundreds of parts, and as a student the chances of you building anything complex are slim to none.

If it were up to me, these days I would spend less on the laptop and put the extra cash towards other design computing necessities like a Wacom Tablet, big display, or large format printer. Those will make a much bigger difference in your design education than a Quadro card or 12 gigs of ram will.

[Cyberdemon]

sambucus, on Aug 26 2010, 03:47 AM, said:

Since I had to find a laptop recently as well, I think I have a good overview of the products on the market these days. [I bought a Mac..]

The new Intel processors (i3, i5, i7) cost quite much these days, that's why I would rather concentrate on good graphics and RAM, where better stuff is cheap and helps with 3D CAD performance.
What I found had best value for money (on Windows) was LG P510 and Toshiba Satellite. These cost about 900$+

Tablet Laptops are not practical for 3D.

The graphics card plays very little in most CAD applications. It helps with realtime rendering and shading, but the processor is the biggest bottleneck for any calculations, renderings, etc.

[Cyberdemon]

szuhair, on Sep 10 2010, 09:53 PM, said:

well i find myself in a similar situation. need to buy a laptop that can keep up with me for atleast a couple of years. currently am limiting myself to dell,sony and toshiba. heard too many HP horror stories so avoiding that.

please mod or anyone who really knows .. can you tell me which configration to go for.. considering that im a 3D newbie but am learning and do photoshop/illustrator for a living this will be my only machine for the next few years so please honest opinion matters..

#1
corei3 processor
4 gb of ram
intel HD (integrated) graphics

#2
corei3 processor
2gb of ram
Nvidia Geforce GT310/330M or ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 (dedicated graphics, both having 128bit and 1GB)

#3
corei5
2gb ram
Intel HD Graphics


please do consider that i only have 500£ or 800$ (roughly) and any dime/penny i save will/can be used into buying stuff like a wacom maybe somewhere down the line...oh and it is really true that laptops with dedicated gfx heating up badly? what would be a safe choice?

Without a doubt choice #2. You NEED a dedicated graphics card (out of those two choices, go with the Nvidia solution, their drivers work much better than ATI's consumer level drivers). Ram you can upgrade super cheap, you can get 4 gigs of ram down the road and install it yourself, it will be much cheaper than buying it straight from Dell or whoever else.

If you have the option, the Core I5 would be a good bump even if it costs a little more. It may be worth considering financing options if they are available. I don't recommend debt as a first choice, but I also don't recommend trying to get by 4 years on a computer thats too slow.

[Ronnie_Space]

The company I work for have used this company in the past - They specialise in CAD workstations for the design industry. Just viewing the laptops will give a good idea of specs and they will be able to help you with advice if you call them

http://www.cad2.com/...ro-laptop.html

May be worth looking here if you require any software:

http://www.software4students.co.uk

Ronnie

[Sneblot]

Thanks for all the advice, it turns out I will be getting a toshiba, I can not remember the cpu, but it has 4Gb of ram, and I'm going to upgrade the hdd to a solid state drive as well as probley the ram to some corsair.