good CAD computer?
im 18 in a couple of months and i want a laptop to use for university. the one i use now is good but it is a family laptop and it has a serious problem with overheating. basically i just want some help on what makes a good laptop to use for CAD and some examples would be helpful. my maximum spend limit is probably £1000. thankyou in advance :)
6 Answers
I think you should look at ''game computers'' beacause of it's good graphic card and processor...
For 'real view' graphics in SolidWorks, you need an OpenGL graphics card (gaming graphics speak a different language). I don't think you'll find one in a sub £1000 laptop (you won't even find them in most hi-end laptops either). Basic graphics are perfectly adequate and rendering uses the processor not the graphics card anyway. CAD is processor hungry so a fast processor and a big screen are the things to be most concerned with.
As a minimun, TOSHIBA Satellite C870-11G 17.3" from Currys/PC World at £429.99
For a laptop, i'd probably look at something like a second user Dell Precision M4500.
I5 CPU, 8GB Ram and 1 GB NVIDIA QUADRO FX880M Graphics for <£500
Do not buy the "latest" model of any brand- buy the close-out model. A dual core processor is adequate, especially for the sort of things you are likely to encounter at University. Most entry-level CAD packages do not do multi-core processing very well- although multicores can help mitigate the heating problem. Avoid Dell- they have reliability issues- Lenovo, Toshiba, ASUS are better values. As noted, avoid machines targeted for gamers- they use a completely different rendering engine that does not play well with CAD. You want the biggest display you can carry/afford- perhaps set aside a bit of your budget for an even larger external monitor. And memory- buy as much memory as you can afford. Sufficient memory is the greatest performance factor for CAD.
thanks for your help guys, i should hopefully find one in the next month or so and ill take all of these answers into account
thankyou for all of your help guys. i bought my laptop yesterday its a toshiba satellite p850, intel i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, Nvidia 630 graphics card. only £699 down from £999
