[Closed] Laptop for CAD users

I got an Acer 17" with a dual core processor for £600 notes which works fine for me. I can also run Inventor as well which works well on the 64bit platform.

I'd be looking for a decent quality screen, plenty of RAM and a dedicated graphics chipset, and the highest spec within your budget.

There is stuff out there, I was looking for similar recently (although more for video editing and 2d graphics/phot editing) with a similar budget to you, ended up blowing my budget - went up to £850 - but got a discounted Sony Viao f-series with a i5 processor, 6 gig of RAM, 1 gig graphics card and full HD 16.5" screen.

I had a look at the Sony momo.........seemed impressive to me but budget at present does not cater for it!

It really depends on whic CAD package you intend to use. I use solidworks on a desktop, if you are looking at one of the power hungry 3d systems operating to its limit it will cost you a lot more than £600 for a laptop. For all CAD systems the graphics card is key as is the general pc memory, obviously the more the better. With solidworks their is a list of approved and supported graphics cards which always seem to be much more expensive than the games orientated cards.

It also depends on the complexity of the stuff you are modeling. It is really large assemblies that kill my PC.

If you are just starting out, I would suggest obviously you get the best you can with a dedicated graphics card with 756mb or 1GB of memeory and at least 4GB of system memory. I really wouldn't go smaller than 17".

Hope this helps. If you are doing this as part of university or some sort of course, I would hold fire until it becomes clear what exactly is needed.

Cheers Bigsurfer. Its for working at home. And would only be looking at the latest version 2D CAD package. We also use Revit but as you rightly stated that 3D modelling is power hungry.........

Think you should be fine with your £600 budget if you are only looking at 2D stuff. Still recomend a dedicated graphics card just get the best you can. Have a look on Ebay, I picked up an Acer I5 laptop with a dedicated graphics card and 4GB of ram as an Acer refurb with 12 months warranty for under £500.

bigsurfer +1

I'm on SolidWorks as well - and it entirely depends on what sort of CAD you'll be doing, but if it's 3D and large/complex assemblies then you want to be at least 4Gb, ideally 6+ on a 64bit OS. NVidia Quadro FX graphics cards are very well supported and the 1xxx range is a good starting point for potentially large models.

If you just want to dick about with small assemblies, or single part modelling, a consumer orientated machine will be OK, but the same memory rule applies - as much as you can and 64 bit OS.

For full on stuff, don't expect any change from £1500 and ideally it's the £2k+ stuff you'll be looking at. Again, if it's just playing about with 3D CAD though, a £600 consumer thing will do.

ha, I took far too long to type my reply 🙂

I use Catia V5, and as others here have advised, I'd max the RAM and go for an independant graphics card/chipset, if you can.

Depending on which CAD package you wish to run, you may have ot consider Os compatibility.
I had to role my machine back to XP from running on Vista.
Which suited me.

Vista did my heaad in.

Cheers STW. I might be back again with a few more questions.

Let the search begin.

I just bought a reconditioned Dell M4400 from an [url= http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Discount-Workstationsebay shop.[/url]
4Gb of RAM, 250Gb Hard-drive, 512Mb Nvidia graphics card and 2.53GHz processour. For £460. Came with Vista, but I put XP64 on it to make the most of the RAM.
Runs Inventor and Ansys nay bother.