Good afternoon all.
Long time reader, first time submitter... I'll cut right to the chase.
I have came up with a few observations prior to purchasing a laptop.
1. RAM - 4GB is suitable for most needs, you can also upgrade RAM over time.
2. Processor - Dual core will run solidworks adequately (anything greater is a waste), however search for the fastest processor you can afford.
3. Video card - stay away from ATI if possible, open GL is the best bet.
4. Don't buy a mac! I think the analogy was; Why buy a petite sports car if you are looking for a vehicle to do work in.
5. Use your CAD workstation only for CAD and office programs, leave all other operations for 2nd laptop/workstation. (internet, downloads etc.)
6. Defrag once per week, clean registry often
7. Best if you can run SW w/o realtime anti-virus
I am looking for advice/opinions from anyone that has a successful setup for a dedicated CAD laptop.
Recommendations fellow SWers?
Thanks in advance,
Brad R.
Long time reader, first time submitter... I'll cut right to the chase.
I have came up with a few observations prior to purchasing a laptop.
1. RAM - 4GB is suitable for most needs, you can also upgrade RAM over time.
2. Processor - Dual core will run solidworks adequately (anything greater is a waste), however search for the fastest processor you can afford.
3. Video card - stay away from ATI if possible, open GL is the best bet.
4. Don't buy a mac! I think the analogy was; Why buy a petite sports car if you are looking for a vehicle to do work in.
5. Use your CAD workstation only for CAD and office programs, leave all other operations for 2nd laptop/workstation. (internet, downloads etc.)
6. Defrag once per week, clean registry often
7. Best if you can run SW w/o realtime anti-virus
I am looking for advice/opinions from anyone that has a successful setup for a dedicated CAD laptop.
Recommendations fellow SWers?
Thanks in advance,
Brad R.
Thats the gist of it.. but a couple of things I would add..
you said.. 1. RAM - 4GB is suitable for most needs, you can also upgrade RAM over time.
You can only upgrade to more RAM if your running a 64bit operating system.. 32bit has a 4gb limit, 64bit has 8gb, so if your going to be building a new system, my opinion is you might as well go with vista 64bit with 8gb of RAM.. RAM is cheap enough today that its not going to add that much to your setup. Only thing I've never looked at was a mobile setup with 8gb of ram.. so that might be the killer there..
also, on the : 3. Video card - stay away from ATI if possible, open GL is the best bet.
The consensus of the forums are that the NVidia Quadro FX cards are the best bet.. atm I'm using an ATI firegl card, and it works OK, but I think I would have been better off with a quadro.. So yea, openGL is the best bet, but you want to make sure its a Workstation card, and not a Gamers card. You can tell the difference pretty quickly by the price
More Info...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit
Thanks,
General concensus is Windows XP x32 for an x32 bit workstation and Vista x64 for an x64 bit workstation.
Cheers,
Thank,
Jonathan
Also if this is truly a dedicated CAD machine that you won't be installing/uninstalling many programs, you should not need to do registry cleanups. Defrags are always good though.
I spoke with a Dell representative and listened to all of his propaganda for a half hour or so. (Actually was fairly helpful through our online chat discussion) He was pushing the M6300 which has the 17" screen. His reasoning behind the 17" over the 15.4" was the former had a superior graphics card. The 64 bit OS you can upgrade the RAM. (as Kevin also explained) Seems to me that I would purchase only 1 GB of RAM from Dell and upgrade to 8GB after the fact to save a bit of money - Has anyone done this upgrade?
Also if you configure a system online with Dell they will email you a discount coupon in the week following (from my experience anyways)
Again thank you everyone for your replies, greatly appreciated.
Brad R
Dell Precision M6300, Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 64 bit
2.50 GHz 800MHz
4.0GB DDR2-667 SDRAM 2 DIMM
NVIDIA QUADRO FX1600M 512 MB TurboCache (256 dedicated)
80GB Hard Drive
Thanks everyone for your help!
Brad R
I know this class of notebook, with its Atom processor is not a good choice for SW. But, I am really buying this for my normal home use, and am considering if it is even worth it to spend the extra money to get a netbook that has more video power than what I would need just for web browsing. I also like that they are small, with their 9 or 10" screen, and weigh much less than your standard SW workstation laptop. Here is what I am looking at; Note the Nvidia GeForce 9300M GS video. I would be running windows XP on it.
Asus N10J $770
1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 / 2GB DDR2 SDRAM / 320GB Hard Drive
10.2in 1024 x 600 Display / Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS
1.4"h x 10.8"w x 7.6"d , 3.5 Lbs
Windows Vista Business, Win XP Pro
Any comments on this or any other small ultralight laptop?
Joe Dunfee