Laptop that can run CAD?

[Cheezeit]

Well, my dad just talked to me a while ago and said he was looking for a new laptop. His old dell inspiron something now gets the BSOD occasionally and is not very reliable. He's had it for like 3 years so I guess it lived out pretty good.

Now he's looking for a lappy that can run CAD. Basically a good video card can run that. It dosent have to run that program with flying colors or anything, but you get the idea.

something like this:~~Centrino Pentium M processor, 1 gig ram, a good burner drive, nice video card. He did not like the weight of the old laptop, and was looking for something preferablely lighter. Price range is at the most 1500 bucks, but I know you can get alot for that with all the coupons floating around.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to throw out any models. I am thinking about the dell inspiron 6000 now, as it looks about fit for the job with some customization. Would that be good? Or are other brands better?

THanks for any responce I get

 

[Trippytiger]

What's the specific CAD program that he uses? That would really help in determining what notebook would be best

However, it's very likely that the program is dependent on OpenGL, so your best bet would be a laptop with a nVidia GPU. They typically have much better OpenGL support than ATi's consumer cards. My recommendation would be to look at the Asus Z71V. It has a GeForce 6600 video card, which will probably do a fair job. Other than that, it's very similar to the Inspiron 6000, but with better build quality (or so I hear). You should be able to find one for less than $1500.

 

[cheesehead]

Dell is nasty. Avoid it.
The Z71V, as shown above, is a marvellous bit of computer. It's not cheap (1500$ or more for a high-end config), but it's very powerful. JNCS looks to be a good place to get one.
As an added bonus, the Z71V has an upgradeable graphics card.

 

[Cheezeit]

So what exactly is bad with dell? htey seem really good bang for the buck. I mean, with all the 750 off 1500 coupons that come around. Thanks for the suggestions about the ASUS, I will look into that.

So what are some other good brands and models?

Keep em comming

Thanks

 

[fbrdphreak]

NVIDIA still does reign with OpenGL performance, but ATI has made a lot of headway lately.

The real question is does your Dad do 3D CAD modelling. To my knowledge, you can use CAD software and not do any type of 3D rendering. I bet if you ask him what he uses CAD for, it won't be 3D modelling/rendering.

That said, the only "CAD" machines worth any investment are going to cost way more than $1500. He cannot get a 3D CAD modelling workstation for $1500, starting $2K.

Realistically he just needs something with a peppy CPU & 1GB+ RAM.

Dell is okay, but the quality is lacking in some of their Inspiron models IMO. Thinkpads are a great choice and they're running a 13th Anniversary sale right now.

What size screen is he looking for? Portability?

The Asus Z71v is okay, but I've heard there are some minor build quality "blemishes" that detract from its overall quality. Still not a bad machine for the money. http://www.geared2play.com has some decent prices on Z71v's; also they are barebones, so if the seller is charging too much for RAM or HDD, you can add your own.

 

[ND40oz]

You can get a dell precision m20 for less then 1500 with an ATI Firegl 64 meg card. If you can afford a little more, the m70 comes with an nVidia 256 meg Quadro 1400. Both will run cad fine, obviously the m70 will be significantly better for a few hundred bucks more.

 

[trikster2]

First suggestion: Buy a new hard drive reinstall everything w. latest bios/drivers from support.dell.com. Make sure he has at least 1gb of memory. If you have not reinstalled in 3 years should feel like a new system and good chance of fixing the BSODs

M70 is great, typing this on one and it is the best laptop I've owned (much better than my T43) but unless they have another 35% coupon (they have not since I brought it in feb) it's out of your price range (unless something in the refurbs) if you want small/light see if you can find a T42P or R50P for a good price for true certified CAD GPUs in a small package. However if he is running on an Inspiron I can't imagine his app is that picky that it needs a cad chip. Your proposed 6000 should do fine.

> Dell is nasty. Avoid it.

Cheese head giving advice to cheezit. That made me laugh. There's no reason to avoid dell, plenty of happy customers here and elsewhere. Go to an active notebook forum (this is not one) such as notebookforums.com and read what the users have to say yourself. Whatever you do get something with no restocking fee and a 21 (dell) or 30 day (IBM) no questions asked return period and give your dad a chance to decide for himself

 

[kimagurealex]

My girlfriend use AutoCad 2000, 2005 and 2006 everyday at work and at home(side job!) She only use draft 2D and she is using a Celeron 1.3Ghz Acer laptop with nice big screen. For the 2D usage of AutoCad, the CPU and the Harddrive is what matters the most.

Alex

 

[Trippytiger]

Originally posted by: ND40oz
You can get a dell precision m20 for less then 1500 with an ATI Firegl 64 meg card. If you can afford a little more, the m70 comes with an nVidia 256 meg Quadro 1400. Both will run cad fine, obviously the m70 will be significantly better for a few hundred bucks more.

I hadn't even thought of that, but that's an excellent idea.

OP, if your dad does need to do 3D CAD modelling, the m20 would be a superb choice.

 

[cheesehead]

I'm personally a little leery of Dell.
Asus makes good stuff, and as long as you are'nt mapping the empire state building, the 6600 should do the trick.
That said, a 256 mb Quadro is pretty darn impressive.

 

[ShellGuy]

I think we all have gotten that you are a bit leary of Dell Cheese..


Will G.

 

[Steve]

HP nw8000 and nw8240 both have FireGL video chips.

 

[Cheezeit]

THanks a bunch for the replies guys, I greatly appreciate them

I took a look at the dell m20 and m70's but they really are expensive. Does dell have coupons for them like they have those awesome deals for the dell home computers?

Is FireGL the way to go for CAD? I found some nice IBM T43's but they are not exactly graphics savvy as the best they seem to have is an ATI x300 64 meg. Will the x300 be able to run CAD smoothly? I configured a model like this:

- ThinkPad T43
- Pentium M 750 1.86 GHz
- Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
- RAM 1024 MB
- HD 40 GB
- CD-RW / DVD
- Mdm
- LAN EN, Fast EN, Gigabit EN, 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g
- 15" TFT SXGA+ (1400 x 1050)
- ATI mobility x300

That cost about 1400+ How does it look to you guys? Will it fit the job with that ati card?

 

[cheesehead]

From what I've heard, the T42's are better than the T43.
However, I would go with the A71V instead. For about the same price, you could likely get a similar config, but with a far better GPU. JNCS.com sells them at a reasonable price; you'll save some money installing the RAM yourself, though.

 

[Trippytiger]

Cheezeit, you really have to tell us what the CAD program in question is if you want some suitable recommendations. If it's 2D, then pretty much anything will run it; the T43 would be just fine. If it's 3D, then you'll want to get the best video card available in your price range, and in that case, the T43, although a great laptop, isn't really the way to go. The Asus Z71V would still be the better choice.

 

[cheesehead]

I should also mention that Asus has a good reputation for making high-quality motherboards.
Coincidentally, motherboards are usually the first thing to go kaput on a laptop, if only partially, as so many things are integrated into them.
And it's very expensive to replace a motherboard.
(For example, the Dell 600m, a laptop known for heating problems that was sold about nine months ago, has motherboards going for 600$ on Ebay. The laptop itself started at about 1300$.)

 

[Cheezeit]

Originally posted by: Trippytiger
Cheezeit, you really have to tell us what the CAD program in question is if you want some suitable recommendations. If it's 2D, then pretty much anything will run it; the T43 would be just fine. If it's 3D, then you'll want to get the best video card available in your price range, and in that case, the T43, although a great laptop, isn't really the way to go. The Asus Z71V would still be the better choice.

Ah, really sorry forgot to mention it. He uses the Catio software, something like v5 or v6 I don't remember. I don't really know much about CAD, is that 3d software?

 

[Cheezeit]

Originally posted by: Cheesehead
I should also mention that Asus has a good reputation for making high-quality motherboards.
Coincidentally, motherboards are usually the first thing to go kaput on a laptop, if only partially, as so many things are integrated into them.
And it's very expensive to replace a motherboard.
(For example, the Dell 600m, a laptop known for heating problems that was sold about nine months ago, has motherboards going for 600$ on Ebay. The laptop itself started at about 1300$.)

Thanks, I will take a look at the ASUS ones. Looks like they sell barebones too Ill do some research. It dosen't look like asus is that popular (at least for laptops), how good is their support?

Also, you seem to post a bunch in the laptop section, what is your configuration like?

 

[cheesehead]

Asus motherboards are known for decent support. Chances are, that carries over to their laptops, as well.

I currently run a Dell 9100. Honestly, I hate it. I'm looking to sell it and pick up one of the BF laptops, and get a powerful desktop. I've previously owned an iBook, and although I was pretty angry when the motherboard fried, it was otherwise a wonderful laptop. (They actually volunteered to fix that problem for free; however, because I had already replaced the LCD, they refused. And the LCD broke because I dropped it from about six feet. The motherboard problem only really applied to the G3 iBooks; the G4 versions lack this problem.) I also fix computers, including laptops, to make a few extra bucks; I just had someone give up on their D600 because it just had hte motherboard fail after two other parts were replaced, and it was'nt worth repairing. (600$ for a motherboard is crazy, if you ask me.)

For the record, it's rather silly trying to run Autodesk Inventor on anything less than a 9700 and a gig of RAM if you want to do anything serious. And CATIA looks to blow Autodesk Inventor out of the water. (Heck, IBM just partnered up with Dassault to sell it with some of their high-end mainframes.)

I just reccomended these same people the Dell Z33A for a replacement laptop. Although I've had no more than glancing looks at Asus laptops so far, I've yet to hear of a problem with one; their older laptops also have a reputation for quality. I'd buy one myself if I could afford one.

Also, off topic, I don't like Nik either.

EDIT:
I can't find any info on Catio. If you're referring to Dassault's Catia CAD program, it looks like a beast. I've tried to learn Inventor (another CAD program suited to mechanical things, like robots) and it requires one heck of a powerful system. If you're running CATIA V5, you'll likely be wanting something with some serious power.
The system requirements only technically require 1024x768 resolution for the monitor and 512 megabytes of RAM. However, 512mb is likely a miniumum. Considering that the latest edition has been ported to Sun's BLADE server line and HP's FIREGL workstation line, a 6600 and a 1.86 ghz Pentium M might only barely be enough.
http://www.3ds.com/products-solutions/plm-solutions/catia/overview/

A FireGL or a Quadro might be nice; however, I'll warn you, any laptop with one of those is likely to weigh a ton and have abysmal battery life, in addition to being quite expensive.

Edit #2:
After checking about online, ASUS Actually has iffy tech support. As a rule of thumb, they generally have tech support go through the vendor. If you buy your barebones from a place like Newegg, they'll just RMA it and you're set. Also, the documentation's supposed to be good on ASUS products.
If you buy your computer through a good vendor, like JNCS.com, you would go to them for tech support. JNCS has a very good rating, and being able to get a 3-year warranty is always nice.

Yet another Edit:
A good place to get a barebones looks to be Axent Micro. They sell the Z71v in bareones form for 740$.
http://www.axentmicro.com/huzrb/partdetails~af~gle~mp~Z71V.htm
They also have a good review from resellerratings.com, especially in the area of support.
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller7958.html

 

[ND40oz]

Check out the Dell Outlet, they have some M60s on there for 1200-1300. If I go in through my employee page, i can get a M20 from the 1300s and the M70 from the 1600s, does your dad have work for a company that uses dells? If so, he should be able to get to his companies employee page and make a purchase.

 

[Cheezeit]

Yeah, my dad workds for the Toyota headquarters in LA. His company has contracts with both IBM and Dell, so that seems good. What do you mean about getting the discount though? Employee page? Please help me


Oh, and Cheesehead, you are correct about catia. THats the one. They certify the t43p, but that is really expensive unless I can somehow figure out about the employee discount thing.

I am probably going to have to choose a special opengl card since catia is so demanding... but the lappys that have them are expensive.

 

[cheesehead]

A 6600 should run Catia under WXGA resolution, which is enough for a 15.4" screen like the one on the Z71V. A 2Ghz Pentium-M and 2GB of dual-channel DDR533 is about as fast as a laptop gets.
I seem to recall a variant of the T42 or T41 availible with a FireGL of some type. I'd really reccomend IBM over Dell, any day.

Also, if you ask me, Toyota makes good cars. If you would'nt mind, could you ask your dad if they will be using the new Lithium-Iron-Phosphate batttery chemistry that was just introduced to improve efficiency in their hybrid vehicles?

EDIT:
It looks to me as if Catia is actually more processor-intensive than video-intensive. From what I've just read, it actually runs okay on Intel Extreme based laptops. However, a beefy processor is likely useful if you're rendering things.

 

[Steve]

If CPU power is needed, check out the HP nx9600.

 

[ND40oz]

If you want to use Dells employee purchase plan, you'll need to set up a premier account. Toyota should have an access code and key that they'll need to give your dad and he can create a profile on this page.

 

[trikster2]

> I took a look at the dell m20 and m70's but they really are expensive. Does dell have coupons for them like they have those awesome deals for the dell home computers?


Yes. But it's more like once a year than once a week. I got something like 30 or 35% off my M70 and a free docking station back in feb of 05. I have not seen anything similar since then. Especially good since the M70 was a brand new laptop.

Dell small business has a catalog and a mailing list you can get on that they will (once in a blue moon) send you "one time use" coupons. If you do not need to buy this second, it's worth getting on the mailing list.

regarding battery life weight: My quatro based M70 gets about the same battery life as my wife's T43 with the standard battery (about 2 hours). Weight of my quatro based M70 is the same as my non-quatro based D800 (maybe less). I think dell rates the laptop as 6.9lbs but that's without an optical drive. Think of it as a 7.5 pound laptop. Not light but not a ton either.

I would think the M70 is due for a refresh, something based on the new Nvidia GPUs. But maybe they are waiting for the dual core CPUs.... that would rock...