Laptop for CAD - does it need powerful graphics?

rocky

Basically looking at 15.6" laptops that will mainly be used for Archicad/Sketchup. Do these programs benefit from good graphics?

Seems like good value for the Gigabyte P25W V2-CF1 with Nvidia Geforce 870, SSD, i7 on Amazon.

For some reason I'm only looking at intel i7 (no AMDs - are they any good these days?) and Nvidia (no idea about ATI, were they bought by AMD a few years ago - any good cards?); also prefer SSDs (it would probably be cheaper to get a HDD laptop then replace with SSD myself, but) are there laptops designed for SSDs that have advantages in size, power consumption etc?

Any recommendations? Would pay 1500 euro for a Nvidia 870/880/980, if they'll improve CAD performance considerably, otherwise 1000 euro for Nvidia 840 or even integrated graphics, with i7 and SSD.

Does anyone know for sure if CAD benefits from graphics acceleration? I wouldn't mind playing a few games myself, but only if the CAD side is improved...

K.O.Kiki

Look for a laptop with a Quadro or Firepro GPU, not a gaming one.

rocky

Went for a browse in PC World tonight, the other half prefers 17" to 15". Back to the drawing board...

IrlMonk

Take RAM into consideration.
4 GB RAM is required, 8 GB RAM or more is recommended for complex models.
Eliminate any bottlenecks.

rocky

Yep, was looking at least for 8GB RAM.

Anyway this is what I've found, hope it helps someone else:
In general I was looking for at least:

• 8GB RAM
• I7 4700 (4710,4720, MQ or HQ) - seems to be the sweet spot performance / cost
• dedicated graphics

Then I found PC Specialist https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/, where you can configure
256 GB samsung Evo 850 SSD
500GB HDD
8GB RAM
Full HD screen

and:

• Integrated Intel for around €990
• Geforce 840m/850m for around €1100
• Geforce 860m for around €1250
• Geforce 970m for around €1550+ (without HDD, only SSD)

After configuring a few, started looking at equivalents from MSI, they are about €100 more expensive for same-ish configurations (of course having all the musts in an MSI gets expensive quickly), but they looked better, at least in pictures (then there's the flashy MSI logo on the back of the screen which I don't particularly like).

For the middle of the road 860m and with very limited choices of other hardware, saveonlaptops was more than €100 cheaper than pcspecialist (although doesn't look like it has backlit keyboard):

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/cubesystemconfig/id/2CB1E-7XCF

I'll let you know what I ordered when I get it, if I don't get it (seems extremely good value and possibly a pricing error/ no stock), I'll probably go with the saveonlaptops custom built 860m for around €1100...

Overheal

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Look for a laptop with a Quadro or Firepro GPU, not a gaming one.

This. I have the fortune of working on a station at the office that is running a Workstation GPU and I can't reccomend it enough. Given that I've already regularly done a couple things to this in Solidworks to get it to chop up, productivity wise I know you'll want something beefy as hell - depending on your use. I've been working with a lot of machined aluminum parts with tons of drill taps and you pretty much need to view the whole part/assembly with transparencies on to keep your head on straight and thats expensive on your graphics. In a pinch hidden line view works too, for a lot of stuff, just for extended use I found it gave me a headache.

The biggest suppliers of workstation laptops are going to be Dell and HP direct.

rocky

Well what does the quadro have that a 970m doesn't, OpenGL drivers? I've a Quadro 2000m in a work laptop but when OH tested Archicad on it she wasn't particularly blown away...

It's for architectural design btw.


Found this info - seems laptops are not really supported

http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/technotes/video-cards/recommended-video-cards-for-archicad-15/#8220Professional8221_vs_8220Gaming8221_video_cards

http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/technotes/video-cards/recommended-video-cards-for-archicad-15/#Video_card_drivers_for_laptops_Windows

rocky

And... it's here.

Bought from SaveOnLaptops, after a shipping fcuk up (was sent with UK internal ParcelForce, arrived in Coventry depot then back to them), was shipped again on Friday and received it today.

As I said, was looking through equivalent pre-built laptops, sorted by price (ascending), when I saw this:

• i7 4th gen, good
• DVD-rewriter, whatever (came with Bluray - don't know, don't care)
• 16GB RAM, niiiiice
• 750GB HDD, cool
• PLUS 250GB SSD, are you kidding me??
• PLUS Geforce GTX 780m, (yes 2 generations old, but a powerful one) ... shut up and take my money!!!

All this for £950 + £12 shipping, around €1300 (I think, haven't checked my credit card yet)

What is it? Only an Asus G750 17.3"

The missus will love the "Assassin's Creed" and "Republic of Gamers" etched just under the arrow keys.

Happy so far with my purchase.

Initially saw this laptop on laptopsdirect, but when I added it to cart, it wasn't there, only the 4-5 addons they try and sell with it, so I thought it's some kind of pricing/stock mistake.

Here it is on laptopsdirect (although no optical drive in the specs?):
http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/ASUS_G750JH_Core_i7_16GB_750GB_7200rpm_256GB_SSD_17.3_inch_Full_HD_Windows__G750JH-T4188H/version.asp

SaveOnlaptops:
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/G750JH-T4188H-ASUS-G750JH-T4188H_1720019.html

Feckers, it's £20 more expensive now, was 949 when I got it.

rocky

They realized their mistake, £1000 now... http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/G750JH-T4188H-ASUS-G750JH-T4188H_1720019.html

rocky

So the wife is doing rendering in Artlantis, takes hours upon hours to render 1 scene, as it's not-gaming-card-accelerated.

I mentioned that games can render 30+ scenes a second, how come artlantis and other CAD software is so crap? Yeah maybe the "precision" is not there, but I wasn't impressed by the final look of the render, it was precisely crap (to my non-architect eyes).

After a quick google search, I found a software that can use the GTX 780m. Final result looks better than Artlantis too. Rendering 1 scene? 2 seconds. It has animations too, when you create a movie, people you placed in your model walk, birds fly etc, all the time it's accelerated like a game.

/job jobbed.