Tech Guru help ...new laptop....

[Stu160]

Hi All

I could do with a new laptop, and am looking for recomendations.
To be used for Cad Cam work mostly, so high graphics use to view 3d models etc.

Any thoughts?

I am currently using a toshiba with an AMD e 300 , radeon hd graphics 1.3 Ghz, with 6gb of ram, a curry,s special from a few years ago, it has always been pretty sh*t, but seems to handle the cad cam ok, but my new 3d model software is a bit much for it. It does run it, but its a bit slow. I need a laptop as i do a lot of the cad work at home, and then load the programs at work, so needs to be portable.

Also lloking for recomendations on a new office desktop while i am at it, again, will be running Autocad, sage and general office tasks, so nothing too taxing.

Cheers

Stu

[greido]

Stick a SSD in your old laptop and it'll fly.
I was astonished when at the difference in my old laptop when I installed a Samsung SSD, from memory a 500GB from Amazon is around £135.

[campbell]

Tut and others just bought an Asus UX305. Lovely.

I have its predecessor, UX32. Also lovely.

Office desktop - the fastest Dell you can afford? Had 12 years out of ours...

[Stu160]

Ok, so how does that speed up the laptop? Not to up on tech stuff....

Stu

[campbell]

Solid state drives access their data faster than original mechanical ones as there are, er, no moving parts. I fink

[tut]

The Asus is a great lightweight laptop and perfect for Verian, but it is not a powerhouse, and for Cad/Cam work etc you really want an i7 Cpu and a dedicated graphics processor with 8 to 16GB memory and preferably a SSD drive of 250 - 560GB.

Plenty out there and you will be spoilt for choice, you will pay a premium for lightness, but if it is mainly going to be on a desk that is not a priority and you can go for a 15.6" HD screen with a good spec for less than £800.

tut

[BiggestNizzy]

I use a dell desktop 16Gb ram Nvidea Quatro 600 graphics card with an intel xeon E3-1245 quad core. for CAD/CAM

But it gets let down as Edgecam onbly uses 1 core.

It could do witha SSD as the hard drive lets it down a bit.

[Sanjøy]

Are you sure you dont want a desktop? Much more suited for it and you will get much more bang for your buck. Budget and software permitting I would be looking at the raw sex that is the Apple 5k display. I cant believe I just typed that.

[Stu160]

Not sure if cad sortware will run on Apple Sanjoy. Looking at this in PCWorld, looks not bad....
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/ ... 5-pdt.html

Does not have the SSD though..

Stu

[robin]

If a laptop is what you want then for CAD/CAM work Dell do a line of laptops labelled DELL Precision Mxxxx - you can often pick these up second hand for buttons - they typically pack lots of RAM, reasonable graphics for 3D rendering (not necessarily for games, but easily good enough for spinning models around); add a SSD if not already fitted and it will last you years and years.

Your existing laptop is probably not very powerful, so if it can more or less cope, then you probably don't need anything bleeding edge; if you do then you should definitely consider a desktop instead - £500 gets you a lot of computer in a desktop these days, especially if you already happen to have keyboard and monitor.

Whatever you do, don't buy at PCWorld/Currys! They won't have anything optimised for what you're doing.

Cheers,
Robin

[Stu160]

So would adding an SSD to my laptop make a noticable difference?, it does run the cad OK, and the graphics when viewing the models are fine, its just when its processing stuff that it slows down.

Stu

[Sanjøy]

If a laptop is what you want then for CAD/CAM work Dell do a line of laptops labelled DELL Precision Mxxxx

Crikey O'Rielly, 2GB RAM on a GPU in a slaptop!

http://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/Inve ... 6&fid=1543

I'd also get the dual video out docking station and drive a couple of dell Ultrasharp 2x inch screens.

[steve_weegie]

If a laptop is what you want then for CAD/CAM work Dell do a line of laptops labelled DELL Precision Mxxxx

Crikey O'Rielly, 2GB RAM on a GPU in a slaptop!

http://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/Inve ... 6&fid=1543

I'd also get the dual video out docking station and drive a couple of dell Ultrasharp 2x inch screens.

Buy this - it's a stunning machine for the money

[mwmackenzie]

I use a Dell XPS L702X for AutoCAD, Revit, Photoshop and 3ds Max, has been great the past 3.5 years but I've filled the 750GB Hard drive already eeeks, I have 8GB RAM, will get more on next one, current one has an Intel i5 2.4Ghz quad core CPU. It's served me very well over the years and still faster and less troublesome than the HP I bought the wife last Christmas

[woody]

Assume the reason for a Laptop is for machines that aren't networked?