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PDS Inventor 2013 Laptop requirments

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Message 1 of 4
andrewkeith4
1649 Views, 3 Replies

PDS Inventor 2013 Laptop requirments

I am an occasional user of inventor and my company will be upgrading to 2013 in the near future. At the same time I am moving from a desktop machine to a laptop as I do some travel for work and so need the portability. I am aware the dell precision m4600 (i7 QC, 16Gb ram, Quadro 2000M 2Gb) is a good option but I want something lighter and more portable. I have been considering either:

 

Dell XPS 14z (i7 DC, 8Gb ram, Gefore GT 520M 1Gb, 256Gb SSD)

Dell XPS 15z (i7 DC, 8Gb ram, Gefore GT 525M 2Gb, 256Gb SSD)

 

Will the graphics cut it? I will basically only use inventor to tweak models and will be learning to use the FEA analysis tools of Inventor 2013 Pro.

 

I need to make a decision quickly as I have already asked our IT dept. for the 14z so if it's a bad move I need to change my mind quickly!

 

Thank

Andrew

3 REPLIES 3
Message 2 of 4
sam_m
in reply to: andrewkeith4

Due to inventor being DirectX instead of OpenGL there's no need to worry about Quadro cards, so the GeForce will be fine.  But remember that any laptop graphics card will be slower and less powerful than a desktop card - check benchmark tables for an idea of what to expect: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html .  At the end of the day, what you gain with portability you lose with performance - the 525m is more powerful than the 520m but it's no race horse.

 

what resolution are those laptops?  looking at the 14" and wondering how productive/usable it's going to be..  You really need the 1080 screen option (is it even available on the 14z?) to get a usable work area within Inventor as a 720 or 768 screen will be too small.

 

Just had a look on the Dell site and it suggests the 14z is only available with a 768 screen - if that's the case and the 15z is 1080 I would highly recommend the change to the 15z.

 

General note on Optimus mobile gpus - keep the drivers up to date (inc the laptops bios).  The Optimus technology works by switching between the battery-draining GeForce card and the i7's onboard graphics chip and works pretty well about 99% of time.  Sadly sometimes with the odd program it either fails to switch over or fails to report the GeForce card to the application so it tried to stick with the onboard chip - but I think the majority of those problems were fixed a good 6months ago now (just something to be aware of).



Sam M.
Inventor and Showcase monkey

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Message 3 of 4
mmccarthy
in reply to: andrewkeith4

Im in the same boat and am wondering what you went with and how you like it.
Thanks
Message 4 of 4
Bill.Schmid
in reply to: andrewkeith4

Andrew,

 

Wondering what you went with and how it's working.

 

Thanks,

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