Hardware

[#1]

Hi, I'm going into engineering this coming fall and am looking for a laptop. I've pretty much settled on either the dell studio xps 13 or the aluminum macbook 13" and if autocad won't work well on the mac it'll be an easy decision. I know that parallels 4.0 supports up to autocad 2009 but I was wondering if anyone had any experience running it.

The mac has a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, geforce 9400m, and either 2 or 4 gigs of 1066mhz ddr3 ram.
The dell has a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, geforce 9500m, and 4 gigs of 1066mhz ddr3 ram.

If anyone has any experience running autocad on a mac, through parallels or boot camp (preferably parallels), or any advice at all please let me know.

Thanks,
Shawn

[#2]

My opinion, get a pc. Why buy a mac then have to
convert it to a pc? Very few engineering programs are written for mac because of
the small market share my kids love them, but I find using a pc to be the best
choice pro in my work environment

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<shawngoldw> wrote in message href="news:6195060@discussion.autodesk.com">news:6195060@discussion.autodesk.com...

Hi,
I'm going into engineering this coming fall and am looking for a laptop. I've
pretty much settled on either the dell studio xps 13 or the aluminum macbook
13" and if autocad won't work well on the mac it'll be an easy decision. I
know that parallels 4.0 supports up to autocad 2009 but I was wondering if
anyone had any experience running it. The mac has a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, geforce
9400m, and either 2 or 4 gigs of 1066mhz ddr3 ram. The dell has a 2.53GHz Core
2 Duo, geforce 9500m, and 4 gigs of 1066mhz ddr3 ram. If anyone has any
experience running autocad on a mac, through parallels or boot camp
(preferably parallels), or any advice at all please let me know. Thanks,
Shawn

[#3]

im looking at buying the Dell xps 16,
is has
512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670 Graphics Card
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor P8600 (2.40GHz/ 1066 FSB/ 3MB Cache)
Memory 6GB (1x4GB/1x2GB) 1067MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Hard Drive 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive

Looking ok?

[#4]

>>>... through parallels or boot camp (preferably parallels) ...<<<

Err, you do know, despite the hype, that you actually have to buy at full
price and install MSWindows XP or Vista and turn your MAC into a WindowsPC
just to run AutoCAD and your other engineering software, correct? No
protection from all the problems your Mac advertising campaigns warn against
LOL

If you are going to blow that much money, skip the dual-boot mess and run
Windows virtually inside MAC OS: that's more in keeping with a Mac user's
image. 4-gig RAM is what you aim for, not 2Gig.

--
Dean Saadallah
http://LTisACAD.blogspot.com
--

[#5]

I don't care if its Mac or PC, the one thing that stands out to me is your screen size.

If you plan on doing ANY cad work, your MINIMUM SCREEN SIZE IS 17"! Anything less you've crippled yourself. Yes, even if it is a laptop.

[#6]

shawngoldw,

I'm running a macbook pro 15", 2.6 ghz core 2 duo with 4 gig of ram, geforce 8600m gt graphics and autocad 2010 runs fine under bootcamp. Revit on the other hand is ghz/ram pig and there is actually an aggravating 1-2 second delay selecting commands from the ribbon. Autocad Architecture 2010 also suffers a little delayed reaction selecting commands, but not as bad as Revit. I have parallels, but rarely use it. If I'm going to draw, I launch bootcamp into xp and the macbook pro drives my 24 inch dell monitor just great. I have to believe that the latest macbook pro would run the above applications even better.

3ds max 2010 loads fine, runs fine. I haven't performed any rendering yet, just creating massings for revit via autocad. I've been working in Revit 2010 on my mac only test the new features out.

I can't say how Revit 2010 Structure would perform on a macbook 13", but if you want a macbook, at least get a macbook pro 15", your also going to need the faster cpu and ram it comes with.

I can get by drafting on just the 15" screen if need be, just fine. Anything smaller would be extremely fatiguing. After 8 hours in Autocad or Sketchup and Piranesi, on a 15" lcd screen, I can attest to that.

Remember you really don't need microsoft office at all if you own iwork.

If it wasn't for autocad software ms based, I would have ditched microsoft a long time ago.

cheers!