Laptop choices to run AutoCAD

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have been tasked with ordering a new laptop with a budget of around £1500 for a work environment.

The laptop will be using AutoCAD (3D rendering) extensively and I have narrowed it down to three possible laptops (recommendations are always welcome!)

The three laptops:

Lenovo W530

• NVidia Quadro 2000M
• 8gb ram (min)
• Windows 7 Pro 64bit
• HDD (7200rpm) or SSD

Dell Precision M3800

• 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4702HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.20 GHz)
• Windows 7 Pro (64Bit) English
• 15.6 inch LED Backlit Touch Display with Truelife and FHD resolution (1920 x 1080)
• 8GB DDR3L at 1600MHz
• 2.5" 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive with 8GB Flash Drive
• Nvidia® Quadro ® K1100M, w/ 2GB GDDR5

HP ZBook 14 Mobile Workstation (

• Windows 7 Professional 64 (available through downgrade rights from Windows 8 Pro)
• Intel® Core™ i7-4600U Dual Core Processor
• 35,56 cm (14")
• 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3L SDRAM (1 x 4 GB)
• 750 GB 7200 rpm SATA
• AMD FirePro M4100

(I'm having a few issues finding the pricing for the Levono so not 100% if it is within budget)

Will the above laptops be up to the task of using autoCAD and which one would be the better choice?

Thanks for the help.
Ben.

[KungFuDrafter]

Hello Ben:

First of congrats on a new notebook. New gear is always great!

I am a huge fan of Lenovo products. I do believe one of my Lenovo contacts recently mentioned that there is a new line of mobile workstations on the horizon, so perhaps the 530 will see a price drop. Have you looked at the W540?.

I am not too big a fan of Dells in general, but the specs look fine. I especially like Nvidia K1100M. Discrete video cards with dedicated RAM are a must in mobile workstations meant for rendering. I also like the SSHD (but SSD would still be better). 

I have had phenomenal success with my 17" HP mobile workstation. This thing is a best, albeit an aged beast now. So I can recommend the HP's. But, that 4GB RAM count and the AMD leaves me sketchy. I much prefer Nvidia in terms of performance and support (but really it is a Ford / Chevy matter of preference I suppose). From a quick look it seems that the HP board can support up to 16GB of RAM where the Dell looks to cap at 8GB. I would go for the most RAM possible.

Weighing all the factors (with no additional information) I would go with the Dell. The 8GB of packed in RAM and the graphics card sold me. But, you could snag that Lenovo W540 and upgrade to 16GB of RAM, an Nvidia K2100M and a 512GB SSD and still be in budget.

Those are my 1.5 cents. Be sure to share out it goes for you!

- KFD -

[pendean]

I'm a big Lenovo fan as well: W series are great.

However... regardless of which one you decide to select, ensure these items are included: i5 or i7, your choice, but they need to be over the 3ghz stadnard speed (not that fakey "boosted" speed stuff), 16Gig RAM minimum (32Gig ideal), HD needs to be at least 7200rpm speed (SSD is best, but you need the 512Gig capacity) and as noted above you need a ramped up video card. 14" displays are terrible on prodution machines IMHO.

There is a problem with laptops when it comes to AutoCAD though: they are all equipped with on-board graphics cards that are not completely disabled. So 90% of the time AutoCAD will ignore the souped up card for most users. You need to ensure you can fully disable the onboard video card in the BIOS of the laptop so that the other card is the default and always used.

Good luck; and congrats.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the help guys, it has been very useful and insightful!

This is the setup I have chosen to go with so far:

Levono ThinkPad W540

Processor: Intel Core i7-4600M (3.60GHz)
O/S: Windows 7 Professional 64bit
Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro K2100M 2G
Memory: 16GB DDR3L
Hard Drive: 256GB Solid State Drive
Screen: 15.6"

In an ideal world i would like to upgrade the memory to 32 and the SSD to 512GB...

[davidearchitect]

I'm looking at the W540, too. How is it working for you?

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I haven't had a chance to reply recently. We have opted to only create 2D drawings on a lesser laptop and to use a desktop for the 3D rendering - the laptop would have been perfect, but because of the change of plan (as we will now only using a laptop for 2D) it would have been a bit overkill.