Laptop workstation.

[Anonymous]

Hi guys!

I'm in progress of changing my laptop to a new one because the old one can't get on well with my tasks. I use a computer to work in AUTOCAD 2015 mostly in 3D, to render movies and make music so I guess I'm gonna need a workstation. A few days ago someone recommended me an Asus N551JK with Geforce gtx860 but I started looking for workstations with Nvidia Quadro and found Lenovo W540 with i7-4710MQ cpu, 32GB RAM, 250GB SSD and Quadro K1100M. On Autodesk site this graphic card is recommended but I'm not sure enough of it will be good for 3D (not very complex operations but I don't want my laptop to jam as the old one). I guess pretty soon I will be modeling some more complex stuff. So, what do you think about this Lenovo? Well it be enough or should I look for another Quadro or even another brand?

Looking forward to your replies!

Cheers,
F1stach

[Anonymous]

How are you using AutoCAD 2015 to render movies and make music? That doesn't make sense. Unless you're using it to write the sheet music?

[Anonymous]

No, I'm not using autocad to rendering and making music. I've got another programs to this purpose. I just didn't make myself clear at this point. I meant that I use computer for autocad and except this other stuff as mentioned.

[pendean]

Lenovo W540 is a decent mobile laptop for AutoCAD: we have them here. As with any mobile platform though, they underperform desktop workstations which we use for 6-8hrs a day of production work.

FYI: AutoCAD 2015 has no ability to fully use 3k displays.

[Anonymous]

It's good to hear that W540 is a pretty good machine. I have a possibility to choose between two types of this model: the one with Quadro K1100M and another one with Quadro K2100M. Which one do you think would be better to use?

BTW - is there any W540 with Quadro K3000M?

[nestly2]

The K1100 is a good card, the K2100 is a bit better.  In most cases, I doubt you'd notice the difference.

Re 3K, that's reference to the screen resolution, not the video card.  The W540 is available with 3K (2880x1620)  or  FHD (1920x1280) .  At present, AutoCAD doesn't have support for the new ultra high resolutions.  That's not to say AutoCAD won't work fine on the 3K display, it's just that the text and icons will be very tiny, and if you attempt to use DPI scaling to make things bigger, you may have unexpected results.  For anything else however it's hard to argue against higher resolution when you have the choice.

[Anonymous]

So there would be no problem, no jamming etc. with 3D?

[nestly2]

Any workstation (desktop or mobile) can be "jammed" depending on the size/complexity of the model.  I have no experience with that particular model, but all indications are that when well configured, it's among the best mobile workstations available.   Cadalyst has some recent reviews of several mobile workstations.  http://www.cadalyst.com/hardware/workstations

[braudpat]

Hello

+1 with Nestly

Please don't buy a PC or Laptop with a UHD (or 4K) display because display problems begin with about 3000 horizontal pixels !

So 2560 x 1440 or 2560 x 1600 is the "maximum" best choice today for ACAD 201X ...

Of course a Dual screen is acceptable !

Happy New Year & The Health