Having trouble choosing a laptop/processor/video card, need help!

[fedosm92]

In a nutshell, I'm trying to choose the right laptop, processor, and video card, The budget is limited, I'm trying to manage it wisely. Please, only personal experience of use and comparisons. I read the official requirements of Autodesk. I use fusion360 for 3D modeling of parts and assemblies (sometimes large ones), drawings and generating CNC trajectories, less often for simple rendering.

I'm currently using HP Zbook 17 G5 (i7 8850H / Quadro P3200 / 32 GB RAM ddr4)

The questions that worry me the most:

1) My laptop is outdated, it freezes even in drawings, crashes, large assemblies freeze completely, I have to close it through the task manager. 

2) Processor. I read that fusion uses only 1 processor core, and its base clock frequency is important, from 3 GHz. Is this true? Will there be a noticeable difference between an 8/12 core processor and a 12/24?

3) Video card, does it make sense for my tasks to use a professional card like RTX 2000ada and overpay for it? and also greatly limit myself in choosing a laptop model. Or does it make sense to take, for example, RTX 4070 and I will not see the difference at all between an equal professional video card and a gaming one?

To sum it up, I'm looking at different laptops, but I want to get one with a 17-18 inch screen and the ability to connect an additional monitor. I want to upgrade to 2K resolution, I'm worried about heating, so I would like the processor to generate less heat and, in general, a good cooling system is a big advantage for me.
And I'm thinking something like this:
Should I get the same laptop, without experimenting and without worrying so that it doesn't get worse, but only newer models.
For example:

Dell Precision 7680 16/ HP Zbook, ect. i7-i9 11-13 series/RTX 2000 Ada + -/32-64Gb DDR4-5

I will choose strictly based on what I can find for a normal price.

Or should I forget about the previous choice and just take the maximum power on a modern Ryzen and a gaming video card 3070/3070ti/3080/3080ti/4070... similar in price, without overpaying and without getting hung up on a professional video card?

I would be grateful to anyone who could suggest a solution based on personal experience.

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

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@fedosm92 wrote:

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1) My laptop is outdated, it freezes even in drawings, crashes, large assemblies freeze completely, I have to close it through the task manager. 

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I use Fusion to create large assembly models for manufacturing automation systems. I regularly create assemblies with 10000-20000 components. I experience crashes very, very rarely. Once a month or less! 

On these large models I work with Fusion mostly on two computers.

1. 4 or 5 year old Dell Precision 7550 Notebook Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10850H CPU @ 2.70GHz 2.71 GHz with 32Gb of RAM and a  NVIDIA QUADRO T2000
2. Custom built home system with AMD Ryzen 5950X 64Gb of RAA and  NVIDIA RTX 3070Ti. This was built for rendering, predominantly with an unbiased spectral render engine, so not in Fusion!
3. Occasionally I use my 2017 MacBook Pro when I travel to customers and present and discuss Concepts. For my private projects the MacBook purrs along just fine. No crashes!

On both of these , my models behave fluid. That include not only my work models, but my private projects that range into the several hundred components, extensively use Configurations and Fusion Electronics. 

If you experience frequent crashes when modeling IMHO, if you improve your workflow this can be significantly reduced or even eliminated.

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@fedosm92 wrote:

2) Processor. I read that fusion uses only 1 processor core, and its base clock frequency is important, from 3 GHz. Is this true? Will there be a noticeable difference between an 8/12 core processor and a 12/24?

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Much of the math and algorithms in the geometric modeling kernel do not lend themselves to parallel processing. The sequential timeline of history based parametric modeling software also makes that difficult or even impossible. 
So for modeling tasks performance is mostly determined by single-thread performance. 

Toolpath generation  - I am taging @seth.madore to verify - is multithreaded an does benefit form having more cores. If that benefits your workflow depends on the complexity of such toolpaths and how much of it you do compared with modeling and assembly.

Local and Canvas rendering in Fusion does NOT utilize the GPU but fully utilizes every CPU core.

The GPU is only used for 3D viewport display.

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@fedosm92 wrote:

3) Video card, does it make sense for my tasks to use a professional card like RTX 2000ada and overpay for it? and also greatly limit myself in choosing a laptop model. Or does it make sense to take, for example, RTX 4070 and I will not see the difference at all between an equal professional video card and a gaming one?

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What "pro CAD" graphics cards offer is theoretically more stable and "verified" graphics drivers for software using the OpenGL API. Fusion and Inventor use DirectX, so you won't be able to "benefit" form these drivers. Also, development of these drivers (software) lags quite behind hardware development and those pro graphics cards are one or more generations behind the current consumer cards. 

If you get a consumer card from a reputable manufacturer, with a minimum of 4Gb of memory you should be OK.



 

[seth.madore]

Couple of points to clarify regarding CAM and GPU;

While we do take advantage of multiple cores where possible, we don't leverage 100% of what's available to us. In many cases, fewer cores but at a higher clock speed will often win out.

GPU: we are doing some work regarding CAM simulation and GPU's. I can't say/share more than that, but there may come a time when you might want to consider how powerful of a card you have....  🤐

[fedosm92]

Thanks!

I can't even tell you the exact number of parts I have in my assembly, because when I try to count them, everything freezes.
Or when I try to work with a 400 MB stl file, I feel uncomfortable.
Crashes occur in drawings. By the way, they also freeze.
Fusion has a setting instead of DX11, "OpenGL core", I didn't use it and didn't compare it because I don't have the opportunity.
Thanks for the advice.
Is it comfortable to work on your i7-10850H laptop? Is there really such a gap between us? Benchmarks show that you have only a 15% increase in processor, and -10% in video

[fedosm92]

Thank you, the card is really very old, it is unacceptable for an engineer to use such hardware, but the budget...

[TrippyLighting]

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@fedosm92 wrote:

..

I can't even tell you the exact number of parts I have in my assembly, because when I try to count them, everything freezes.
...

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How do you count them?

If you open the text console:

 And type component.counts into it and hit enter it can provide you with an indication how many components are in your design.

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@fedosm92 wrote:

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Or when I try to work with a 400 MB stl file, I feel uncomfortable.
...

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What are you doing with these mesh files?

[fedosm92]

Thanks, I didn't know about this method of counting, I select the components in the graphic area.

Sometimes my client send me scans of objects of complex shape. It can be 200, 300, 400 mb. But that’s not the question, the question is in the selection of components, whether it makes sense to overpay or not.

[TrippyLighting]

It never makes sense to overpay, that is implied in the word 😉

I believe we have already established what hardware will provide the best performance. 

If a particular workflow, which may, or may not involve meshes, slows your machine down, then the best, most high performing computer hardware isn't going to speed things up. As such workflows matter a lot.

In fact, based 30+ years of professional CAD and engineering experience I would argue that workflows matter more than hardware performance.