Is this laptop good enough?

[Anonymous]

I am planning on buying a laptop for engineering in college, probably working with inventor 2020. I want it to work with .iam files up to 60 mb in size (containing up to 750 parts) and be able to cad as fast as my hands let me (so no lagging or processing between adding constraints or adding basic features). Is a 16 gb ram, i7 10th gen, nvidia geforce mx330, 512 gb ssd laptop enough to handle this? Could I get away with an i5 or 8gb of ram?

I won't be doing any serious rendering work, I just want to be able to do general design work and fea on smaller assemblies.

My current desktop is an i5-4460 with 8gb ram and integrated graphics and it freezes often and I have to slow myself down to keep the computer from breaking. I know that workstations are better for cadding and there are better hardware components meant mainly for cad but I will also be using this for personal stuff and other school work so the laptop models I am looking at are tailored towards that more.

Thanks for the help!

[jrobrador19 · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

If your going by the book,

1) i7-10th gen can run at 3.0GHz or more which is good. i5 processors will work to as long as you pick those that can go 3.0GHz or higher. Inventor uses does not use multiple cores but if you are rendering, more cores will matter.

2) 16GB RAM is also fine. According to the system requirements, it 8GB RAM will be sufficient for 500 part assemblies. But again the more the better. for Inventor 2020 it is recommended to have 20GB RAM and for Inventor 2021, 32GB is recommended.

3) NVIDIA GeForce MX330 has only 2GB of video memory. It can be used for small assemblies but not for large ones. It is recommended that you have at least 4GB video memory. You can also look at the certified graphics hardware for Inventor here.

4) 512GB SSD - if you want your Inventor to load faster when opened, I do recommend you install it in SSD. This is more than enough for Inventor (40GB plus the installer). I do put my installer in my HDD so that it won't consume a lot of space in my SSD.

In conclusion, you're computer can run a 750 part assembly, but you might encounter some issues in terms of real time visualization while modeling. Navigating a huge assembly might cause a little lag. I recommend you change your GPU and ramp up the RAM to 20-32 GB just to be sure.

I hope this helps.

[cadman777]

A few years ago I had an HP Zbook 17" gen 4 and it barely was enough to run big assemblies. I got rid of it and went back to the desktop b/c it didn't do the job (and b/c I quit trying to break into the laser scannig criminal syndicate). It made me wait a lot and had other issues. That was one of the best laptops for it's time. I believe it's still being made, just upgraded to gen 7. These were the specs:

i7 Processor @ 2.9GHz/3.2GHz (turbo), 32GB DDR4 2133GHz RAM, Nvidia Quadro M2200 & 4GB GDDR5 VRAM, 500GB Samsung860 EVO SSD, 1TB 5200 HD, and a bunch of other stuff. I used it to do mobile laser scanning of mechanical things (like auto and truck sheetmetal). It was barely enough to run regular Inventor when doing LARGE ASSEMBLIES (1000-3000 parts).

Your laptop spec looks like it's a bit lean on power in all departments, that is, if you're a 'power user'. If I had the money I would've bought a Dell Laptop Workstation instead of an HP, b/c HP has a myriad of driver problems that they are always trying to fix AFTER RELEASING their laptops. The Dell was around $2k more than the HP. But you can get good used Dell's for reasonable prices, even though they're more expensive than HP's.

I did a LOT of research before buying, so my purchase was intelligent and frugal (got a new demo off eBay). Just my 2 cents' worth from personal experience...

[leowarren34]

Hi @Anonymous,

I'll add my $0.02 to the discussion, most has already been covered in terms of raw specs but just some extra food for thought.

Firstly the CPU: As a college student budget is definitely a concern and a Core I7 will be perfectly fine where you will see Xeons - I have experience with a Dell Precision and whilst they are lovely they cost a pretty penny which for a student is a bit overboard yet for engineers is worth every cent in reliability & stability.

Secondly the GPU: Don't worry about Quadros/[Whatever Nvidia is calling their business cards] - Inventor isn't GPU accelerated so stick to Geforce. Just make sure you enough VRAM.

The RAM: With a quick google search you can find out how to upgrade your RAM - get 16GB now then upgrade as you can afford.

Storage: The largest SSD within budget - if you are lucky look for a model that has expansion options for down the road as 500GB fills fast when you use CAD software.

Final thoughts - Battery make sure it's sufficient beefy enough as CAD can cane the system pretty well.

Cooling - Avoid at all costs anything too thin - it will overheat and then the CPU will not turbo and likely thermal throttle which will cause you to lag. Whilst I'm not advocating for a brick I do advocate something with decent cooling capacity.

For all intents and purposes have a look at 'Gaming' Laptops especially with the possibility of Black Friday sales which will run perfectly fine with the above in mind.