New Laptop for Revit?

[mlarheelaw]

Hello!

I am looking for a new laptop to run complicated Revit 2015 and 2016 files with plenty of project links and point maps (not all my files are this large but I would like to prepare for worst case scenario) that will also run high quality photoshop files. What laptop would be the best for these situations?  I am looking at the Dell XPS 15 9550 with the following specs, does this look good or would you suggest another?  Thanks in advance!  Appreciate any advice.

Dell XPS 15 9550

Hard Drive: 1TB SSD

OS: Windows 10

Processor: Intel Core i7

RAM: 16 gig (with option to expand to 32?)

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (I am concerned about this)

Graphics Type: Discrete- 2 GB dedicated

[dzanta · Accepted solution]

Hi miarheelaw,

I have pretty much the same laptop now.

Dell XPS 15 9550

Hard Drive: 512TB SSD

OS: Windows 10

Processor: Intel Core i7

RAM: 16 gig (with option to expand to 32?)

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (Ultra HD Touch Display 3840x2160)

Graphics Type: Discrete- 2 GB dedicated

It works well for everything I throw at it except high end/high processing tasks.  Depending on your budget, you will most likely have to go much higher.  If you use Rendering in Revit, Point Clouds, VM, etc., these tasks require tons of CPU power.  The XPS 15 9550 isn't made to handle that level of demand.  I tested it's capabilities by rendering in Revit and for the highest quality/custom level rendering settings, the machine took 9 1/2 hours to render 1 3D view.  If I run more than 2 VM sessions, the CPU is max'd out.  The laptop does work but it is slow at that point.  The graphics card is a mid level gaming graphics card and it does have minor issues once in a while with Autodesk software.  Anything other than Autodesk software, the card works flawlessly.

For a high level demand work as you are suggesting, I would not purchase this laptop.  I would purchase the DELL Precision 17 line.  They are 17" laptops that can be fully customized for your workload.  Unfortunately, these are expensive.

I suggest getting 2 Xeon processors or more on the laptop.  16GB RAM works but 32GB is better.  I was only able to get my laptop to use 8GB of my 16GB of RAM during rendering/VM....in other words, I didn't throw enough at it to make the RAM top out.

My ideal laptop (not worrying about money or portability) would be the following:

DELL Precision 17 7710

Two Xeon Processors (3.0GHz or higher)

32 GB RAM (DDR4)

Two 1TB SSD Drives (PCIe M.2) (One for OS and Programs, the other for data)

17" Ultra HD Touch Display (although you may need to scale down the resolution for Autodesk apps (125% scale works best)

NVidia Quadro K5200M 8GB Graphics Card

Hope this helps.

[mlarheelaw]

Thank you very much, this is exactly the advice I was looking for.

[mlarheelaw]

Ok new question for you:

I ended up going with the same computer you have as you said it worked well for you and I didn't want to totally break the bank. I now have Revit 2015 installed on it and I cannot get it to work graphics wise. The 3d model looks ok, but I cannot get it to move walls, pan around floor plans, and its not just an annoying lag its un-workable (grab a wall the screen freezes, can't pan, can't select). Did I install something wrong? Did you downsave your graphics card to NVidia GeForce GTX 8##?

[dzanta]

when you installed revit 2015, did you disable .net 4.6 advance services?  If not, you may need to repair or reinstall revit 2015.  I would also go to DELL's website for the orginal graphics card driver...use this first and check.  Then go to NVidia's site for their driver version and try that if the DELL driver doesn't work.  Lastly, go to Autodesk website for their graphics driver (may not find it because it isn't a quadro card...it's a geforce)

[mlarheelaw]

Thank you Dzanta! I scaled down my screen from 4k to a lower resolution and Revit now runs flawlessly. Very glad I went with the Dell specs that you suggested. Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

dell laptop i7-5500 in problem in screen resolution higher than 3840x2160 places help.