Need help finding laptop for CAD drawing

[dquan97]

A friend of mine is looking to buy a laptop for CAD applications. I'm looking to recommend a 1.8Ghz dell laptop, with 512RAM, 30GB HD for $1200 found in Hot Deals. However, that particular laptop doesnt have great reviews, so I'm looking for alternatives. Noise is not an issue.

 

[daddyo]

3D CAD or 2D CAD??

If he's just using AutoCAD in 2d mode, just about any laptop out there will handle it.

If he's doing solid modelling, then you need something with a bit more pep.

My work system is an IBM A31p Thinkpad. It's an incredible machine. Beautiful screen (very large field of view), 1.8ghz P4, ATI Mobility 7800 FireGL video card, and a 5400rpm hard drive make it quite the screamer. It's also built solid as a rock.

Make sure whatever you get for CAD has a 5400rpm hard drive...CAD does a lot of hard drive transferring, and the faster drive will speed things up considerably.

 

[Duvie]

I live and work cadd and the fact is the athlons are the best at it do to its strong fpu need.....If you can get an athlon 1800+ or better for same or less price run with that...The money you may save make sure you have the higher speed and large drive, as well as a good amount of ram...

I own intel and yes my system below is plenty fast enough, but at work where I build nice systems for value I only look at athlons...

 

[dquan97]

Working on 3D CAD. How much RAM should I get? Video card? I'll look for at least 5400RPM 30GB HD.

 

[Duvie]

Go for the 512 if you can....I would think the ati mobility may be the best...

 

[daddyo]

At least 512, preferably more.

The ATI mobility is OK for CAD, but the NVidia Geforce 4 or Quadro Go cards should work better.

 

[Duvie]

if you can find the quadro go cards and in a decent price range then go with it, but the ati cards do well on there own for the price...