Spec'ing a Solidworks laptop - GFX Card ?

So I found a couple models I can get with workstation graphics cards. NVIDIA Quadro line. However, it's the Quadro NVS 4200M, and 3000M

These are not listed at all on Solidworks graphics driver collection; http://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/videocardtesting.html

In fact, no "M" / Mobile graphics cards are. What the deuce?

Does anyone have any advice on Laptop gfx cards for Solidworks? I'll be running Blender and a couple CNC/CAM software packages, but I'm sure Solidworks will be the controlling factor.

(Searched the forum and results were either too old to be relevant or not related to 3d modeling :/ )

Have you tried contacting Solidworks?

Have you tried contacting Solidworks?

Not at all. It didn't really enter my mind as an option worth pursuing. Would that even be worth trying? Have you contacted them before?

I wouldn't even know what number to call.

I would call 1-800-693-9000 US and Canada.

What laptop are you getting? They do have M cards that are certified, you just need to select the model of laptop etc. first.

Looking at Dell M6600 and Lenovo Thinkpad T520

It appears that the clincher is OpenGL support.

The nvidia quadro nvs 4200M does support OpenGL 2.1 - so that's a good sign at least, assuming 2.1 is sufficient? I have no idea what the difference between OpenGL 2.1, 4.0, etc.

The nvidia quadro 3000M supports OpenGL 4.1 - which the boss tells me, it's all backward compatible, so to me, 4.1 seems to be the preferable way to go. Unfortunately that's the Dell which is $1800, versus the Thinkpad T-series which is $1200.

The Dell Latitude E6520 has the Quadro M1000 which supports OpenGL 4.1 with max 2GB onboard mem, as well. Seems much more affordable at a comaprable price to the Thinkpad. But the 1000M ain't on the SW list, though the 3000M is. :/

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=779315&CatId=17

Looks like this Lenovo w510 might be about the sweet spot, for me. Time to pitch it to the boss.

Sounds like a plan. Let us know how SW works on it.

I do some work for Solidbox who designs and sells desktop and laptops specifically for solidworks. You can check out there site and dig through the different levels they offer.

http://www.mysolidbox.com/solidworks/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1_8&zenid=ldbgn2askel8ocissq2sg2i5n5

the creative series are the lower ends stuff but they list all their specs.

I do some work for Solidbox who designs and sells desktop and laptops specifically for solidworks. You can check out there site and dig through the different levels they offer.

 

http://www.mysolidbox.com/solidworks/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1_8&zenid=ldbgn2askel8ocissq2sg2i5n5

 

the creative series are the lower ends stuff but they list all their specs.

Thanks, but with the "lower end" laptops being 2x what I paid for in that Lenovo, it's not even in consideration.

I'll likely have to throw a couple more sticks of RAM in the laptop I bought, but that's no biggie, if I decide it's necessary. The proc is able to be sped up, which I'm sure I'll want to do. Looking forward to it. I've spent time on a CAD computer with a gamer card, and do not wish to revisit those days - so I was more concerned about the gfx card.

I realize the price is high but i posted the link because they list all the specs there so you can look at what graphics cards they are choosing and what processors they run.

If you look at the nvidia site you can also see listings of laptops that use their cards.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadrofx_go.html

It looks like they list that lenovo with the quadro fx880M. I think that card will do just fine as long as you don't try to run SW with any photorealistic real time display on and dont need a lot of rendering done quickly. The line between a good CAD card and a great CAD card isnt very obvious. I think Blender will probably use up most of your graphics resources since you can tweak and tailor SW to run at different performance levels. If you need to do a lot of rendering and so on you might think about at least the W520 which has the quadro 1000M. Its almost twice the card in terms of how fast it will handle your renders over the fx880m

I thought rendering didn't have to do with the graphics card - just the processor and RAM. It's my understanding that the graphics card only handles graphics sent to the monitor, not written to file.

I thought rendering didn't have to do with the graphics card - just the processor and RAM. It's my understanding that the graphics card only handles graphics sent to the monitor, not written to file.

Well yes and no. It will depend on what program you are running and how you run it. these new graphics cards run a GPU. They use the cuda cores and onboard memory to do the graphical processing. Solidworks uses this for Realview(the GPU). I know some have used GPU for rendering in Blender and there are other programs like BunkSpeed shot that make use of this technology. I did a search for CUDA and blender and came across this. I didnt read through it all but it may be of some use to you.

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?98317-NVIDIA-Gelato&highlight=cuda%20gpu%20rendering

Yea, I forgot what people are doing / can do with the GPUs on some of those higher end cards. Makes sense.

This is the laptop i used... i ran inventor, blender, sketchup and a few other programs. Spec'd up this did the job

http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/precision-m4600/pd?refid=precision-m4600&baynote_bnrank=1&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteS&ST=+dell%20+precision%20+M4600&dgc=ST&cid=41142&lid=1069631&acd=1238374192205624

Sorry link didn't paste in!