AutoCAD suitable laptop for a Mechanical Engineering freshman

[BenG54]

Hi everyone,

 

I’m starting my Mechanical Engineering degree this fall. I want to practice AutoCAD a bit before starting and get a basic understanding of it. I want to buy a laptop with a budget of 2,000-3,000 USD.

 

I am currently looking at the MacBook Pro with the M5 chip and 32GB of RAM. I've seen that it recently beaten RTX5090 GPU in blender and I've heard a lot of praise fot Unified Memory, but I’m concerned about how that translates to a professional engineering workflow, specifically for:

 

AutoCAD: I plan to do both 2D drafting and 3D modeling. I know a native macOS version exists, but are there critical missing features compared to the Windows version?

 

I'm thinking about choosing between Mac Pro M5 or a Windows Workstation/Gaming Laptop with a discrete RTX 50-series GPU.

 

I’d love to hear from anyone who has used Macs for AutoCAD or from Windows users who used a discrete GPU setup. Is the M5’s power enough for AutoCAD and if 32GB RAM is good for basic 3D, or should I just stick to a native Windows machine?

 

Thanks in advance!

[SLW210]

AutoCAD for Windows has more features than AutoCAD for Mac.

 

Compare Features: AutoCAD for Windows against AutoCAD for Mac

 

 

[BIGAL]

Like @SLW210 I think you would be better off with a Windows Intel PC. Other CAD software that has MAC software is often reported as having niggly problems. Until there is a true MAC OS based say Autocad those problems may continue, in saying that there are some true MAC CAD programs out there.

 

Autocad MAC has existed for like 30 years and still no true native version.