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Looking for a laptop... with black friday coming..

R

rb1

Cast Iron
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
Location
AB, Canada
I need a laptop... something I can do my CAD/CAM with from home or on the road. I am considering using something like team viewer to directly control my shop cad/cam computer from said laptop... but would still like something powerful enough that I can run those programs directly from the laptop (without logging in).

I have Alibre and OneCNC XR4... and I have only used desktop computers with those programs.

Seeing as black friday sales are going to be out, and the fact that I am not a "computer guy" who knows what the specs need to be by looking at an ad... I was hoping someone here would suggest a good laptop for my needs that I can look out for in the flyers, TIA!!
 
I feel your pain....
My job is 75% done on the computer. I have no knowledge of what represents a good computer as opposed to a shitty one. Best advice I can give you.....talk to someone at the company of whatever cad/cam you use and ask them for a spec. sheet, then go talk to a computer geek at the store and ask him/her which model fits the bill.
 
toolsteel said:
I feel your pain....
My job is 75% done on the computer. I have no knowledge of what represents a good computer as opposed to a shitty one. Best advice I can give you.....talk to someone at the company of whatever cad/cam you use and ask them for a spec. sheet, then go talk to a computer geek at the store and ask him/her which model fits the bill.
Click to expand...

Just a little tidbit from experience, try for double the RAM that the minimum requirements state (For Solidworks its 8GB, I went with 16 after 8 was too slow)

the requirements that you will be given are MINIMUM, meaning that the program will run, but barely... after that its all up to your budget.
 
Hardened said:
No time to go into details, but you won't find anything shady or not worth your money on NewEgg. Anything classified as a gaming laptop will have more Video Ram and even a dedicated GPU instead of piggybacking on the CPU. Just a quick glance, this may well fit your needs ASUS 15.6" FHD F55VX-NH76 Intel Core i7 67HQ (2.6 GHz) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 95M 8 GB Memory 128 GB SSD 1 TB HDD Windows 1 Home 64-Bit Gaming Laptop - "ONLY @ NEWEGG"-Newegg.com
Click to expand...

ASUS builds good stuff, I own a desktop and a laptop from them. For CAD/CAM, you're going to want as much VRAM as you can get, 960M has 2GB, 970M has 3GB, and 980M has 4GB. Naturally more is costlier. I have a ASUS G752VT with the 970M card for the freelance SolidWorks stuff I do from home. It can handle it unless I pull up a huge assembly.
 
At my last programming gig I ran OneCNC for milling and turning, though mostly milling. Some 4th axis work. I used Solidworks for modeling.

I had a Lenovo Thinkpad of some sort. It was fucking awesome. It worked as fast as I ever wanted, was easily portable, and had real workstation hardware. I narrowed it down to that model when putting in the purchase req because it had a workstation graphics card. I've been burned with shitty graphics cards in the past and knew that I especially wanted to avoid 'onboard graphics' type setups.

Check out a Thinkpad P series. Oh, also, I went for the 17" screen. I'm not seeing that in a T series right now, just a bigger-price P series which might be worth the cost. I don't know. I didn't want a 14 or 15" screen because I knew it'd just piss me off. I think I could get by with a 15.6" if it had a good, high resolution. I had a T Series before, but now it looks like the only 'workstation' they offer is their P series. You can get a Quadro card in their P Series laptops, and 3K 15.5" displays.

They were true, mobile workstations. It was my sole computer. If I was at a desk, I just plugged it in and used it with a mouse like a regular computer. But I could also take it with me, work at home, at a hotel, next to a mill, wherever.
 
Be careful buying "Black Friday" electronics.

I had it stuck in my ass on a "Black Friday" 50inch high-def LCD TV and a laptop for my daughter a couple years ago. At the time I did not know that companies manufacturer products of lesser quality specifically for that day. Inferior components in a outside shell that looks identical to the every day products sold throughout the year.

I later read where it's a good idea to do a search on the product number on that item and see if the only time that particular product is offered is black Friday then chances are there is a reason for a big reduced price on that day.

Brent

Edit: I didn't realize this thread was the cad/cam board when I posted. You guys know computers.
 
rb1 said:
I need a laptop... something I can do my CAD/CAM with from home or on the road. I am considering using something like team viewer to directly control my shop cad/cam computer from said laptop... but would still like something powerful enough that I can run those programs directly from the laptop (without logging in).

I have Alibre and OneCNC XR4... and I have only used desktop computers with those programs.

Seeing as black friday sales are going to be out, and the fact that I am not a "computer guy" who knows what the specs need to be by looking at an ad... I was hoping someone here would suggest a good laptop for my needs that I can look out for in the flyers, TIA!!
Click to expand...

Depends on your budget

$800
$1200
$1500
$2000


Add like 15% for CANADA

You don't want a black friday special laptop most are junk and oem made them for the sale unless you match the model numbers


Currently I use 15.4 MSI GHOST PRO which is thin and light "gaming machine" loaded two SSD's and I7
 
Rewt said:
ASUS builds good stuff, I own a desktop and a laptop from them. For CAD/CAM, you're going to want as much VRAM as you can get, 960M has 2GB, 970M has 3GB, and 980M has 4GB. Naturally more is costlier. I have a ASUS G752VT with the 970M card for the freelance SolidWorks stuff I do from home. It can handle it unless I pull up a huge assembly.
Click to expand...

Some 970m have 6gb
Some 980m have 8gb

Because my ghost pro has 970m with 6gb
 
m98custom1212 said:
Depends on your budget

$800
$1200
$1500
$2000


Add like 15% for CANADA

You don't want a black friday special laptop most are junk and oem made them for the sale unless you match the model numbers


Currently I use 15.4 MSI GHOST PRO which is thin and light "gaming machine" loaded two SSD's and I7
Click to expand...

A gaming laptop that costs $1337 lol
 
m98custom1212 said:
Depends on your budget

$800
$1200
$1500
$2000


Add like 15% for CANADA

You don't want a black friday special laptop most are junk and oem made them for the sale unless you match the model numbers


Currently I use 15.4 MSI GHOST PRO which is thin and light "gaming machine" loaded two SSD's and I7
Click to expand...

Sorry you made a mistake add 50% for us in Canada because we love getting screwed!!!
 
Coming from an IT perspective of 18 years. I would bypass black Friday all together. (you all ways get what you pay for in electronics) on Black Friday.
I will make this short and sweet. You get what you pay for! If you look on the component level of the PC you are buying, you all ways find something that is really out of date. IE: Front side buss on the mother board that really does not allow you to upgrade later, you cant find replacement parts, its cheap. you get the idea.

Simple guide:
1. What are you application needs IE: cadcam software: they always list requirements.
2. I usually stick to a vendor like Dell, HP, etc. (I do like what Asus is selling! Hint hint.)
3. Buy the biggest fastest processor, and motherboard you can.
4. Leave room for up grades. Ram, HDD/SDD, graphics cards, etc.
5. Laptops - you can usually always upgrade ram, and HDD/SDD or external. A little 50 gb SSD is sweet! with network/cloud storage.
6. Laptops - Also consider combos: some times a strong desktop pc + thin fast small notebook combo is cheeper that a top of the line gaming laptop.
 
 
Agreed, in general, stay away from generic Black Friday laptops. Look to standard lines from reputable companies. Dell has both an XPS line and a Precision line, and they're both fully capable of meeting your needs. If you intend for the laptop to actually be portable, the XPS line is a pretty sweet combination of performance and portability.
 
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