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[ericncmfg]

What would be a good laptop to run x3?

We do alot of 3D and need something fast regen.

[Mike Gates from Barefoot CNC]

Welcome to the forum Eric. These guys are very computer savvy and there is a benchmark thread below that may have some info. They will chime in shortly to give you some good suggestions.

 

Personally I like Xeon dual or quad core processors, 4 gig ram, nvidia quadro fx video with at least 512mb. I have seen how much faster that system seams to run.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Dell M90 here. A lot of people bash Dell, but I've had nothing but good luck with them.

[iowajim62]

Get out your checkbook

 

These look like the fastest rockets now.

EUROCOM D901C PHANTOM-X

Dual Xeon Quad Core 12 mb cache

Up to 1.5 TB HDD in Raid 0/1/5

8800 GTX in SLI

on and on, check em out

 

http://www.eurocom.com/

[Hardmill]

Id have to agree with the M90.

 

Welcome to the forum

 

 

PEACE

[connormac]

I have a HP 17" wide screen. with XP Pro. Works good for me. Just make sure it has a good video card for CAD.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

I've got a Dell Precision M6300 Core 2 Extreme 2.8 GHz... mighy fine laptop, worth every penny.

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

There's a compamy called Sager that makes HiPerf laptops. I have a dual core AMD 3800 w/ Nvidia graphics, 17" screen, 1680x1050 res, built in port for every type of memory stick ever made, full numeric pad, full surround sound (5 speakers).

 

It's a real powerhouse. But It's Heavy and the power supply is big.

 

http://www.xoticpc.com

 

Mike Mattera

[Tim Martinez]

Here is what we suggest to our customers.

 

LAPTOP

Manufacturer Dell

Model Numbers Workstation Precision M2300, M4300, M6300

 

Processor Intel Core Duo or Core 2 Duo 1.66 GHz or higher

 

RAM 1 GB+, the more the better

 

Graphics Card NVIDIA Quadro FX w/256 Mb Video RAM or more

 

Screen Resolution 1280 x 1024 or better

Hard Drive 40 gb or more

 

CD/DVD Drive CD RW or DVD RW (for saving files and taking to another computer)

 

Mouse Optical w/Scroll

 

Operating System Windows XP Pro 32 Bit (Verisurf does not support Windows XP 64 bit or Vista at this time)

 

Office Software MS Office Basic or better

Network as required

 

Optional External Monitor (Adding a larger external monitor can make viewing from a distance easier.)(make sure monitor is compatible with graphics card, eg: VGI or DVI connection)

 

Regards and Welcome

 

Tim Martinez

[Jayson Kramer]

I am with James the M6300 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 (2.50GHz, 6M L2 Cache, 800MHz) Dual Core

4 gigs a ram. Nice laptop.

I had a sager for a while it was a brick.

It was 3.8 p4. I have to say at this time I like the Dell better. and it has the Quadro video to.

[RObert TImby]

i have a Dell M6300 from the refurb counter works great, love it and half the $$ with all the bells and whistles too. i run solid works 2008 and x3 with out a problem.

[ericncmfg]

On the Dell M6300? The video card it reads

512MB NVIDIA QUADRO FX 1600M TurboCache (256 MB descrete) Not sure what that means. DESCRETE.

 

It has 4GB d=DDR2 SDRAM 677MHz (2 DIMMS) and 2.5GHz 6M L2 Cache 800MHz

 

We are only using this for Master cam and to dnc from.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Don't worry about the descrete word. The FX1600 is a great card. You will be very happy. Do a search on the forum for "Quadro" and "Solidworks" as your key words. I've covered how to properly configure these cards for Mastercam numerous times.

 

HTH,

[Josh T™]

See my siggy

[Steve Hattori]

I have to agree with iowajim- the D901c is the fastest laptop on the market right now, and you can also get it with an SSD drive to make it even faster. It is a big, heavy laptop, though. That's the price you pay for using essentially all desktop components. But, you get a machine as fast as a desktop, and you can carry it around with you...

[iowajim62]

Steve,

 

i built(speced) one on there website with the

 

dual xeons 3.0Ghz 12 mb on chip cache

8 gig ram

3 150 gig ssd's

1 for windoze vista ultimate 64 bit

2 in raid 0

dual 8800 GTX SLI

dual batteries

 

it was ONLY $9800.00

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[A. Ing]

I recently purchased a Lenovo W500 Laptop

2.8GHz T9600 centrino 2,

ATI Fire GL V5700 with 512MB

4GB Ram (Vista32), (Supposedly Workstation Class)

 

I guess I should have read these forums first but didn’t know about them. I was having problems with the viewports in X3 and X2, and was able to fix it by turning off Hardware Acceleration form the advice of this forum (Thanks all!). Turning off hardware acceleration hardly sounds like an ideal situation, but I’m not too knowledgeable about computers.

 

Okay, the big question is this. The computer is still new, and I think I can return it and possibly purchase a Dell. Does that make sense? I was either going to purchase the Dell M4400 (latest 15.4” workstation class with Nvidea FX770) or the Lenovo W500 but Lenovo had a 2 day sale at the time so I bought it. About $400 less.

 

Anyway, is it wise to return the computer and pay an additional $400 for the dell so that I can use hardware acceleration? Just an X3 newbie playing with simple wireframe drawings for now, but want to work with solids.

[YoDoug®]

I have a Lenovo with the ATI fire GL5700 and most of my graphics problems are in ProE. My last puter had a Quadro Fx350 and I think the Fire GL is as good as that one was.

[NeilJ]

This technology, when it's available, will give notebook users more choices:

 

http://ati.amd.com/technology/xgp/index.html

[A. Ing]

Hi Doug, did you have to disable hardware acceleration? It's kind of annoying to have to do that when the mastercam site says its recommended to run full hardware acceleration. Mastercam seems to be behaving now, but then again, I am only goofing around with very simple drawings from a self learning book. If the drawings get more complicated, I am just wondering if I'm going to have future problems and I only have a short window to return the computer which I really don't want to but will if more experienced users think its a good idea.

 

Alan

[Greg Williams]

I have a Lenovo T60P with ATI Fire GL V5200 (512MB) 2gig ram running Xp SP3 Works fine with Solidworks and Mastercam

[A. Ing]

Okay, maybe its not the graphics card, my computer can switch between the ATI V5700 and some on board Intel graphics and I have the same viewport problem on either graphics adapter. If screen settings are on opengl, then I have to turn hardware acceleration off or I can switch to GDI instead of opengl and it seems to work.

[YoDoug®]

Look in the ATI control application. There should be preset definitions for different CAD applications. I normally keep mine set to the Solidworks settings.