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need to buy a new laptop, which one is best for mastercam


fdbarajas
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i have an old laptop that i have been using to teach myself mastercam. 

i'm at a point where my video card and old laptop can't keep up with the requirements of the mastercam program. i'm considering one of these: 

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16834233190 

 

https://www.newegg.com/p/1TS-000D-02F47 

 

https://www.newegg.com/black-gf-series-msi-gf63-gaming-entertainment/p/1TS-0016-00725 

 

i don't want to make the wrong purchase.  if these won't work, can anyone post a link to a laptop that will support mastercam? 

 

thank you

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I just searched the Dell Outlet Store, and there are a ton of laptops that are in your price range, that will also be great options for getting real performance out of Mastercam.

Here is an example of the Price/Specs I found:

 
Original Price$2,696.00
Total Savings$1,078.00
 
  • Precision M7530 
    $2,696.00$1,618.00

  •  
  • Tech Specs
  • Intel Core 8th Generation i7-8750H Processor (6 Core,2.20GHz,9MB Cache,45W)
  • Windows 10 Pro
  • 512GB PCIe M.2 NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive
  • 64GB (4x16GB) 2666MHz DDR4 SDRAM Non-ECC
  • 15.6inch UltraSharp FHD (1920x1080) IPS Anti-Glare Non-Touch 72% color gamut LCD
  • NVIDIA Quadro P1000 4GB GDDR5
  • Dell Outlet Precision M7530
  • 1 in stock
  • Certified Refurbished
    Windows 64 Bit
    LCD Bezel Non-Touch with Camera and Microphone
    97Whr, 6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery with ExpressCharge
    Intel Wireless-AC 9260, Dual-band 2x2 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MU-MIMO + Bluetooth 5
    Internal Dual Pointing Non-Backlit Keyboard
    Palmrest with SmartCard Reader Only
    125V Power Cord
    180W AC Adapter
    Thermal Pad with Fan for Nvdia Graphic cards
    WLAN/WWAN Back Cover
  •  
  • Standard ShippingFREE
  • Outlet Price$1,618.00
  •  
  • PR M7530 : 3 Years Hardware Service with Onsite Service After Remote DiagnosisINCLUDED
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And another:

 
Original Price$2,793.00
Total Savings$1,117.00
 
Tech Specs
  • Intel Core 8th Generation i7-8750H Processor (6 Core,2.20GHz,9MB Cache,45W)
  • Windows 10 Pro
  • 512GB PCIe M.2 NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive
  • 64GB (4x16GB) 2666MHz DDR4 SDRAM Non-ECC
  • 15.6inch UltraSharp FHD (1920x1080) IPS Touch 72% color gamut with Camera and Mic
  • NVIDIA Quadro P1000 4GB GDDR5
  • Dell Outlet Precision M7530
  • Certified Refurbished
    Windows 64 Bit
    97Whr, 6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery with ExpressCharge
    Intel Wireless-AC 9260, Dual-band 2x2 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MU-MIMO + Bluetooth 5
    Internal Dual Pointing Non-Backlit Keyboard
    Palmrest with SmartCard Reader Only
    125V Power Cord
    180W AC Adapter
    Thermal Pad with Fan for Nvdia Graphic cards
  •  
  • Standard ShippingFREE
  • Outlet Price$1,676.00
  •  
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Here is one that is a bit out of your price range, but it is a 17" model, and it has an amazing graphics card:

 
Original Price$3,737.00
Total Savings$1,495.00
 
  • Precision M7730 
    $3,737.00$2,242.00

  • Tech Specs:
  • Intel Core 8th Generation i7-8750H Processor (6 Core,2.20GHz,9MB Cache,45W)
  • Windows 10 Pro
  • 512GB PCIe M.2 NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive
  • 64GB (4x16GB) 2666MHz DDR4 SDRAM Non-ECC
  • 17.3Inch HD+ (1600x900) TN Anti-Glare Non-Touch 42% color gamut LCD
  • NVIDIA Quadro P4200 8GB GDDR5
  • Dell Outlet Precision M7730
  • 1 in stock
  • Certified Refurbished
    Windows 64 Bit
    Bezel with No Camera No Microphone
    97Whr, 6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery with ExpressCharge
    Intel Wireless-AC 9260, Dual-band 2x2 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MU-MIMO + Bluetooth 5
    Internal Dual Pointing Backlit Keyboard
    Palmrest with SmartCard Reader Only
    125V Power Cord
    240W AC Adapter
    Thermal Heatsink with Fan for NVDIA N18E-Q1 and Q3 graphic card
    WLAN/WWAN Back Cover
  •  
  • Standard ShippingFREE
  • Outlet Price$2,242.00
  •  
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12 hours ago, fdbarajas said:

i looked up the Dell and it was out of my price range. it was priced at around $2500. 

my budget is around $1700. 

Spend more now to avoid having to upgrade in a year from now. My laptop is over 3 years old and still handles Mastercam well.

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2 hours ago, fdbarajas said:

when a laptop is classified as "refurbished", i get that it's used. 

how beat up are these machines? is there an industry standard that the sellers must adhere to when classifying these PCs?

 

I have bought 3 separate 'refurbished' models, and all appeared brand new when they arrived from Dell. I did buy one "scratch and dent" model, which was probably a showroom model, and it was essentially perfect, except for about a 1" scratch/dent in the laptop lid. The screen worked perfectly, so I had no complaints. The refurbished models should look like they came from the factory. You might see a key or two on the keyboard with a little wear, but I have been very pleased, and enjoy the 30-40% discount off the retail prices.

The last PC I posted was $3,737 new, and $2,242 through the outlet store.  ($3,737 x .6 = $2,242.)

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+1 to the Dell referbs. I run a M6800 that was fully optioned out, that I use solely at home that was a referb. Mcam is the only thing on it and it smokes my Precision 5520 that I use for work. Which was about 3 times the cost of the referb M6800. 

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i've done a bit of reading. i understand now why the NVIDIA Quadro is suggested here.  not all video cards are created equal. 

i'm learning stuff every day. 

i plan to use this computer solely for CAD. no general internet use. 

thank you all for taking time to respond. 

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ordered a laptop. my wife was supportive of the idea... which made life much easier. 

should arrive next week. 

refurbished:

Processor: Intel Xeon E-2176M Processor (6 Core, 2.70 GHz, 12MB Cache, 45W)

OS: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations (4 Cores Plus)


Memory: 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4 2666MHz SDRAM Non-ECC Memory


Hard Drive: 2TB PCIe M.2 NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive

Video: NVIDIA Quadro P3200 6GB GDDR5

Battery: 97Whr, 6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery with ExpressCharge 


i spent a little more than i expected: $2600 but if this works as i hope it will, i should not have to worry about another laptop purchase for a long time. 

 

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On 7/11/2019 at 5:02 PM, fdbarajas said:

ordered a laptop. my wife was supportive of the idea... which made life much easier. 

should arrive next week. 

refurbished:

Processor: Intel Xeon E-2176M Processor (6 Core, 2.70 GHz, 12MB Cache, 45W)

OS: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations (4 Cores Plus)


Memory: 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4 2666MHz SDRAM Non-ECC Memory


Hard Drive: 2TB PCIe M.2 NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive

Video: NVIDIA Quadro P3200 6GB GDDR5

Battery: 97Whr, 6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery with ExpressCharge 


i spent a little more than i expected: $2600 but if this works as i hope it will, i should not have to worry about another laptop purchase for a long time. 

 

Money very well spent, that will pay immediate dividends in terms of fast calculations. 

You mentioned "solely for CAD" in one of your posts. If you are driving Mastercam, make sure you edit the Configuration File. Under the 'Toolpaths' page, make sure you change 'ram utilization' to 90%. I like to leave at least 8 Gb for Windows to run, but if you aren't running anything besides Mastercam, then I'd bump it to 94%.

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On 7/11/2019 at 9:03 AM, fdbarajas said:

i've done a bit of reading. i understand now why the NVIDIA Quadro is suggested here.  not all video cards are created equal. 

i'm learning stuff every day. 

i plan to use this computer solely for CAD. no general internet use. 

thank you all for taking time to respond. 

Since you got a laptop with 64 Gb of RAM, Windows by default will designate 64 Gb of your Harddrive for the Page File (virtual memory). Since you have a 2 Terabyte SSD, this is probably just fine, since you have so much storage space. If you only had a 256 Gb drive, I would recommend reducing the Page File manually, and setting it to 32 Gb or less. With 64 Gb on tap, Mastercam should really not need to swap address space very often, and if it does, the fact you are running an SSD will make the I/O processing very quickly.

 

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16 hours ago, Colin Gilchrist said:

Money very well spent, that will pay immediate dividends in terms of fast calculations. 

You mentioned "solely for CAD" in one of your posts. If you are driving Mastercam, make sure you edit the Configuration File. Under the 'Toolpaths' page, make sure you change 'ram utilization' to 90%. I like to leave at least 8 Gb for Windows to run, but if you aren't running anything besides Mastercam, then I'd bump it to 94%.

that is correct. this new system is going to be solely for mastercam.  i don't plan on this ever going online either unless i have to for CAD reasons. 

can you post a screen shot of the configuration steps? i know some software things but not enough to follow your post. 

thank you

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laptop arrived.  it arrived as advertised. 6GB memory on the Nvidia Quadro card, 64GB RAM etc. 

 

installed my mastercam disk. won't have time to play until later. 

note: the software on the disk that came with my book reminded me the demo ends in 14 days. i'm bummed about that. 

can i order a version that does not expire? i prefer a disk versus downloading. 

 

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On 7/12/2019 at 7:50 PM, Colin Gilchrist said:

Since you got a laptop with 64 Gb of RAM, Windows by default will designate 64 Gb of your Harddrive for the Page File (virtual memory). Since you have a 2 Terabyte SSD, this is probably just fine, since you have so much storage space. If you only had a 256 Gb drive, I would recommend reducing the Page File manually, and setting it to 32 Gb or less. With 64 Gb on tap, Mastercam should really not need to swap address space very often, and if it does, the fact you are running an SSD will make the I/O processing very quickly.

 

Wouldn't the IO count put unnecessary wear on the SSD? Why not use RAM alone? or create a RAM Disk and assign the pagefile to that drive instead?

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the laptop is pretty darn nice! i'm a believer in refurbished computers. 

i looked at this site for the mastercam software. but it seems even the ones offered here are "demo" with a limited shelf life. am i missing something here? 

thank you for replying NOTW Programmer. i'm not sure how to perform the tasks you outlined. i will yahoo it and do some research. 

 

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23 hours ago, fdbarajas said:

i looked at this site for the mastercam software. but it seems even the ones offered here are "demo" with a limited shelf life. am i missing something here? 

You can download the Home Learning Addition from Mastercam.com

https://www.mastercam.com/support/education-resources/#free-student-software

This link is for MC2019, MC2020 is not available yet but should be available soon

I believe it will run for 18 months. It will not post gcode 

For that you need to purchase a copy

 https://www.mastercam.com/find-a-reseller/

 

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On 7/20/2019 at 6:04 PM, gcode said:

You can download the Home Learning Addition from Mastercam.com

https://www.mastercam.com/support/education-resources/#free-student-software

This link is for MC2019, MC2020 is not available yet but should be available soon

I believe it will run for 18 months. It will not post gcode 

For that you need to purchase a copy

 https://www.mastercam.com/find-a-reseller/

 

thank you for the links. 

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