Recommended CAD laptops?

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Any modern computer will run CAD in a basic sense. But once you get into advanced work and large assemblies, you need something more powerful.

I've recently spec'd this particular HP laptop for my first-year classes, since I'm required to buy out of the HP business line. We currently run on HP EliteDesk 800 G1 machines with i5-4570 processors, 8GB of RAM, and integraded Intel HD4600 graphics. It's totally fine for what we do in this first year class, and it's still workable for more advanced work as needed. We do basic work in Autodesk Inventor 2015. An HP Z-book would be preferred, but this particular 650 G1 laptop is superior in some ways, such as the faster processor and a 10-key number section on the keyboard, and it's considerably cheaper than a Z-book. An SSD is preferred, but I'll live with the 7200 RPM spinning disk. If I were buying one laptop just for team use, I'd have other manufacturers and more choices. Laptops in the consumer line are often better performance for less money than business-class laptops.

If I were buying a laptop today, I absolutely would not get anything without a 1920x1080 screen. 1366x768 just doesn't cut it for CAD, and the jump in screen resolution is really where the dividing line is in laptop prices in the market. Also, today, I probably would either get or put an SSD in anything I buy. It's a big performance difference.

I've run Inventor 2013 with full robot models on an i5-2450m with 8GB of RAM and the on-die Intel HD3000 graphics and it was fine. I had about $500 into that machine about 2-3 years ago. Not stellar, but completely usable with Inventor 2013. Inventor 2015 has higher system requirements.

There's really three things you need for CAD:

A fast CPU (the higher the clock speed the better)
A ton of RAM
A great graphics card

and if you have an SSD, that's icing on the cake. And really, they've gotten cheap enough nowadays where I wouldn't build or buy any new system without one. You'll never go back to a spinning disk.

On CPU's, there are some interesting and unfavorable trends taking place as of currently. As the manufacturing process gets smaller, the clock speeds are actually getting slower, and although new technologies are allowing for more instructions per clock cycle, certain newer CPUs are actually slower than their older counterparts. The emphasis in CPUs over the past year has been economy and efficiency, not necessarily performance. Intel has been putting out a lot of CPUs with low clock speeds that draw a very low amount of power, to pack into devices with small batteries while maintaining all-day run times. Certain 5th-gen Core-iX series CPUs are slower than their 4th-gen predecessors, and certain 4th-gen Core-iX series CPUs are slower than their 3rd-gen predecessors. If there's a U in the part number like i5-4200U, it's underclocked. Now clock speed isn't everything. Really, you need to look at a benchmark, like from Passmark. And look at the single-thread rating, as most CAD work is single-threaded, unless you are rendering. Only recently has CAD moved into the realm of multi-threading many of the routine tasks and functions. You'll be better off with a fast dual core processor, rather than a slower quad core.

For desktops, it's hard to beat the previous generation HP Z series workstations. Media companies are offloading them by the pallet-fulls after buying new generation ones, and they're all over eBay for reasonable prices. Even though they're a few years old, they're still rock-star workstations for the price. The Z400 with the Xeon X3565 processor is where I found the sweet spot between performance and value. Check out a listing like this or this. Both have 12 gigs of RAM in triple channel, which is a great performance boost. The second one I liked has a water cooler and an SSD in addition to a 2TB spinning disk. The first one has a Quadro 2000 card which is slightly better than the Quadro FX3800 in the system with the SSD. If you watch eBay regularly, I bet you can swing one about $100 cheaper than either of these listings. I did. Be careful to look only for systems with Windows 7 CofAs included on them, unless you have extra Windows licenses sitting around, or you plan to buy one. Some of the Z400s are sold with a Windows 7 license, some without. You may also want to look at Z200, Z210, Z220, Z600, etc.

If you're looking to assemble and customize yourself, one of the best values in computing right now is the Lenovo TS140. It's $224 with 4GB RAM and no HDD, $484 with 16GB RAM and a 1TB spinning disk. Either way, throw in a Quadro K620 or a FirePro card for about $160 and you've got a rockin CAD workstation. Keep in mind though, the Lenovo TS140 does not come with a Windows license like the HP Z400 systems I linked above. You would have to provide that here.

For the year 2015, any new CAD system I recommend 8GB of RAM to do basic work. To work with a full robot model, 16GB of RAM.

On graphics cards, it really depends on which application you plan to use. Solidworks is Open GL and you'll be better off with a workstation-class graphics card such as a FirePro or Quadro. On the Autodesk side of things, it's all Direct X, and will perform very well on a gaming-class card, and acceptably on Intel HD graphics. However, I will mention that Autodesk only certifies workstation class cards, not gaming cards.

To outfit a brand new school lab with business-class desktops for some serious and fast CAD, animation, and simulation work without totally blowing the bank, here's what I'd recommend as of today.

Finally, don't skimp out on the monitor. You don't have to go totally overboard, but something like dual 24" 1920x1080 displays is really where it's at if you can fit them on the desk. If you can only fit one monitor, perhaps look into a single 27" 2560x1440, or perhaps a 29" ultrawide at 2560x1080, or one of the new beautiful 34" Ultrawides at 3440x1440, but that'll cost ya. It's hard to beat dual 22-24" widescreens at 1920x1080 for screen real-estate and size versus value. I'd stay away from 4K monitors at this point in time. Everybody says get an IPS panel, and I own some, and they're nice, but honestly I use a TN all day every day and it serves me just fine, and it's cheaper.

On the bottom line here, if ~$300 really is all the budget you have to work with, and it really must be a laptop, get the fastest Core i3 you can find in your budget. We have several Acer laptops that we've been very happy with.

If you're affiliated with a school, you can do a project on DonorsChoose to get a laptop, but it will take a little longer.