I am a new robotics team member, and our designer is graduating this year. Next year I would really like to learn cad and have my own computer to run cad on. I have been told in only runs on windows. Any recommendations on the best cheaper ($300 to maybe $600) computers to run it on? Better yet, can you even run cad on that cheap a computer?
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What CAD?
You can run OnShape on a chrome book.
Solidworks struggles on my 8GB RAM i3 processor laptop
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Investigate OnShape. It’s the least resource intensive software while still maintaining an excellent toolset. Many teams have made the switch to it, mine included. I use CAD professionally and believe OnShape is a great tool for FRC.
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OnShape does not run well on a Chrome Book. You’ll easily be waiting 10 minutes to render a robot in a Chrome Book.
I recommend any Dell Thinkpad or Inspiron with at least 8GB of RAM, and an SSD. You can usually find one for sub-500$.
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I would recommended getting a used computer. Specifically a business class desktop or laptop. Anything that’s an Intel Gen 8 or newer that can support Win 11 - you can still use Win 10 for another 2 years til MS’s EOL on 10 if they don’t extend it. Depending on the specific CAD SW, you might need one that has a discrete graphics.
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As others have said, OnShape is a popular option within the FRC community. It has most of the basic fundamentals other programs have, and there are enough general and FRC-specific resources to learn from. For this, like Daltz said earlier, anything with 8GB of RAM and an SSD will probably do. If you plan on keeping this PC for a while, I’d look into a RAM upgrade to 16GB at some point.
If you need (or want) to use programs like SolidWorks, I’d argue that something used/refurbished would better suit your needs, especially given the budget. A refurb precision workstation tower or P-series ThinkPad with discrete GPUs will provide a better CAD experience than a brand-new machine within the same price point. It’s also the more environmentally-conscious choice since buying used = fewer things being manufactured. Shopping for used PCs is definitely a risk, but so long as you do business with a reputable reseller/refurbisher you should be fine.
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Thank for the reply! I will definitely look into those options. Plus if this computers can keep being used, then im willing to spend extra on it. Again, i appreciate it!
Thanks for the reply, as I would be heading to college soon-ish, I would continue using it for awhile. Would 16gb RAM be enough for that? Also graphics cards, are they important? Again, thank you so much!
I’d recommend 16gb of DDR4 on a Ryzen 3-5000 in the lower end and a used rx6600 that’s around 600$ but you can find the parts for less and will last several years.
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Oh, okay, I was under the impression that worked.
I know I’ve run OnShape on a Celeron and 4GB of RAM and it was fine.
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One thing I forgot to add, if you don’t have a second monitor, a larger screen is very nice to have.
Right now, 8GB is considered the bare minimum if you want to get anything done, and people recommend 16 in the name of longevity, so I’d say 16GB will be enough.
As for the graphics card, in layman’s terms, it handles displaying stuff on screen. For CAD and other applications where smooth 3D rendering is required, a graphics card (which has dedicated video memory to store data rather than having to rely on the computer’s system memory to store data) will be extremely helpful. As for which graphics card to use, it’s entirely dependent on your use case, so looking at system requirements for any specific program you want to run will help.
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Several years ago maybe, but these days 16gb is more like the minimum and 32gb is what you go for if you want extreme longevity. It is easy to exceed 8gb of ram when running anything more than a few browser tabs, and 16gb of ram can be exceeded if you are not good at closing programs/tabs you aren’t actively using.
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I was running Inventor on 4 GB 2 years ago. Currently run it on 8 GB. Also, you can have a lot of tabs open on 8 or even 4. Only issue I’ve had with 8 or 4 is my school wifi speed.
In used laptops, the HP Zbook 15 G3 has a good performance to price ratio. I picked one up on eBay with a fast i7, 512 SSD, 32GB RAM, Quadro, and 4K screen for under $400 about a year ago. It runs Solidworks and HSMWorks just fine.
You may get better battery life out of something newer though. Look for a fast processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and if Solidworks, dedicated graphics. If Inventor, dedicated graphics doesn’t matter as much, but I’d stick with an Intel CPU. If Onshape, then just about anything will work. No matter what you do, I’d recommend a Full HD (1920x1080) screen. Some Solidworks stuff is still annoying on a 4K screen.
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For any serious engineering tasks, you’re probably right. I just wanted to play it safe with recommendations since OP still seems uncertain about their budget and I wasn’t too comfortable with recommending something that’ll immediately hit the upper end of the range they gave.
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my pc 
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My go-to for people that want to get into the world of “real” CAD (SW, NX, Creo 
, etc) is a used business-class desktop and slap a used, low-tier Quadro in it.
I’ve drag raced otherwise identical PCs with a P2200 and a GTX1080. The “puny” Quadro beats the theoretically more capable consumer GPU handedly in the SolidWorks benchmarks.
Single core CPU performance is king for modeling, so you can rank used machines by that primarily.
It’s pretty easy to put together a CAD setup with that strategy for ~$500 that will beat something twice the price and gaming optimized.
Laptops on the other hand…yeah just get a gaming laptop. I don’t think you can get a laptop with a Quadro for under $1k new.
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I’ve done this even with consumer desktops. Quadro K620 is pretty decent performance at a pretty reasonable price. Coupled with 16GB RAM and an SSD, Solidworks runs just dandy even on a 6th gen fast i5.
Another strategy is find an enterprise desktop that will take ECC RAM and/or has more RAM slots to use more modules at a lower density. You can often get ECC RAM and/or smaller modules much cheaper than non-ECC RAM and larger modules, due to lower demand. I was able to put 4 systems at 32 Gigs each for around $120 total.
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I also stand behind the used/refurbished business-class PCs group. I’m partial to thinkpads/thinkstations specifically, but the Dell and HP equivalents should also serve you well.
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Go with 16gb and a i7 if you can. I am using solidworks and that is pretty good for it. Intel is a lot better then Ryzen for solidworks and CAD platforms. If you can get it in your budget I would go for a discret graphics card. If you do not think you will be using massive assemblies then a iris Xe platform will work fine. Added benefit is you can use solidworks and Onshape then if you have a higher speced computer. Oh, and gat a clock speed of 3.2 or higher
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