X1400 or NVS 110M for solidworks usage

I do NO gaming what so ever, but do a large amount of cad work. I am working on a limited budget, so the e1505 or a 820 is all that I can afford. I read some where that the 110M was the same as a 7400 (or 7300). Will this be sufficient for solidworks 3d usage or would the ATI be a better choice.

Cheers!

 

if you going to be doing serious cad work with it, I would hold off if you could till you can afford a system with a quadro or firegl card, the geforce and radeon cards are entertainment cards, they are not capeable of precison renderering, and are not supported by the major rendering apps, they may work to a point, but they will be slow, inaccurate, and if you need support on the software side, your sol, as they arent supported chipsets

 

I agree in the long run it will be much better if you hold off for a better system

 

Better try a Precision for that kind of use.

 

Yeah....I know that I will be missing the realview portion of the rendering aspects of solidworks, but I think that I can get by with it. My normal design work is done on my desktop machine with a low end firegl, and would be using the NB for when I am out of town, just wanted to see which one would be better for the task, the ATI or the Nvidia. Thanks for the help guys!

 

whats your budget?, have you tried looking at dell outlet? I just did a quick search through there and found this



M70 Notebook
(System Identifier: 0G7TB1EA)


Precision M70 Notebook: Pentium M Processor 750 (1.86GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533FSB)15.4 WXGA LCD
Genuine Windows XP Pro

System Price : $789.00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Operating System
Genuine Windows XP Pro
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Memory
512 MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz (2 DIMMs)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hard Disk Drive
60 GB EIDE Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Video
256MB nVidia Quadro FX Go 1400
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Modem
Internal 56Kbps. Modem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Certified Refurbished
Certified Refurbished
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Base
Precision M70 Notebook: Pentium M Processor 750 (1.86GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533FSB)15.4 WXGA LCD
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Media Bay
24X Max Variable CD ROM Drive
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Network Interface Card
2200 Wireless Card
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NoteBook Screen
15.4 inch WXGA Notebook Screen
Software
AOL ISP Software
Operating System Software CD
Software CD
AOL 9.0 ISP Software
Software
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Misc
90W AC Adapter
Base Assembly
No Resource CD
AOL Software Documentation
No Floppy Drive
9 Cell Battery
Keyboard on Notebook
Shipping Material
Shipping Material

thats just one example, I got my e1505 through the outlet and am very happy with it

 

Yeah I have been watching the dell outlet, however, I want to stay with a Core Duo model for future upgradeability.

 

Just in case you didn't know. The main differences between the garden variety video cards and the pro cad ones are pretty much the drivers and the clock.

The pro cards have drivers to support all the open gl and other cad specific things and are clocked a little lower for what I'm guessing is stability purposes.

There are even ways to take a gaming part, such as a Geforce series of cards and make them into a quardo with either a hardware mod, or software like
rivatuner.

I tried to find details on how this could be done on a laptop, but I coudn't find any . Figured it would be good to know anyways since they might come out with a newer version of the software to do this.

So what's the point? If you can get a GeForce series laptop for something considerably less than the Quadro part I'd go for it unless you really need to Quardro functionality.

Mike

 

if I was getting a laptop to primarily do 3d modelling, I would definately get one equipped to do so, if your getting it for general use, with some minor cad work, a consumer level card could get you by, but I'd still hold out for a workstation class machine if I were you

 

you never stated your budget, but heres a really good deal

Latitude D620
(System Identifier: FXDGEL5M)


Latitude D620 Notebook: Intel Core Duo T2400 (1.83GHz) 667Mhz Dual Core
Genuine Windows XP Pro

System Price : $999.00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Operating System
Genuine Windows XP Pro
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Memory
1 GB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz (2 DIMMs)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hard Disk Drive
80 GB EIDE SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Video
256MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 110M TurboCache
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Certified Refurbished
Certified Refurbished
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Base
Latitude D620 Notebook: Intel Core Duo T2400 (1.83GHz) 667Mhz Dual Core
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Media Bay
8x DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Network Interface Card
1390 Wireless Card
Bluetooth Wireless Card
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NoteBook Screen
14.1 inch WXGA+ Notebook Screen
Software
Software CD
Power DVD Software
DVD Software
Service Software
McAfee Security Center with VirusScan, Firewall, Spyware Removal, 15-months
Resource CD
AOL ISP Software
Operating System Software CD
Software CD
Dell 964 Printer Driver
AOL 9.0 ISP Software
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Misc
90W Additional AC Adapter
9 Cell Primary Battery
Keyboard On Notebook
Shipping Material
Quick Reference Guide
Labeling
AOL Software Documentation
No Floppy Drive
Processor Label
Touchpad-Standard
Dell Configuration, Format 2nd partition to NTFS
90W AC Adapter
Shipping Material

 

You can't do this with laptop models. If you're working with 3d models, get a quadro. All there is about it.

 

I am currently getting a notebook with a X1400 for drafting and engineering..after reading this thread it sounds like I will regret it?

 

you might want to consider cancelling and getting something more suited for your needs, the x1400 is an entertainment card, not a professional rendering card

 

It depends on your needs. The Geforces and Radeons do work with these programs, but they won't show some things that the Quadro/FireGL would show but unless you know what you're looking for, you really wouldn't know. So it's really up to what you're going to use your computer for. In the case of specializing on using applications such as Maya or Solidworks to bring food to the table (meaning that is what you're going to use at work) then go for the Geforce/Radeon, if else choose Quadro/FireGL.

 

It will be a college orienated notebook. I should have clarified.

 

So I have been going back and forth with building a compal hel80 or going dell. the only reason I am looking at the compal is the 7600 that I you can get in it. I am wondering if that will be much better than the x1400 or 120M for cad purposes since both of those are not cad orientated.

 

it wouldnt make much difference, for games it would, for your purposes it really wouldnt, for example, a friend of mine had a workstation with a p4 b and a midrange quadro based on the geforce 4 line, he built a new machine to work with at home,with an amd x2 4400 and tried using a 7900gtx, and in acad06, his overall performance was about 40% slower than his old workstation, the entertaiment cards are made to spit out raw fps, with no regard to accuracy, the workstation cards are made to efficently create highly accurate error free renders, its your money, get what you want, but I'd say spending a bit more to get something you need would be worthwhile over saving a bit and getting something will just scrape you by, specially if your on a budget, for your application, your rendering card is the heart of the machine, you would net better results with a lower cpu and a card designed for your application, than a higher end cpu and a card not suited for your intended app, good luck with your purchase