Solidworks GPU Use

Before I get started, I know that SolidWorks and other CAD software work best with a professional graphics card (quadro, firepro, etc.). I am still a student so I will not need a pro card nor does my budget allow it for a laptop. I will build a workstation desktop when/if I ever need it; it will be significantly cheaper this way.

That being said, if I get a laptop with GeForce GTX 860M/870M/880M graphics, will SolidWorks run off of that graphics card or will it bypass the dedicated card and just use the integrated Intel HD 4600 chip?

I am also aware that Radeon chips are better for CAD software than GeForce and I have looked at the laptops available with radeon graphics and none of them interest me.

Thanks.

 

some of us are finding that units with 6xxm, 7xxm, and 8xxm series dGPU's we are forcing solid to use the IGP as the crashes and artifacts are absolutely horrid in many machines. there have been a number of workarounds but they are hit and miss and even certain Nvidia driver versions break things from working.

 

Well that is definitely not good news to hear that my $1900 laptop on order won't be any better than a $1000 ultrabook. The only difference is that I will be able to play games on ultra with the laptop. I might have to reconsider my purchase.

 

Some machines from msi (external outputs) or alienware (switch) let you bypass optimus.

 

I've never really seen issues with gamer cards and SW, but obviously YMMV.


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From what I've read on the SolidWorks forums, is that only RealView doesn't work with gamer cards. I'll just be building the models and drawings, which shouldn't be too taxing on the GPU. If I do any rendering or simulations, then it will be done on the computers at the university.

 

I would personally get a R9 290Mx or any other Raedon card for Solidworks etc... The NVIDIA GPU's are total crap for it..

 

The only laptop that I could find with the R9 290Mx was the MSI GX60 and I do not like the size and weight of those thick MSI laptops.

And as previously stated, I think that the variety of Radeon-equipped laptops is not that great.

 

Hmm ... I thought all the Kepler Geforce cards are crippled hardware-wise for professional software CAD/3D usage regardless how simple it is.

Best bet is either to use a Quadro version or a Fermi Based Geforce

 

The msi 17 inch barebone can ship with intel cpu and M290x.

 

I turn real view on to look fancy for coworkers or a client, it's mostly just distracting, and when you render you're using the CPU anyway.


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Care to elaborate? Why exactly are the Kepler cards crippled for professional use?

My previous laptop had a Radeon HD 4650 card from 2009 and it ran SolidWorks fine up to this past year when my laptop started to run out of memory with one SW window open. Maybe SolidWorks wasn't working properly and I didn't know any better. Since I've never actually used a professional graphics card with SW, I wouldn't even notice something out of place or not working properly; unless it constantly crashes.

You don't mean to tell me that my new laptop with the 870m card will run SW worse than my 5 year old laptop?

 

Kepler and Maxwell cards are neutered in OpenCL, OpenGL and absolutely abysmal in FP-64 calculations ( Double Precision floating point ). We have a number of threads and actual hands on tests all over the forums here. im my case it makes video editing almost impossible on th Gforce GPUs with my pro apps since CUDA has been dumped by most especially.


I use realview and some plugins that are OpenCL heavy and a k1100m will run circles around a 780m in that case. if you use CPU only your only main issue tends to be driver crashes and artifacts I find with Gforce cards... ok and the occasional program panick and closeout