Will Software like Auto Cad and other CAD and CAM software work on laptop with an onboard i3 3D Card

well i wanted to ask weather the onboard 3D card of i3 with shared memory is powerful enough to run the latest version of CAD and CAM software like AUTO CAD e.t.c
i am planning on buying HP Pro Book soon for my educational needs.
So with 2gb Ram and an onboard i3 3D card
will it run such software ??

 

Will it run? Yes, it should. But will it run at good speed? Definitely not, you will have to get a discrete video card to make it run smoothly, also if you are going to do lots of rendering work with programs like autodesk maya/3d max, you would be better off getting a quad core processor like i7(note, not all i7s are quad cores, i7-620m and i7-640m are dual cores) because a i3(low end dual core) won't suffice for those tasks.

 

I run SolidWorks 2010 on an SL9400 with integrated graphics. It's alright. Once you start making really big assemblies and all, stuff starts to lag, but it's not too bad and I'm not totally sure if it's a CPU or GPU limited. An i3/i5/i7 should obviously be better.

What really sucks is not the actual modelling, but rendering the model (if applicable). PhotoView takes more than an hour to render a 1080p still of a relatively complex model at pretty much the lowest quality. In these situations, a higher-spec CPU would definitely help.

So an i3 is probably so-so in the grand scheme of things, but if other factors (power and noise) take a back seat to performance, going to a higher-end CPU would certainly help.

 

i3 is not the issue. It is the graphic card, choose at least a HD5470. You should also get w7 x64 and 4Gb RAM.

 

Alot of business notebooks don't offer 64 bit Windows.

But yes upgrading to a more powerful processor and more RAM will help.

 

As Commander Wolf mentioned; rendering speed is where a discrete gpu will save you hours of waiting (will your classes require high amounts of rendered projects?).

A more powerful CPU will also help but will not be necessary while in 'learning mode' - the i3 is more than powerful enough for any function AutoCAD can throw at it with a reasonable sized project; but the minimum you want for RAM is 4GB - not so much for the CAD/CAM software by itself, but for running Windows and the CAD/CAM software together.

If you are getting a notebook with Win7 x64 - I highly suggest 8GB of RAM if you'll be running more than 3 or 4 heavy duty programs at once (along with your Word, possibly Excel, email, web browser(s), pdf readers and other 'ancillary' programs needed to actually get the work done.

The whole point here is that if your courses need high rendering speeds (which I doubt, if you're just starting this program), then you'll need not only a discrete gpu, but possibly even an AutoCAD approved workstation class gpu.

Don't buy a machine based on the minimum specs of AutoCAD (2GB RAM!) - you'll be sorely disappointed and you'll be getting behind more and more with each second you use/rely on that system.

Good luck.