integrated graphics card

Hi!

Does anyone have any experience with the integrated Intel X3100 graphics card and AutoCAD, but only 2D?
I'm looking into buying a Dell XPS M1330 (version with T7250, 2GB ram ad x3100, it's 700€ here), but I'm worried about the GPU. I have a desktop PC, with Q6600 and 8600GT, so I will be doing my 3D here, I just want something light and portable, but still capable of doing some work in AutoCAD and ArchiCAD during the weekends (going home, without my main PC).. So, any experience ?

Thanks

 

For using 2D CAD, the X3100 should be fine. I can run 3D models on my Geforce Go 7200, and it isn't much better than the X3100. If you want to render 3D images, your card would probably struggle.

 

It would be a real push to.
I would say go for a Lenovo x200 because it has the new x4500 intagrated GPU but no CD dive (I dont think you need a CD anyway for AUTOcad.
so.. after that thought I would say look for the new gen of intagrated GPUs. They are 3 times faster than the x3100 and will be much more likely to run Autocad.
I used Auto cad and the desktop I was using was on the edge and I think that has the equivilent of a x3100.

 

There's just the small problem of money
About 800€ is all I'm able to afford, and this is the only laptop smaller than 15" with the T7xxx CPU for under 800€ in Slovenia... So the only question is will I be able to do some school work on it or is it just a waste of money

 

Slovenia... I was thinking the US for a sec. That is a diffrent story.

question why would you want the T7xxx? The newer ones have more GHz but have smaller circuts so battery life is not compromised. my dell 14 inch can run all afternoon on a 9 cell

It will run school work no problem. Currently I am using the x3100 (as I type the comment) and it runs word, Opera, exel fine. Movies have some lag in power save mode and slight lag in balanced mode. But then again I am running 1440x900 so yours will be faster.

 

I was saying T7xxx because all of the under 1000€ laptops, smaller than 15", have either T2xxx or T5xxx, that's just how behind are we in Slovenia
And with schoolwork I meant AutoCAD, maybe some Corel/Photoshop, but not that important - I'm a student of Architecture, and from this year also civil engineering, so I would need a laptop for the time gaps between both college lectures, so I can do something useful not just waste away the time
I really haven't played a game in ages, so that's not a problem

So the question remains, would x3100 run AutoCAD 2D (basic stuff, floorplans an so on ) to satisfy my needs? I really don't know how much effect does a GPU has in basic 2D CAd work, or is it just mainly CPU and RAM?

 

i thought X3100 would be fine for 2d CAD work. But i could be wrong.

Maybe your school can tell you what the minimum requirements are.

 

My school really doesn't care about students that much
Besides, the profesors prefer everything drawn by hand, or the other extreme - best possible renderings, but they hardly even know which programs to use

I guess I'll have to google it

 

cad will run fine on even a old graphics media accelerator 910/950.
However their is a difference. integrated chips have a very hard time with opengl, so when installing the software, aka archicad and autocad, the opengl hardware will be shut off, as to prevent gpu overload. You may notice some disparity since you will be using the regenall command more than you have before. integrated cards will struggle continually refreshing complex geometries and lines which are close together. However as long as you have a good processor the slowdowns will not be all that bad.
I am an architecture student at RPI, and I can see a very clear disparity between the X1400 and integrated cards and the high end quadro in my laptop. The quadro series are designed to run the latest opengl software and continually run at 16x full screen antialiaing which geforce, radeon and integrated gpu's cannot do. This is why quadro's are preferred, but they are extremely expensive and you can make out fine with a standard gpu.

Make sure you get at least 3gb of memory cause cad can use a ton of memory. I have had projects use upwards of 2gb so yeah, keep the files clean and minimal, and it will run fine.

K-TRON