QUESTIONS about W500's Mobility FireGL V5700

1: Does this GPU even exist, and do we all just have Radeon 3650s?

2: With the current posted updates, will this card show up as ISV certified to CAD programs?

3: Can anyone with a Radeon 3650 use these updates, thereby making me look like an idiot for not just buying the t500?

4: Am I the only one who was mistaken and thought they were getting a card with the desktop V5700 specs?

I don't know that much about CAD programs yet, but I am starting school for Architecture in the Spring and I'm trying to find out as much as I can before school starts.

 

1) It's the Radeon 3650s with Open GL modifications and other hardware accelerations for graphic works. Similar to Geforce and quadro. They all use the same core.
2) As it stands right now, Lenovo is liable for IVS certified, and I say yes.
3) No, as I said, there are certain features disabled in Radeon series, similar to Geforce and quadro. That's why you can't just install a driver and make it fire GL.
4) Desktop GPU are generally more powerful than the laptops counterparts. Generally laptop CPUs get about 80% power of the desktop one.

CAD will run fine with a good GPU. FireGL or Quadro just make it run better.

 

There's no short and definitive answer to that question given the complex relationship between GPU cores, drivers, and Radeon/FireGL/FirePro marketing labels.

Without going into unnecessary detail, suffice to say that you will not get FireGL-class OpenGL acceleration from the W500 GPU as things stand at the moment. Lenovo needs to fix this problem. There is not enough data to say if getting these features will require a bios update, new drivers, or a hardware recall on Lenovo's behalf.

Current reports indicate that Autocad and SolidWorks do not recognize the v5700. They'll run, but you won't get many (or any) viewport acceleration features.

 

Thank you guys for your help... this is still confusing... Hopefully soon this mess will be cleaned up... The last thing I need is a workstation that isn't a workstation... I thought I was making a safe choice after my m15x fiasco!

 

I'd assume that Lenovo will fix the W500 v5700 problem eventually, but I wouldn't hold my breath that it'll be fixed soon. If you need to buy something now, the 'safest' mobile workstations at the moment are the HP 8530w (15") and 8730w (17").

 

I already bought a w500....that's the problem...

 

I thought you could install a 3650 driver on the FireGL and basically have a Radeon? no?

 

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