Hello everyone,
I will be a freshman in college during the fall, and I’m currently in the process of shopping for a computer to purchase. I understand most of the specifications that I need to be looking at, except for the graphics card.
I plan to study mechanical engineering, so it is to my understanding that I will need a computer that is compatible with SolidWorks. In most of the websites that I’ve searched, it has said that I will need a workstation-type laptop like a Thinkpad W541. I feel like that just adds more to the cost of buying a laptop, and I’m not sure how necessary that kind of power is for college studies.
The main thing I don’t understand right now is the type of graphics card that will work with SolidWorks. Can anyone shed some light on this? I’ve read that the Nvidia Quadro is the virtually the only graphics card that will support SolidWorks, but I feel like there is more to it. Any engineering students or engineers that can help with this? Thanks!
Quardros are optimized for things like SolidWorks but a GeForce will run it, too, just not as well. But really, you shouldn’t even try to run SolidWorks on a laptop if you ask me. Just use the workstations available at school and buy a laptop that is cheaper and more portable.
@boneh3ad Thank you! I don’t much about SolidWorks, so when people were saying I would need to use it, I was worried about my laptop’s being able to handle it.
Along the same lines then, what are some common engineering programs that I will need to be able to run on my laptop?
Like @boneh3ad said, it’s not usually practical to run SolidWorks on a personal laptop. It makes a lot more sense to use the machines at your university’s cmoputer lab.
Matlab would be good to have on your laptop if your school offers it to students, or if you can get your hands on it another way. Basic uses of Matlab don’t require much memory, but some algorithms can be resource-intensive depending on what they do.
I can’t tell you what to buy, but I can share some experience. My son, who will be a junior in the fall ended up with two computers. One “cheap” lightweight laptop - the $499 dell special - to carry around campus as needed. He then built a desktop (i5 with higher end geforce and lots of RAM) patiently over the course of 6 months by watching for newegg sales on the components he wanted and probably spent about $800 on that one. The desktop is for the “real” work.
My primary reason for sharing this is to get you to think outside the box a little. If you definitely want/need a laptop, then getting two machines each focused on a different use could be the better solution.
@AuraObscura I believe my school does offer Matlab for free to students. I will certainly make use of that. Thanks!
@DecideSomeHow I actually had that same thought to get a “cheap” laptop and then get a desktop for my dorm room. The trick would be to make it as inexpensive of an option as possible. If the cost of both the laptop and desktop goes above the cost of a Thinkpad Workstation, it may be worth it just to go for the powerful laptop. Thank you for the suggestion, and I’ll look into it!
A $1300 laptop is sort of in no man’s land. It won’t have enough power to be a true workstation class machine. For that you really need at least double your budget and you could spend three or four times that. They serve a purpose, but general laptop for an engineering student isn’t really one of them.
“They serve a purpose, but general laptop for an engineering student isn’t really one of them.”
Lake Jr. recently said the same thing. He’s been using the school-mandated laptop since Freshman year, but says he will buy a [more powerful] desktop for the coming years to help him complete the ChE major.
Just get a Titan X if you’re on desktop, or an MSI GT80 Dragon if you need a laptop 
Really if you can run MS Office (or your office suite of choice and/or LaTeX) plus Matlab (or you could use Python or whatever language of your choice if you prefer), then you should be good to go for any engineering coursework. Like I said, you ought to reserve SolidWorks for a desktop workstation anyway. You can build a relatively cheap desktop that could handle it if you absolutely want to use it at home, or just use the computer labs available at your school and spend your money on a decent laptop that is your preferred combination of portable and powerful.
Personally, I did my entire undergraduate career without a laptop of any kind (graduated in 2009) and then went through my PhD program without using SolidWorks a single time outside of a school-provided machine (and I used SolidWorks a whole lot), so my laptop was never needed to attempt to run a CAD program.
So at my school they have this requirement kind of thing that every engineer have a tablet of sorts sot hat we can write out our equations on our computers. Its overkill. Usually the school tries to bundle the tablet capability with high end i7 processors and the whole nine yards… these engineering bundles run anywhere from 1000-2500 dollars just for the hardware. Its crazy.
My point in saying all of this is that there a TON of engineers here who have spent an uber amount of money on their laptops with the hopes that they can run anything they need. Well let me tell you first hand that it DOES NOT work. In one of my design classes we had to use Inventor (3d Modeling) and no joke there was only one kid who could really use his laptop and work on it in class (that being said he was the only kid in the class packing a laptop with an i7 and 16GB of ram). Every 5 minutes you would here somebody grumble and moan that their computer just locked up or froze or glitched.
Take everybody’s advice. You got some solid pointers. I really like the comment about expensive laptops being in “no mans land”. If I were you I would get a lightweight laptop to carry around that can run your basic office and ideally matlab. Then I would customize a desktop for any hardcore stuff with 3D Modeling. Its what I did and I am super grateful I did. I got a surface pro 3 (best decision I ever made. I love this thing) for my carry around and then I have a desktop at home for the bigger things.
Matlab or Visual Studio are the most process-intensive programs you will need to consider running. Any mid-grade laptop made within the last few years should be more than adequate. More important than that is keyboard layout, battery life, and weight.
SolidWorks isn’t generally available for students to install at all. You have to be a corporation or academic institution to purchase it.
Every school I’ve attended has offered SolidWorks or Pro/E (or whatever it’s called now) to students, generally for free.
College Confidential really needs to make a sticky for computer requirements. There are always a ton of threads asking some question revolving around if some set of computers is suitable for major x or if computer y is suitable for major z.
type this into google
site:collegeconfidential.com “laptops for engineering”
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/efficient-accurate-google-search/
You’re best bet is build a desktop and buy a cheap laptop that you can use to remote access your desktop. How beefy your desktop needs to be depends on what programs you will be running. I say at the minimum you need an i5 with at least 16gb of ram (most people will tell you that 8 will suffice but whatever amount of ram you have, windows will eat up half it for “system reserve” memory. So if you have 8 you’ll only really have like 4 free). The only difference between an i7 and i5 is the use of hyperthreading. So find out what programs you are running to see if they’re coded to use hyperthreading. Another area you could look at is bench markings. Generally you can find graphs somewhere on the web that display the performance of various cpus, gpus, and ram against one another while running program x. This is important because while program x may indeed use hyperthreading, the margins between the performance of an i7 vs i5 for program x may be little to none. So you are better off saving the money. For a cheap laptop I recommend this
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-C710-2055-11-6-Inch-Chromebook-Processor/dp/B00BB9OXM0
its cheap, and will allow you to remote access a windows desktop. It has an ethernet port so you can hook up to any ethernet port in your school to speed up internet access for remote accessing. It also has a removable battery so you can carry an extra one. It also comes with all the good ports (usb, hdmi, card reader, etc.)