There is unlikley to be anything at that price level on the certified hardware list. It is possible & likley that the software will run on hardware not certified, but there is no support if it does not. Graphics hardware is critical for CATIA and an incorrect choice will be unusable for CATIA (not just slow but impossible to use). The best choice would to be to try and get something off the certified list but older hardware so it comes close to your price (the problem here will be availability)
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5550
(1.83 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 2 MB Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista (R) Home Premium
2 GB Memory
200 GB Hard Drive
DVD ReWriter optical drive
15.4" X Black Widescreen Display
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 dedicated graphics
2. Toshiba A200-28P
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T8100
(2.1 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 3 MB Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista (R) Home Premium
3 GB Memory
200 GB Hard Drive
ATI RADEON HD2600 256MB Graphics Card
DVD Super Multi Dual Layer
15.4" Screen Size
3. Acer Aspire 7720G
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5750
(2 GHz, 667 MHz, 2 MB Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista (R) Home Premium
4 GB Memory
250 GB Hard Drive
BLU RAY DISC COMBO DRIVE
15.4" CrystalBrite widescreen Display
ATi Mobility Radeon HD3470 Graphics Card
dedicated 256 mb Graphics Memory
I couldn't find out if V5 would run on a Vista machine. I had heard V5R18 WILL in fact run on a Vista laptop... This would certianly help when buying a new laptop.... Its almost impossible to get a Dell with 4 gigs of ram and 320gig hard drive....
Should be something certified by DS... When you are running such an expensive license like CATIA....
What are your intentions to do with CATIA? Which license would you like run? Just simple part modeling? Open big assemblies? How big they are? You will run CATIA remotely or local or in a network?
You can not check out a license from a LUM server on 64bit and i would check with IBM on the Vista end of it. This means your license will be nodelocked only to your laptop.
None of them. None of those graphics cards are certified. You need something with either a Quadro or a FireGl graphics card. Those cards alone will push you over the $1000 mark.
I use a Dell Precision M90 works fine with V5, I have seen refurbished ones on e-bay through an authorised reseller with a guarantee for £650 I would recommend a M90.