SW and Laptops 2

[djw2k3]

Hi there,

Does anyone run SW happily on a laptop - ie similar performance to a mid range workstation??

Anyone have any recomendations for a good manufacturer/brand?

I assume the main bottle neck in a laptop is the graphics card.

I see some are getting the 1 gig RAM mark with a reasonable CPU.

Dave

 

[gedkins]

Respectfully GPU speed does impact drawing speed and basic graphic functions, but if you open lots of parts and large assemblies continually during a session nothing, not even CPU speed impacts retrieval speed more than hard drive speed and RAM,(swapping). For example I have an old PIII 450 Mhz with 256 meg of ram, a 32 meg Open GL card, running with a 64 bit (long PCI slot) Dual channel SCSI HBA with twin 160 Mb/sec 10K RPM SCSI drives on each channel. I can pull a 4300+ part assembly off disk in about 8+ minutes, the same assembly on a 1.8 Ghz laptop with a 4000 RPM drive and 512 meg of ram with a 64 meg GPU takes close to one hour. Both machines are running Win2K. True the laptop spins images faster and repaints dwgs faster but getting the drawing into memory is painfully slow on the laptop compared to the old PIII. Obviously, rebuild times are slower on the PIII but if you had a similar processor speeds, RAM, GPU's in the workstation and the laptop, the laptop will always get nailed on drive throughput speed (unless you get a 7200 RPM drive)and that you pay for every time you open the files no matter the graphics speed.

Side note: The new Serial ATA (SATA) drives that appearing (as well as SATA equipped MB's) will seriuosly blur the performance line between medium to high end SCSI and IDE. Maxtor has recently a 10K RPM SATA drive that when installed on the new ASUS MB with SATA onboard the sustained reads and writes to the drive are now in the realm of SCSI 3. Speeds 500 Mb's/sec throughput are not far off for this protocol. And the price point makes SCSI less and less attractive as most new workstation motherboards PCI slots are only 32 bit (short slots), not 64 which defeats high end SCSI HBA and precludes getting the top performance out of them.

 

[tika]

I run s/w 2003 on a dell m50 on fairly large complex assemblies and it runs really well. Highly recommended. The newer models have the go 700 graphics chip which is supposed to be even better.

 

[JNR]

We are successfully using Dell laptops with SW 2003 and previous versions. We take them off-site and also use them for convenient portability when using projectors in conference rooms in-house.

However, please be aware that the SW 2004 Beta information suggests strongly that you should buy NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards for future compatibility. They have apparently looked at trade studies and determined that the most popular and "most stable" gaphics for our application were Quadro based. SW 2004 development is apparently being baselined on this. We can argue that till the cows come home, but it seems to be a fact and at least they made an attempt. Many chip sets and cards do not appear to be as fully Open GL compatible as the manufacturers claim.

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

 

[djw2k3]

Reviving an old thread I know,

But getting back to Laptops with the Quadro Go700 card. Has anyone found/or know of a competitive machine to the Dell M60 using this card?

$5500 (NZ) is getting a little rediculous for the M60. For example; basic compaq (& Dell) consumer laptops are running faster processors, similar RAM & HDD, but minus a good vid card (for 3D modelling) for half the price! Does this mean we are paying a couple of thousand dollars (NZ) for the priviledge of using a decent vid card in a laptop for 3D modelling?

djw

 

[Rocko]

DJW2k3 you can purchase an Inspiron 8200 will accept the Quadro card i have even seen step by step instructions with pictures of people doing this and the results are impressive. I have an inspiron 8200 myself and i have kicked the idea around but i have the total replacement policy for another 1.5+ years left on it. I may just get another new laptop. I would advise buying an inspiron 8200 it will save you alot of money and you can then spend approximately $390.00 for the quadro card from dell parts and put it in the machine. The inspiron 8200 is really a M50 architecture but without the video card and same processor. You will save about $1800.00 doing it this way plust the 8200 is a good laptop. Let me know and i may be selling mine.

 

[whippet]

Make sure your comparing apples to apples. Check the speed of the hard drive Dell M60 has a 60 gig 7200rpm drive. I am using this system with and without the system plugged in for the last month, and am very pleased.

have fun make money
Paul

 

[djw2k3]

Hi whippet,

yeah I realise the Dell has the capability for a 7200rpm HDD drive as an option. But the model I am comparing the costs for was the standard 40GB 5400 etc

Thanks Rocko will look into that

 

[ScottB001]

I have a Dell Latitude with the Nvidia GF 4 440 go video chip. (It's not a card, it's a chip. That's why you can't change it.) This laptop has twice the ram and processor speed as the desktop I was using previously. I like the portability, but the performance is not nearly as good. The video chip has only 32 Meg of RAM. If I have more than 3 or 4 SW windows open, it brings it to its knees. Often I have to restart SW in the middle of the day to clear the garbage that builds up in RAM. If I don't, I get to the point where after selecting an icon in sketch mode it takes up to 20 seconds for the thing to respond. What's frustrating is that there is 1 Gig of RAM a few centimeters away from the video chip. Too bad there wasn't a way to allocate system RAM to graphics. Or is there?

 

[Rocko]

actually Scott on the Inspiron series they are cards made specifically for notebooks. They are a much larger laptop than the latitude. Check out the dell website under forumns and you will see numerous people that have changed there video cards on the Inspiron series.

 

[DanielGraham]

wippet,

Couple questions on the M60. I have been looking at laptops for a while and have looked into the M50 and 60. My question is that the M60 has 1.7 processor, while the M50 has a 2.5. I know that the the M60 will perform better and use less battery when not plugged in, but I am always plugged in and initial part loading times mean little to me (negating the faster hard drive.) Do you know of any reason in these situations that the M60 would be a better performing laptop? Thanks for any info.

Daniel

 

[Rocko]

Daniel the M60 is not using a true mobile pentium. Here is how dell explained it to me:
Pentum M 1.6ghz = Pentium 4-M 2.4 GHZ
I know it can be rather confusing but it seems that once again Intel is changing the number of chips that can fit into certain mobile systems.

 

[DanielGraham]

Rocko, I heard that comparison as well. So that means that the M60 is going to be slower than the 2.5 ghz M50 that it is replacing in terms of absolute performance? Or at least not significantly faster? Seems odd.

Thanks

Daniel

 

[whippet]

I'm not a techno guy. But what I was told is that the two bottle necks are the video card (ram) and HD speed. I am primarily using it (M60) as my desktop system. I run with a combination of assemblies (with under 1000 parts) and parts open in SW, while running 2-3 other programs and it is able to keep up well.

Bottom line is I would make the same purchase today. Tomorrow I’m sure someone will come out with a similar combination for less money and I’ll cry.

have fun make money
Paul

 

[Rocko]

Daniel that is correct but you have to look at the overall top end that the processor and video card capability is. The M60 handles a more powerfull video card than the M50.

 

[JNR]

How many times!!!!!

SW has publicly stated that SW 2004 wsa BASELINED on Quadro.

RealView will only work on Quadro.

Geforce cards and others have many issues even with SW 2003 on certain hardware/OS combinations. Look at past posts on graphics boards, speed, and performance.

Just get a Quadro and cut your risks (and maybe losses).

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

 

[DanielGraham]

Not sure who that last post was for..the Dell M50 and M60 both have Quadro cards supporting Real View.

 

[Rocko]

Think JNR had to much coffee that day, Daniel is correct about the M50 & M60 and Inspiron 8200 can have Quadro cards in them.

 

[JNR]

Correct, gentlemen.

....and yes, I did have too much coffee, plus a VERY frustrating week - damn customers seem think they know more that you do - so why do they think they need to come to you in the first place.... mutter, mumble.....only been doing this for 20 years.....been the only ones doing this for 20years!!!.....

My appologies for being distracted.

I was merely commenting in general that I think is is wise to minmize risks when you can, particularly since we have seen so many issues in the past that turned out to be Windows/Graphics Board/Open GL related in the end.

Had not gotten down as far as your posts on the Dell M series when I replied. I have slapped my wrist accordingly and will remember to read to the bottom before replying in future (and cut back on the caffein).

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

 

[DanielGraham]

I found this...answered lots of my questions.

http://www.digitalpostproduction.com/2003/09_sep/reviews/cw_dellm60.htm

Lots of info on the M60 and why it is faster than the previous offerings (and lots of desktops)

Daniel

 

[whippet]

Thank You, Daniel. The article shed a lot of light.


have fun make money
Paul