Dell Laptop Question

[ryanmcin]

I am currently looking at dell laptops either the M70 or a XPS M170. The XPS would be preferable due to the screen size 17" vs 15", and lower cost ($200), however the graphics card is more aligned to gaming needs than the CAD needs. I was wondering if anyone knew if the XPS's graphic card (NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800) is going to be suitable for daily use or if I should opt for the M70 (NVIDIA Quardo FX Go 1400). The system will be used on a daily basis as a desktop replacement, I plan on using my existing monitor, keyboard and mouse for daily use so the screen size isn't of over whelming importance. I don't often work with large files 20+ MB, and I would be doing most of the serious rendering on Max on a desktop. Any advice or information would be appreciated.

[mlgatzke]

The XPS/6800 combination should work nicely. If you are a road-warrior I'd recommend the M70 because of longer battery life and less heat. However, I use an XPS with 2GB of RAM and it handles Revit files just fine. As I said in another post, my notebook actually runs nicer than many of the workstations in firms I visit. The 6800 "gaming" card that's in the XPS should work fine. Revit is actually developed to run on the gaming technology instead of the expensive hardware-OpenGL cards that are out there. I have the XPS Gen1 with the ATI Radeon card and it runs fabulously. The 6800 should be even better. Just don't turn on the OpenGL support in Revit and you'll be fine.

[iru69]

I would agree that the 6800 is currently more than adequate for Revit, and that high-end cards are generally overkill - not because of their OpenGL support, but rather because they simply have more speed than Revit needs to get the model to the the display (remember that the computer's CPU is what's doing the vast majority of the work).

As I understand it, Revit doesn't have much use for the gobs of VRAM that many gaming cards come with... but it doesn't hurt anything to have it.

And Revit generally does take advantage of OpenGL hardware acceleration. Definitely leave the OpenGL support on - unless it causes Revit to behave erratically when enabled... in which case, I wouldn't be so keen on buying it.

From what I understand, you're allowed to return a Dell for any reason in the first three weeks (but don't take my word on that), so if it doesn't work the way you like with Revit, make sure you can return it.