Need Engineering Workstation -Inventor CAD, Ansys, Office, older Mathcad (v11)

[ME99]

General Questions
1) What is your budget?
$2000-$2500, but would consider more if needed. As this will be my work computer, it needs to be capable.

2) What size notebook would you prefer?
d or e. If I can find a 17” within my budget, I’d get it.
a. Netbook; 10” screen or less
b. Ultraportable; 11" - 12” screen
c. Thin and Light; 13" - 14" screen
d. Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen
e. Desktop Replacement; 17"+ screen

3) Where will you buying this notebook? You can select the flag of your country as an indicator.
USA

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
a. Like:
b. Dislike:
This will be my first mobile workstation, so I’m willing to consider any. I have a Dell Precision 380 desktop that has done the job for 6+ years, so my first inclination is Dell Mxxxx, but I thought I should shop around.

5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed?
Yes.

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?
Autodesk Inventor, Ansys, MS Office, older version of Mathcad (need Win Pro with XP Mode), Skype

7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both?
Both. I work both at home and at an office, but don’t have to carry anything very far for the commute. Occasional business and personal travel.

8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? If so, please state which games or types of games?
No games.

9) How many hours of battery life do you need?
Probably 3 or 4 hours, I don’t really know. Normally am not far from power.

10) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK?
Online is OK.

11) What OS do you prefer? Windows (XP or Vista or Windows 7), Mac OS, Linux, etc.
Windows 7 Pro with XP Mode. I’m not aware how close Windows 8 is to market, but I’d want an XP Mode in that also.

Screen Specifics

12) From the choices below, what screen resolution(s) would you prefer? Keep in mind screen size in conjunction with resolution will play a large role in overall viewing comfort level. Everyone is different. Some like really small text, while others like their text big and easy to read. Click here for Screen resolution information.
I want to maximize the real estate, but I gather a higher resolution can drive up the cost significantly. The screen would usually serve as the third monitor (explanation under “additional features” below).

13) Do you want a Glossy/reflective screen or a Matte/non-glossy screen?
I don’t know; I think matte.

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?
No.

15) When are you buying this laptop?
Hopefully within this week, or as soon as I decide which one!

16) How long do you want this laptop to last?
5 years would be great.

Notebook Components

17) How much hard drive space do you need; 80GB to 640GB? Do you want a SSD drive?
500 GB at 7200 rpm minimum. I don’t know why I would want SSD. Please enlighten me.

18) Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a DVD Burner, Blu-ray Reader or Blu-Ray Burner?
At least a CD/DVD burner. I don’t think I have a need for a Blu-ray.


Please state any additional features you need. It's also helpful if you can indicate how experienced you are with computers. If you're a novice and don't know much, that's alright. Everyone's a novice at some point.

Needs:
number keypad

Wants:
card reader
pointing stick in the center of the keyboard
webcam for Skype


I’m not up to date on all the technology, but I’ve been researching in the last couple of weeks.

I want to replace my Dell Precision desktop, so I first looked at Dell M4600-4700 and M6600-6700. With my first go round at configurations, the M4xxx was around $2000, while the M6xxx was $2800+. From that I derived my budget of $2000 ish.

A 2 GB video card appears to be mainstream for an engineering workstation, so that’s probably a good place to be. Nvidia or AMD- no preference- whichever is better for Inventor. Discrete, so that upgrade is possible. I want to continue using my two desktop monitors, one of which has HDMI, DVD-I, and VGA inputs, and the other has only VGA input. Those monitors are several years old, so will likely be updated while I have the workstation. I don’t foresee using more than two additional monitors, but a 27 inch monitor with very good resolution is a possibility.

No problem to add extra RAM in later, so 8 GB is probably good to start with.

Most of the time, the workstation will be only serving as the muscle, so I want a decent docking station to drive my two desktop monitors and 3D motion controller. I was a little concerned after reading some poor reviews of the dock that Dell wants to bundle with a Precision. Maybe some of the aftermarket branded docks are better?

Thanks for reading!

[Kuroi-Tsubasa]

You definitely started at the right place; you want to look at workstation-class laptops for this sort of work (Precision M4600/4700, Thinkpad W530, Elitebook 8560w). As for SSDs, you'd want one if you want to speed up read/write times and random access; a 7200RPM HDD usually has access times of 18+ ms, whereas SSDs have less than 0.1 ms access times. Also, typical read/write speeds for a SATAIII SSD is around 550/500 MB/s (respectively), whereas hard drives barely go above 100MB/s read and less for write. And since SSDs have no moving parts, you can abuse one much, much harder than a mechanical drive. The only trade off is that you pay more per GB, and thus sizes are small for "affordable" capacities (like ~$200 to $230 for a 256GB SSD).

Inventor benefits from CUDA technology, so it might be better to invest in a Quadro GPU; however, the FirePro is more than capable of running your software. You should buy a laptop with just the minimum amount of RAM (2GB with Dell iirc) and buy more later aftermarket, since it'll be cheaper (and it's stupid easy to remove/install RAM). Same with a HDD/SDD.

Anyway, I definitely recommend the Precision line of workstations for what you want; I'd normally also recommend the Thinkpad W530, though you state you must have a numpad. You could also check out HP's Elitebook workstations (-w series) and try to haggle with both to get the best price, similar as to how you would buy cars. I bought my $2167 W520 for $1665 that way (all before tax).

[frodoz737]

I second that recommendation. If you want a 17", the Dell outlet may offer an affordable solution with an M6600. Dell Precision Mobile Workstations Outlet | Dell The Elitebook will cost you more and still gets hot. You can try to deal with them, but I had no luck at all. For your usage, get an i7 Quad CPU with the most Cache and an NVidia Quadro GPU. Our system listed below is Certified for every major CAD program. Don't waste you money with factory installed mSATA or SSD. Both are way over priced and mSATA still runs at SATA II speeds on these machines. Definitely add your own RAM and SSD. My 32GB of RAM cost $219.98 from Newegg and Dell Wanted around $1700 for the same. My mSATA with HHD cost the same as an M4 Crucial 512GB SSD, and you still have the HDD to convert as an external backup. Many on this site, including privatejarhead, were very helpful during my selection process, so I believe you did come to the right place as he said. Take your time and good luck.

[Kuroi-Tsubasa]

Even though mSATA SSDs are mostly still at SATAII speeds, the improved random access time will still make the SSD feel stupid fast. The Intel 320 (SATAII) I had doesn't have the best read/write speeds (maybe 270/200 iirc?), but it subjectively felt much faster than the stock 7200RPM drive. I don't feel any subjective difference between that and the Intel 330 I popped in a few months ago (SATAIII, 550/500). Of course, transferring large files is faster with the SATAIII drive, but for daily tasks it doesn't make much difference once you install any SSD. As for OP, if you decide to buy an aftermarket SSD, I'd suggest looking at Corsair, Crucial, Plextor, Intel, or Samsung. Avoid OCZ like the Plague (rock bottom tech support and highest SSD failure rates, roughly 6-8% iirc; with Intel and Samsung being at around 0.5%).

[highlandsun]

Still happy with my Dell Precision M4400. Replaced the dual-core CPU with a quad-core off eBay a few months ago, replaced the 4GB DDR2 with 8GB. Replaced my 256GB Samsung SSD (Dell) with a Crucial M4 512GB SSD. Definitely, buy the absolute minimum RAM and disk config from Dell, you can get much better prices from Newegg or other retailers.

[frodoz737]

@ privatejarhead

The point as it applied to my machine. My build with 128GB mini mSATA and 750GB HHD -vs- with 750GB HDD only = $440 less. Newegg M4 Crucial 512GB SSD = $400, and I could have kept and converted the HHD for use as a backup and/or mass storage unit.

I missed that while deciding as I was "just a little bit" overwhelmed. I learn fast though, so aside from that, I still did pretty good considering. Still going to fix that in October for his Birthday.

[ME99]

Not ignoring...I'm back to shopping the Dell outlet...systems can vanish pretty quick....

I'm looking for the display I want (since I can't upgrade that later), followed by the GPU, then least expensive storage, then least amount of RAM. Sound like a plan?

[Kuroi-Tsubasa]

Good plan, definitely. Tehnially, the GPU in the Precision M4600 could be replaced by the user since it's MXM, but it's a real pain in the **...

[frodoz737]

M6600's on the Outlet site has better offerings at the moment.

[ME99]

Thanks to every one of you! Wanted to share the excitement with some people who don't know me!

I picked an M6600 from the Dell outlet. It hasn't shipped, but it's estimated delivery by this Friday!

The minimum RAM in the outlet systems was 8GB when I was looking, except one that had 4GB, but it had the AMD card.

M6600 Laptop
Processor: Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor (2.4 GHz,w/Turbo
Boost,6MB Cache)
Genuine Windows 7 Professional
Precision Mobile Workstation M6600 Laptop
500 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
8 GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
8X DVD +/- RW Drive
NVIDIA Quadro 3000M with 2GB GDDR5
1920x1080, and the camera.

I am now shopping for a wheelbarrow for when I need to travel with it


I didn't realize what a markup Dell puts on the addons, so thanks for pointing that out.

I glanced at a couple of SSDs on newegg, and see that some come with instructions and software for migrating data to the new drive. So, hopefully that will go pretty smoothly when the time comes. I'm probably going to wait a few months before getting the SSD.

Will the software with the SSD be able to make the SSD the boot drive, or is that a question for another post?