Laptop for Creo

[colin]

(not sure if this is the right list for this question)

I am looking at factory refurbished laptops that can be used for
personal use and some CAD. Would this system run a Creo educational lcopy;

Model Dell XPS 15 - L502X
Processor Intel Core i7-2670QM 2nd Gen Processor (2.2 GHz, 3.1 GHz
Turbo Boost 2.0, 6MB Cache)
Optical Drive 6X Blu-ray + DVD+/-RW
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
Hard Drive 750 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Memory 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
Video Card 2 GB NVIDIA GeForce GT540M (w/ Optimus)


The main thing I am worried about is the graphics card. I do not see
"Open GL" in the specs anywhere.

Thanks
Chris

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[dgschaefer]

I think the GeForce cards are gaming oriented, not CAD. That said, for light use I think they do OK. Did you look it upon Nvidia's site to see if it has open GL capability?

One thing to look for is screen resolution. Typical consumer 15" laptops (I assume the 15 in the model number means a ~15" screen) don't have very high resolution unless you custom order. Creo doesn't do well at standard resolutions, some of the dialog boxes are too big.

--

[JoshuaHouser]

Hi Chris,

I've been involved with high school students using consumer-level laptops to run Creo for several years. Most work fine for basic modeling. They start hitting a wall when pulling up mid-sized assemblies. This is even with the on-board video cards. Personally, I have a little 15" Inspiron laptop that I've been able to do quite a bit of work with Creo 2.

So, as long as it's not really a work-critical use or as long as you're not pulling up assemblies with 100's of parts or heavy complexity, you should be fine.

Worst-case scenario, running graphics under win_32gdi config.

Good luck,

Josh

Joshua Houser

(have I talked to you about FIRST robotics yet?)

Pelco by Schneider Electric

Methods & Tools Sr. Engineer

[colin]

Josh (and others)

Thanks for the input. My home CAD needs are mainly update training
and fiddling around. The heaviest stuff I do at home is the combat
robots I build on the side ( shameless plug

[JoshuaHouser]

Ack! Look at you plugging your robotics event! I don't know if that's allowed here! 😉 Actually, I'm thinking about getting a Sumo competition set up here at our local maker/hackerspace.

Given the parts counts you're working with, I doubt you'll have a problem. I suspect that using Mechanism or doing much rendering might stress out the PC a bit.

Joshua Houser

(have I talked to you about FIRST robotics yet?)

Pelco by Schneider Electric

Methods & Tools Sr. Engineer