Aerospace Engineering Student (BS) looking for a laptop

[LumpInk]

Hey everyone. As the title says, I'm an aerospace engineering student who's going to need a computer than can handle light to possibly moderate CAD work, MATLAB, and possibly Solidworks etc. I'm in the United States and have been shopping around looking for something around 1400 dollars, I'd like it to be of decent build quality and have a nice keyboard. I'd also like to carry it out of my dorm to do work so it shouldn't be super heavy (~5 lbs lower the better), Battery life should be longer than 4 hours. I like to do light gaming in my free time so that should be taken into consideration as well but its not a requirement.

 

Like I said in the beginning, I've done a bit of snooping around and a big question for me is whether or not I should buckle down and find something with Quadro graphics or stick to a high end Geforce GPU. I understand the Quadros are optimized for CAD and 3D rendering software but I'm wondering if I can get away with a Geforce GPU to dodge the higher prices of workstations. And if a Geforce GPU would be enough, would it be ridiculous to expect an mx150 to be able to do the job?

 

Thanks for your time and if there's anything that isn't clear ask away.

[Happycowdance]

solidworks im pretty sure they dont officially support gtx cards so i would recommend a quadro

for that i think a thinkpad p52 that can be found here would be the best 

 

[SupaKomputa]

The question still remains in my head since the first time i heard about Quadro cards.

They said it was optimized for cad and workstation task, but every single benchmark i found said that geforce card can do the same thing.

Todays Quadro cards have much more resources like a bump in vram and cuda cores, so its suppose to give out more horse power in the first place.

 

For $1400 you have a limited option for Quadro Laptops, even a GTX is limited to 1060.

But i think if you're serious and have tons of rendering to do, you must have a desktop, that money can get a 1080 with 8 core cpu.

[SupaKomputa]

5 minutes ago, Happycowdance said:

solidworks im pretty sure they dont officially support gtx cards so i would recommend a quadro

for that i think a thinkpad p52 that can be found here would be the best 

 

solidworks can run on gtx, not officially supported but it worked.

[Taf the Ghost]

When it comes to Use Cases, you need to dig deeply into exactly the type of programs you expect to use when thinking about specialized hardware. 

 

Because something like this Dell would make a lot of sense for your Use Case. Which is why I'd want to nail down if you really needed a Quadro for certain. You end up paying a lot to get a worse performance in other areas.

[Happycowdance]

that's why i said not officially supported but yeah you can run solid works on the gtx line

personally i would recommend increasing your budget by about $300-400 which would allow you to either get a 1070 or p2000 in laptop form

or 

building a desktop with a 1080 or p4000 and a 8 core cpu

[Happycowdance]

heres a basic list with a quadro

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 2700 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor	$264.90 @ OutletPC
Motherboard	MSI - B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard	$105.00 @ OutletPC
Memory	G.Skill - Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$104.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Kingston - A400 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$39.49 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate - BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive	$97.99 @ OutletPC
Video Card	PNY - Quadro P4000 8 GB Video Card	$749.99 @ B&H
Case	NZXT - H500 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case	$63.88 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair - CXM (2015) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply	$24.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$1491.23
	Mail-in rebates	-$40.00
	Total	$1451.23
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-15 02:42 EST-0500

 

Edited November 15, 2018 by Happycowdance
forgot storage

[genexis_x]

37 minutes ago, Happycowdance said:

snip

laptop my friend

1 hour ago, LumpInk said:

something with Quadro

I don't think you have the budget for a new Quadro laptop (Thinkpad P52 is close)

 

Do you mind gaming orientated laptops? Do you mind low sRGB display? Any other requirements?