GPU for Architecture School? (Help pls)

[BlvTed]

So, for portability sake from the dorm to the studio, I need a laptop for Architecture school that can handle a bunch of programs, with light multitasking in between them. The school recommends a Dell Precision workstation, with 16GB of RAM, and with it, a Quadro P3000 (6GB GDDR5) or M2200 (4GB GDDR5). However, I was wondering if there was any possibility to nab a cheaper gaming laptop with a decent, more gaming optimized card (say a 1060 6GB card), without a significant sacrifice to performance in program? Any Art/Design student's, current or former, or anyone's views/perspective, much appreciated.

Programs (according to school site):
Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere

3DS Max

AutoCAD

Revit

Ecotect

Rhino, with V-Ray

Keyshot

Edit: should probably mention I'm also dying to play MHW PC when it comes out. Also I'm a light gamer (I don't play the graphics heavy AAA title games)

[DrMacintosh]

CUDA is overrated. An RX 580 8GB would do you great. If you could find one for a decent price. 

[BlvTed]

5 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

CUDA is overrated. An RX 580 8GB would do you great. If you could find one for a decent price. 

Only laptop I've found with that graphics card so far is the HP Omen with a 17.3" screen, which is overkill for me, and only has 12 GB out of the box and that's also the limit, which honestly I'd like 16 out of the box for my personal comfort, with room for expansion. I was thinking more of a Dell Inspiron Gaming laptop.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, BlvTed said:

Only laptop I've found with that graphics card so far is the HP Omen with a 17.3" screen, which is overkill for me, and only has 12 GB out of the box and that's also the limit, which honestly I'd like 16 out of the box for my personal comfort, with room for expansion. I was thinking more of a Dell Inspiron Gaming laptop.

Oh I didn’t see the laptop part. 

[BlvTed]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Oh I didn’t see the laptop part. 

Yeah I pretty much need that portability

[Jurrunio]

I'd stick with a Quadro. These things compute performance per dollar sucks, but there are features that are only available to Quadros (and AMD's Radeon Pro). Stability is another problem. Keep in mind that these software are tested with workstation cards, no guarantees on whether gaming cards will run without any problems.

[ARikozuM]

You don't really need much except for VRAM and driver support. Try to get a working Quadro off Ebay or Craigslist. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

-Moved to Laptops and Pre-Built systems-

 

What kind of budget do you have for a laptop? Quadros are beasts in workstations, and still perform pretty well in games. Any laptop with a decent Quadro card should be able to run whatever game you throw at it in addition to whatever you use for rendering.

[TLCH723]

Dont get GeFroce to do CAD works. 

 

Here is an article comparing GeFroce and Quadro. 

[BlvTed]

8 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

-Moved to Laptops and Pre-Built systems-

 

What kind of budget do you have for a laptop? Quadros are beasts in workstations, and still perform pretty well in games. Any laptop with a decent Quadro card should be able to run whatever game you throw at it in addition to whatever you use for rendering.

I'm looking at a budget from $1,500 to about $3,000 (quadro is expensive). I do need 16GB of RAM out of the box, and I'd personally like the ability to expand that, so I doubt I will find anything around $1,500.

[BlvTed]

8 hours ago, TLCH723 said:

Dont get GeFroce to do CAD works. 

 

Here is an article comparing GeFroce and Quadro. 

I have seen that article, but the article itself has it's own contextual issues. SolidWorks seem to be a more engineer-oriented 3D program, I'm not sure how Rhino or CAD stacks up to SolidWorks. Also the article doesn't mention use of the newer 10XX series of GeForce cards. Article also mentions that 9XX GeForce cards stack up pretty well in SolidWorks if not using relatively extreme shaders. Finally (this is the reason I'm asking my original question), the article does mention that for a student just learning 3D programs, a GeForce or Radeon card can work fine. I'm just worried about performance in the end.

[TLCH723]

5 hours ago, BlvTed said:

snip

Do you know if your campus have a computer lab with quadro or firepro? Then you can use those for big projects and your gaming laptop for small projects.

 

The first couple of classes, you learn the basic. create a cube, then couple of cubes, and so on. So is not that intense and geforce is okay. But once you need to render more, then quadro will so their differences.

 

The driver and the design for quadro/firepro are optimized to do CAD works.

[BlvTed]

17 hours ago, TLCH723 said:

Do you know if your campus have a computer lab with quadro or firepro? Then you can use those for big projects and your gaming laptop for small projects.

 

The first couple of classes, you learn the basic. create a cube, then couple of cubes, and so on. So is not that intense and geforce is okay. But once you need to render more, then quadro will so their differences.

The program I'm going to ramps up the project sizes and intensity quite quickly already within the first year, at least is what I got from the college visit I went to.

 

The campus does have labs equipped with Quadros and Firepro, but imo it wouldn't be optimal. Working on computers would mean storing and backing up on a external Hard Drive (slow af), having a laptop means I can backup on my own time (say in a dorm) and just having local, portable, fast storage would be nice.

[BlvTed]

Thanks everyone for input. So far it looks like I'm just gonna deal with buying the Dell Precision 7520 Workstation, through my school's Dell Premiere account, which literally saves more than $1,500 for the same specs without a student discount. M2200 4GB, 16 GB of RAM (expandable to 64GB lol), i7-7820 HQ (Quad 2.9 - 3.9 GHz turbo 8MB cache), and a M.2 512GB SATA SSD. Should be able to handle my gaming needs and design needs.

[TLCH723]

4 hours ago, BlvTed said:

Thanks everyone for input. So far it looks like I'm just gonna deal with buying the Dell Precision 7520 Workstation, through my school's Dell Premiere account, which literally saves more than $1,500 for the same specs without a student discount. M2200 4GB, 16 GB of RAM (expandable to 64GB lol), i7-7820 HQ (Quad 2.9 - 3.9 GHz turbo 8MB cache), and a M.2 512GB SATA SSD. Should be able to handle my gaming needs and design needs.

You can also buy refrub. and also google coupons code. if you can wait, wait until memorial day, usually there is a sale. and the hex-cores