What laptop for low-grade 3D modelling?

[Landlord]

Hi,

I've gone an bought myself a 3D printer and I'm loving it and I've also started using Fusion 360.

I'm using an old-ish laptop which whilst it copes admirably, it does struggle somewhat with Fusion/Cura etc.

I'd like to buy myself a more suitable laptop for the job - however, the review sites all seem to pitch to the serious hobbyist/semi-pro audience whereas I really only work on/design very simple 3D models.

For example, the typical recommended set up is i7 processor and Nvidia GTx 1050 card. It seems these are marketed as "gaming laptops" and are all about a grand plus. I'd rather be spending circa 500-600 if possible.

Also, the minimum spec given by Fusion is just that, the minimum spec for it to operate - I basically want something between the min spec and the gaming laptop spec.

Anyone got any recommendations? Would an i5 processor be OK? I suspect the graphics card is the key "must-have"? SSD?

Failing that, does anyone know of a reputable place to buy an i7/GTx1050 15.6" laptop that would offer either 0% buy-now-pay-later or similar (i.e. not 25% APR st).

Thanks,
Landlord

[pherlopolus]

I run Cura (with tinkercad, still learning F360) on a 2014 vintage i5 laptop with onboard graphics and 8gb ram and it copes (is running an SSD)

My work Lenovo t480s is just fine as well...

I've toyed with getting a better spec desktop for future upgradeability, but spend 3-4 nights a week in a hotel...

[lufbramatt]

Try to get something with a workstation graphics card- such as NVidia Quadro with at least 512mb of graphics memory- as they have more stable drivers with better OpenGL support which is what 3D cad packages generally need. Gaming type graphics cards will work but might crash more often. Stay away from on board graphics cards such as Intel 3100.

More RAM is better, you want at least 8gb really.

I had an old Thinkpad T61p that ran ProEngineer really well until the motherboard went tits up, that cost me about £750 IIRC about 7 years ago so there must be something suitable for your budget.

[mr_fibuli]

I'm doing similar stuff - Fusion 360 and Cura, and it all works great on my 3 year old i7 laptop with Intel graphics. It does have Iris graphics which is double the normal Intel speed, but still relatively slow.

I wouldn't worry too much about i5 vs i7 - there's not much in it most of the time.

These days you should be able to get a quad core CPU and entry level graphics that will give you a decent boost over Intel for your kind of budget. Look for NVidia MX150 or Amd Ryzen 5 laptops, eg:

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/la...

https://www.newegg.com/global/uk-en/Product/Produc...

I don't think you'll have any problems running Fusion on those - no need for a high end workstation or even a gaming laptop unless you are designing a jet engine on it! The SSDs alone will give you a massive boost if you don't already have one.

[Insanity Magnet]

lufbramatt said:

Try to get something with a workstation graphics card- such as NVidia Quadro with at least 512mb of graphics memory- as they have more stable drivers with better OpenGL support which is what 3D cad packages generally need. Gaming type graphics cards will work but might crash more often. Stay away from on board graphics cards such as Intel 3100.

More RAM is better, you want at least 8gb really.

I had an old Thinkpad T61p that ran ProEngineer really well until the motherboard went tits up, that cost me about £750 IIRC about 7 years ago so there must be something suitable for your budget.

Fusion 360 (Windows) was written to bypass the requirement for a specialist CAD card so should run on most systems with a reasonable integrated or discrete graphics processor:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/fusion-360/...

I would probably get something with a good GeForce or AMD chip (whatever that is nowadays). Having typed that, if you end up wanting to run something like Solidworks with all the fancy graphical bells and whistles, you will need a Quadro or Radeon Pro / FirePro. SW will work without but will use software GL rather than hardware and will thus run a bit slower.

I run Fusion 360 on a 13" Macbook Pro (F-key version) and it runs fine.

(I use Solidworks most of the time and have just splashed out £2K on a Quadro-equipped Lenovo P52 to replace a dead Dell M6800. Was hoping to run until next year on the Dell...)