Hardware for a Design Engineer

[Acara]

Good afternoon all,

I am looking to once again upgrade my laptop (currently the specs are in my signature) to a newer one. I have recently had some problems with the fans blowing constantly and not being able to change the speed of them for some reason so I think it is time for it to go. As far as CAD softwares go we mainly use Alibre and Inventor to do everything for our customers. I am looking at something with a dedicated GPU like an RTX 2060/2070 or RTX 3050ti currently in a “gaming laptop” or a Z Book or Thinkpad P series with P2000/T3000 cards. My ideal budget is somewhere around $750 or less on the used market. I do this for a living but also this is for the business I own so I wouldn’t mind being able to occasionally let loose and play some AAA titles. I also have a desktop with a water cooled Ryzen 5 and an RX560 (GPU upgrade coming) to do anything REALLY big.

 

[simonb65]

I have recently had some problems with the fans blowing constantly and not being able to change the speed of them for some reason so I think it is time for it to go.

Check the processor fan isn't all clogged up with dust! The specs you have at present are pretty good for Alibre.

See my signature for my machines. Both perform really well (the desktop has been upgraded from 8GB to 32GB recently and that made a massive difference). Nether machine have the fans kick in though!

 

[Acara]

Check the processor fan isn't all clogged up with dust! The specs you have at present are pretty good for Alibre.

See my signature for my machines. Both perform really well (the desktop has been upgraded from 8GB to 32GB recently and that made a massive difference). Nether machine have the fans kick in though!

I think that I would rather just shell out the extra and get something different. I have had problems since I bought this laptop a few months ago. It’s been nothing but driver problems and issues since so I would rather just alleviate the problem by getting a new one.

 

[simonb65]

I think that I would rather just shell out the extra and get something different. I have had problems since I bought this laptop a few months ago. It’s been nothing but driver problems and issues since so I would rather just alleviate the problem by getting a new one.

I can highly recommend the Z-Book. Not cheap though!

 

[Acara]

I can highly recommend the Z-Book. Not cheap though!

I was looking at a similar one with a P2000 (seems to be the majority of them in my price range). I do really like the looks of the G5 and G6, they're not flashy like a gaming PC and are much more stable. I have an old Dell Precision 3510 and it also was plagued with a popular problem where it won't boot up every time you turn it on. I've had my eyes on a Z Book since the G3 came out.

 

[Acara]

I can highly recommend the Z-Book. Not cheap though!

If you had to pick between a few machines like these what would it be in your opinion? Maingear's Element 15.6" with an RTX 2070 and i7 9th gen, a G5 Z Book 15", Asus ROG Zephyrus with a Ryzen 9 and RTX 2060 and a Lenovo Thinkpad P series with similar specs to the Z Book?

 

[simonb65]

If you had to pick between a few machines like these what would it be in your opinion? Maingear's Element 15.6" with an RTX 2070 and i7 9th gen, a G5 Z Book 15", Asus ROG Zephyrus with a Ryzen 9 and RTX 2060 and a Lenovo Thinkpad P series with similar specs to the Z Book?

Difficult to say without full specs of each. When I was researching for my laptop, it was a clear choice between the ZBook 17", Dell XPS 17" and a MSI WS Series. All of these were listed on 'The best laptops for CAD' at the time (late 2019), all of them were very capable, but I already had good experience with HP machines so I stuck with them.

I would try and find reviews of each of your 'candidates' and see how many recommend for CAD and also see how their benchmarks fair for general gaming. You can't go wrong with an RTX 2xxx in a laptop. For most CAD (inc. Alibre) doesn't use multi cores, so the processor just needs really good single core benchmarks. You need 32GB RAM (not an option!).

The Lenovo Thinkpad P51's were good for CAD, as was the ZBook G5. Not really seen much on the Zephyrus but a quick google give good CAD/Gaming reviews! Never heard of the Maingear, until now.

 

[Acara]

Difficult to say without full specs of each. When I was researching for my laptop, it was a clear choice between the ZBook 17", Dell XPS 17" and a MSI WS Series. All of these were listed on 'The best laptops for CAD' at the time (late 2019), all of them were very capable, but I already had good experience with HP machines so I stuck with them.

I would try and find reviews of each of your 'candidates' and see how many recommend for CAD and also see how their benchmarks fair for general gaming. You can't go wrong with an RTX 2xxx in a laptop. For most CAD (inc. Alibre) doesn't use multi cores, so the processor just needs really good single core benchmarks. You need 32GB RAM (not an option!).

The Lenovo Thinkpad P51's were good for CAD, as was the ZBook G5. Not really seen much on the Zephyrus but a quick google give good CAD/Gaming reviews! Never heard of the Maingear, until now.

MAINGEAR is sold by Microcenter similar to PowerSpec I believe. They sell pretty nice products, I have one of their giant mousepads.

 

[Acara]

Difficult to say without full specs of each. When I was researching for my laptop, it was a clear choice between the ZBook 17", Dell XPS 17" and a MSI WS Series. All of these were listed on 'The best laptops for CAD' at the time (late 2019), all of them were very capable, but I already had good experience with HP machines so I stuck with them.

I would try and find reviews of each of your 'candidates' and see how many recommend for CAD and also see how their benchmarks fair for general gaming. You can't go wrong with an RTX 2xxx in a laptop. For most CAD (inc. Alibre) doesn't use multi cores, so the processor just needs really good single core benchmarks. You need 32GB RAM (not an option!).

The Lenovo Thinkpad P51's were good for CAD, as was the ZBook G5. Not really seen much on the Zephyrus but a quick google give good CAD/Gaming reviews! Never heard of the Maingear, until now.

If you had to choose between these 3 laptops what would it be? I’m having a very difficult time:

$650 + $200 RAM Kit - MAINGEAR Vector 2: i7-10750h, RTX 2060, 16GB of RAM (I believe it is upgradable to 64GB for $200 in RAM kits)

$740 - MAINGEAR Element 1/50 Launch Edition: i7-9750h, RTX 2070 MaxQ, 32GB of RAM and 2TB SSD

$1,129 - Lenovo Thinkpad T15g Gen 1 Refurb - i7-10850h, RTX 2070 MaxQ, 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD

I use a Lenovo like this but as a gen 2 with an RTX 3080 and i9 with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. It’s a MONSTER and I’ve only had the fans actually start up a handful of times in the almost year I’ve worked there. The other two are essentially the same thing but just from Microcenter. The only difference is that I would not have a number pad on the MAINGEAR Element and would need a USB keypad (I’m kind of on the fence about it).

 

[BobSchaefer]

Just looking at specs and price, the RTX 2070 is slightly better than the RTX 2060, but the 10750h is slightly better than the 9750h. So, spec-wise they're all pretty comparable. For my money, even though I'm not a fan of house brands, I'd go for the Element 1/50 Launch edition, primarily because of the price and the SSD.

The only other thing that would have a large impact, personally, would be the size of the screen... I prefer to have a larger screen on the laptop.

 

[Acara]

Just looking at specs and price, the RTX 2070 is slightly better than the RTX 2060, but the 10750h is slightly better than the 9750h. So, spec-wise they're all pretty comparable. For my money, even though I'm not a fan of house brands, I'd go for the Element 1/50 Launch edition, primarily because of the price and the SSD.

The only other thing that would have a large impact, personally, would be the size of the screen... I prefer to have a larger screen on the laptop.

I actually coughed up extra money and bought a thinkpad for $1300 tax and shipping included. It has an i9-10850h, 32GB of DDR4 RAM (upgradable to 128GB), a 2070 Super MaxQ and a 1TB SSD. I have a similar machine at work and the fans never even get to come on, the only difference is that mine at work has the 11th gen i9 and a 3070.