Laptop spec opinions

[Lucky Larry]

Hey guys,
I'm looking for educated opinions. I'm not a terribly up to date guy as far as keeping up with computers. I use them for what I need, but I'm not so savvy when it comes to what is better or worse when it comes to performance and features. I use Alibre Atom 3D for the few drawings that I make original and to open customer's models and assemblies to create prints for my machine shop. I have a Toshiba laptop that is about 14 years old that doesn't quite meet the minimum specs for running Alibre. It runs it, but is terribly slow opening the models and drawings. Once open it does fine with them, but just very slow opening. I'm thinking of replacing this laptop with a refurbished Dell laptop with the following specs. and would like to get some opinions from some folks who really know more than I do about computers and performance. I believe this exceeds minimum requirement but I would like to have something that will perform really well and that will won't need to be replaced anytime soon. The one thing I'm specifically concerned about is the Intel uhd graphics as opposed to a machine with a stand alone graphics card with its own vram.
Here's the specs for the laptop I'm considering.
Tech Specs

• Processor
  Intel Core 13th Generation i5-13600HX Processor (14 Core, Up to 4.80GHz, 24MB Cache, 55W)
• Hard Disk Drive
  512GB PCIe M.2 NVMe Gen 4 Class 40 Solid State Drive
• Memory
  16GB (1X16GB) 4800MHz DDR5 Non-ECC CAMM Module
• 
  Windows 11 Pro
• 
  16 inch FHD+ (1920 x 1200) Wide View Angle Anti-Glare 60Hz 250-nits 45% NTSC Non-Touch Display
• 
  Intel UHD Graphics
• 
  Dell Outlet Precision 16 - 7680 Laptop
• 
  FHD RGB Camera with Shutter, Temporal Noise Reduction and Microphone, No Express Sign-In
• 
  6-Cell, 83 WHr Lithium Ion Battery
• 
  Intel Wi-Fi 6E 2x2 AX211 Wireless Card

Thanks in advance for any input...... it's genuinely appreciated.

Lucky Larry

 

[DavidJ]

The Intel UHD won't be as capable as a proper dedicated graphics adaptor with dedicated memory (it will 'steal' system memory). Whether that will be an issue for you will depend upon size and complexity of the models you deal with.

I do see quite a few Intel UHD systems when analysing support tickets - so they must give tolerable performance for some. Maybe those who have similar hardware could comment. I'd perhaps check if there is a spare slot to be able to add extra memory later if needed.

 

[EPowIPi]

Here some benchmarks: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel...r-Lake-GPU-Benchmarks-and-Specs.633858.0.html
Scroll down to SPECViewPerf 2020, choose e.g. the Creo, Solidworks or Catia tests for 1080p and click on "show comparison chart". Also you can enter the name of other GPUs to compare with.
Bottom line - the UHD graphics are comparatively slow. But depending on your model it might still be fast enough? The test models in SPECViewPerf are more small to medium size ones (e.g. for the catia06 test (5-21 million vertice models) with 1080p the average framerate is about 9 fps. Perhaps you could compare your models with the ones shown for that test to estimate in which ballpark the framerate might end up in your case): https://gwpg.spec.org/benchmarks/benchmark/specviewperf-2020-v3-1/

Edit: Just tested the benchmark myself (can be downloaded from the last link). Getting about 10x the framerate with a two generations (3 years) old Nvidia RTX 3080 and a mid-class 5700x CPU for most test cases (for the most demanding snx-04 test it is only 24 fps up from 6 fps of the UHD 770, which is not 10x but still an appreciated speedup, everything else is way above practically workable 30 fps with the Nvidia card - and e.g. the Creo03 test runs at >90 fps).
So perhaps a used computer with a dedicated GPU might be preferrable for more complex models?