At the crux of the issue, it isn’t feasibly possible to fit a mobile workstation with desktop caliber components. There is no wiggle room here. It is just a fact. Take a look at desktop processors compared to those available for notebooks – there is a major difference in speed, cache, power draw, and number of cores. These same comparisons can be made about graphics cards. However, when it comes to the quality of the motherboard (chipset), available ports, hard drive/solid state drive, memory (RAM), and optical drives little sacrifice needs to be made, if any at all. This is important, as more and more professionals are on the move, out in the field, and take work home with them.

Mobile Processors

When it comes to speed, reliability, power consumption, and availability, Intel has a huge upper hand over AMD. So much so that I’m not going to even discuss AMD CPU’s in this article. It isn’t that they are poor quality or that I’m unfamiliar with them, it is just the fact you’d be taking a wrong turn out of the gates if you went with an AMD chip in a mobile workstation when Intel performs so much better and its ubiquity makes complimentary components less expensive.

With that said, the Intel Sandy Bridge mobile processors have been available since the beginning of this year. They are a significant upgrade from the previous generation in speed, cache, advanced Turbo Boost capabilities, power consumption, and even price. The standard fare CPU in many mid-to-high end consumer notebooks and entry level mobile workstations is the Intel Core i7-2630QM processor (2 GHz Quad Core w/ 6 MB L3 Cache). This CPU is likely powerful enough for daily CAD design and basic modeling capabilities. You may find it can do much more, but with most CAD applications only taking advantage of a single processor core, there’s only so much you can squeak out of this chip (even with Turbo Boost focusing up to 2.9 GHz speeds to a single core when under heavy loads).

The Core i7 chip line rounds out with the 2720QM (2.2 GHz w/ 6 MB L3 Cache), 2820QM (2.3 GHz w/ 8 MB L3 Cache), and 2920XM (2.5 GHz w/ 8 MB L3 Cache) all sporting Turbo Boost technology allowing a single core to get around a 30-40% jump in performance on heavy calculations. At a price point of about $1k above the 2630Qm, the 2920Xm processor knocks the budget out of the park and I would be skeptical buying it at all due to the heat it will generate, power drain, and lack of return on investment from performance.

Those that keep up with gadget news will know there are also Core i3 and Core i5 versions of the Intel Sandy Bridge chips, but these tend to be quite underwhelming under anything above basic tasks on modern CAD applications.

The Verdict

From my pricing, testing, and scrutinizing, it appears the Core i7 2720QM CPU is the best of the bunch when comparing performance vs. price. Given an extra $100-150 in budget or savings in another component category, though, the 2820QM processor is desirable with the extra cache and significant jump in Turbo Boost allocation.

Special Note

Intel is rumored to release several (9) new Sandy Bridge mobile processors very soon. These are apparently going to be a little better in performance compared to the current line and have slightly higher clocked HD 3000 graphics. I would guess they’ll be similarly priced between the 26xx, 27xx, and 28xx series, so it should be a pretty easy choice on new notebooks.

My article, “Collaboration in a Multi-Disciplinary/Multi-Firm Environment,” goes in depth on different methods of saving, exporting, modifying, and sharing Civil 3D files with other software users such as older versions, vanilla AutoCAD (and AutoCAD LT), AutoCAD WS for the web and mobile platform, and Navisworks.

There is a small discrepancy in the article. In a set of images comparing two different file sizes, the same image was used twice where there should have been over a 50% increase in file size. Not a big issue, but it certainly doesn’t properly illustrate the concern I was trying to represent. Give it a read, soak it all in, and come back here to leave a comment and let me know what you thought of it. Thanks!

Last year at AU I was a lab assistant for 2 classes, attended a bunch more, took part in the Blogger and AEC socials, and worked the Avatech Solutions / IMAGINiT Technologies booth. If you were there, I may have seen you and so the reverse. This year, I’ve been lucky enough to have 2 class proposals selected to instruct! So, if you are heading out to Autodesk University 2011 in Las Vegas, make sure to check out the classes listed below that I’ll be presenting. To make it a little easier, once you’ve registered for the conference and are signing up for classes, just find the name “Bryan Tanner” in the instructor pull-down list to find my classes.

Discovering what your version of Autodesk software, or a version you plan on upgrading to, requires of your workstation is a simple Google search away. I’ll make it a little easier, though. Below are the system requirement pages for Autodesk’s major 2012 products and a resource link for future reference in finding support topics on Autodesk software:

• AutoCAD
• Map 3D
• Civil 3D
• Autodesk Revit Architecture
• Autodesk Revit MEP
• Inventor
• Navisworks
• 3Ds Max
• Autodesk Support Resource Link

Processor and Operating System

Looking through these requirements and recommendations you should start to see quite a trend: High CPU speed, lots of RAM, and a certified workstation graphics card. 64-bit programs require more resources, but the extra cost is well worth it given the additional computing performance shown in review-after-review. Not that there’s much of a choice any more. Pretty much any new workstation (and most bought within the last 2-3 years) already have a 64-bit capable processor and Windows Professional 64-bit is becoming more the norm rather than the exception.

Memory (RAM)

Memory (RAM) is becoming a major commodity these days as its price has fallen dramatically and motherboards are manufactured to accept more slots with higher capacities and faster chipsets. That’s a good thing, too. Most of Autodesk’s latest offerings are very RAM-hungry with users of complex Revit models even being suggested to work with 16 GB+ of memory on their machines . At the time of this writing, there are numerous desktop motherboards which can accept more than this quantity of RAM, only 3 notebooks that I’m aware of, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit won’t even recognize more that 16 GB of memory (better than the 3 GB limit of 32-bit operating systems!).

Graphics/Video Card

Graphics cards have always been the talk of the town when it comes to CAD workstations. Autodesk (and many other CAD developers) recommend certified workstation cards which cost 2-3 times more than their gaming equivalent. Although these graphics cards may be built on the same platform, workstation cards may have more shader pipelines opened up and higher clocked processor cores, as well as proper drivers for Direct3D, OpenGL, OpenCL, and CUDA drivers.

These differences are what make workstation cards work better for CAD geometry and database calculations compared to gaming graphics cards; they are also what make them much more expensive. Are they worth the extra money? I’ll leave that up to the people with dozens of machines to test repeatedly with billions of calculations. My opinion? Decide whether you intend to purchase a business-level workstation or a consumer grade computer and get the best video card you can within your budget (best != most expensive).

Hard Drive/Storage

Although Autodesk doesn’t mention much along the lines of storage drives aside from free space, faster is better. There are 5400, 7200, and 10k RPM Hard Disk Drives and Solid State Drives with read/write speeds which vary drastically. Solid State Drives (SSD) are newer technology which is finally starting to drop in price a little, but is well beyond what most consider affordable for their computer purchasing needs. They are much faster, but they are also very misunderstood and earlier/entry level models aren’t much of a performance jump compared to a 7200 or 10k RPM Hard Disk Drive (HDD).

What matters the most when dealing with Autodesk software requirements and recommendations is that you have plenty of free space (8 GB+ at the absolute minimum) available on the storage drive you are using and it is running error free. Storage drives are one of the most common components to fail on computers and carry the most value after use – you did back all your data up to a server or external hard drive before it failed, right? Get a 7200 RPM HDD for affordable storage at a decent speed and a small (80-128 GB) SSD to install your OS and CAD software on for quick starts and fast load times without breaking the bank…so long as you have 2 storage drive bays to take advantage of.

Wrap-Up

Buying a CAD workstation to fit the needs of your software is always a bit of a mystery. You know what the requirements and recommendations are for this release of the software, but what about next year? Or the year after that? Remember you are buying this hardware to work for you with little-to-no upgrades necessary for about 3 years.

Purchasing a bottom-feeder now will leave some money in your wallet, but have you crying later when a 600MB Revit model won’t load. Going over-the-top may help you keep your sanity a few years from now working with huge CAD files, but you may still be broke from the home equity loan you took out in the process. Finding a great sale/promotion or an average workstation which has easy-to-upgrade components is the ideal way to go. We’ll explore more on this as the 2011 Indydrafter CAD Hardware series continues.