forum.datacad.com

I'm in the market for a new laptop, only because my 4yr old one is beginning to show some ominous signs of death. I've been perfectly happy with its performance on most cad/3d work (1.7ghz centrino, 2g ram, 128mb video card). Up to a year ago, I would not have dared purchase a computer without dedicated graphics. However, it seems that the name of the game nowadays is not so much adding power to a system but increasing its portability. I would really love to have a lightweight laptop that I can carry anywhere and not need a power cord, but basically all of these systems use integrated graphics.

Who has had experience with Datacad on integrated graphics cards, esp. the newer ones that have come out in the past 6 months or year? Maybe the newer integrated graphics cards would be considered faster than dedicated cards that came out a few years ago? Nvidia makes the integrated graphics cards for Macbooks, and I'm also wondering how these stack up against the Intel cards that most other manufacturers use.

Hi,

Intel graphics chips have improved a lot, but they really had to, as they were pretty lame. Now they are okay, but still not as good as nVidia or ATi. The MacBook Pro batteries are pretty awesome, with up to 7 hours of life per charge. You can run Windows on them with either BootCamp (a dual boot set up) or with Fusion or Parallels that let you run Windows within OSX.

Intel graphics chips have improved a lot, but they really had to, as they were pretty lame. Now they are okay, but still not as good as nVidia or ATi.

Do you think that the nvidia/ati integrated graphics do a good enough job? In what situation would a dedicated card be highly preferable?