Laptop for CAD program

DanM
DanM
edited June 2021 in General Discussion

I'm looking to buy a laptop to run my architecture CAD software (Vectorworks) I've listed below the requirements they suggest. 

I'm not really a hardware guy so I get kind of lost and not so interested in comparing models. Can anyone look at this and suggest products that will work reliably and easily handle the program. Would like something I can pick up in stock at Chicago Micro Center. 

Should be Windows 10 64-bit and I'd like a 17" screen.
Below are links to what I think would work but would like to hear opinions/suggestions. It seems like gaming laptops have the power:

https://www.microcenter.com/product/623133/lenovo-legion-5-17imh05h-173-gaming-laptop-computer---black

https://www.microcenter.com/product/623565/msi-gs75-stealth-10sf-420-173-gaming-laptop-computer---black

Thanks for any help and suggestions.
 
Processor: 64-bit Intel Core i5 (or AMD equivalent) clocked at 2GHz or better
RAM: 8GB-16GB or more
Graphics Card: A dedicated OpenGL 2.1 compatible graphics card with 2GB-4GB of VRAM or more
Vectorworks with Vision requires a dedicated graphics card supporting GL_ARB_draw_buffers extension with 4GB of VRAM or more, preferably released in the past three years (e.g., NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 series, AMD Radeon RX Vega series).
Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher
Hard Disk: 10GB free disk space is required for the installation. 30GB or more is required for a full installation with all libraries.
Installing Vectorworks on flash storage (SSD) is recommended.

 

Comments

  • TSTonyV
    TSTonyV ✭✭✭✭✭
    1000 Comments Fourth Anniversary 250 Likes 25 Answers
    You're right in that you'll basically be buying a gaming laptop since those are the ones that come with dedicated GPUs. Both the laptops you selected would be great choices, it's ultimately just a matter of what kind of budget you have. 

    Most any gaming laptop over $1000 will probably hit those specs. If you have a specific budget in mind we could give some other recommendations. 
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