I’m looking to get a portable device with the Surface pen to work mainly with AutoCAD.
Which spec is better for my use case - the GTX1050 (2GBvram) +8GB ram in the Surface Book or the IntelHD/Iris+16GB ram in the Surface Pro?
Looking @ these 2 specs to stick to <2k budget.
more specifically, what does CAD make better use of? A better GPU or more RAM?
Take the Surface Book. CAD will benefits way more from having a decent graphic card than having more ram. Iris pro would be way too weak for any more than very minor CAD working.
Download the software and run it in your particular use case. It will run for free for 30 days.
My experience over the last 20+ years is the answer is both. 16 GB of RAM is important for the running of AutoCAD itself on top of a fully configured Windows 10 PRO or better. The GPU matters for the project manipulation and display even without rendering. If you render scenes then a laptop or any mobile device is sub par.
If, on the other hand, you are in management and just need to view and evaluate drawings rather than design and/or manipulate them 24/7 then that is a bit different.
While running keep an eye on the system monitor and pay attention to resources…
My experience has been in civil engineering working with parts of very very large projects. So I could cut the data down to what I needed in my work. However I still typically had to open the entire job to know what to go after.
2D or 3D?
2D really doesn’t need much GPU at all, even integrated graphics are fine. 3D will use a GPU much more, and will be beneficial.
I don’t remember off the top of my head, is the RAM ineither of them upgradeable?
3D, maybe some solidworks as well, which minimum RAM requirement is the 8GB.
Since Microsoft is awesome and soldered the RAM to the mobo, no upgrades on either model
AutoCAD means a lot of things. Civil 3D? 2d lines? BIM? First requirement would be the fastest single threaded processor you can find. Then if you are doing Civil 3D with lots of polygons and survey points a graphics card with good floating point calculation (AKA workstation card). If BIM software a fast graphics card with good amounts of vram for fast rendering will go well.
3D AutoCAD and solidworks, mainly for 3D printing applications.
4.2 GHz good enough on the i7-8650U?
thanks for the info
I made the assumption that you work in 3D. If someone is working in 2D they have no business spending money on AutoCAD suites. Autodesk went full BIM in 2012. That was useful, painfull for those of us working on industry standards, but irrelavant to the discussion of memory/GPU requirements.
Exactly and I was holding this right out front.
I do not have ANY exposure to the Autodesk add-ons requirements (mem/GPU) for 3D printing components. My expectations are that the load on the GPU would be very low - if any. This make me think CPU choice and memory will rule the roost in your domain.
If you get into things like surface modeling, model rendering, modeling stormwater, other dynamic systems - then GPU matters much more.
Given the choices the surface book is the better option for AutoCAD. I wouldnt expect a stellar experience with either of them but for simple objects you should be fine with the 1050.
Not sure what add ons youre talking about but you can export directly to STL and slice. No addons needed.
Right so evaluate the system requirements of each of these (do they require pre-render?) and Bob’s-yer-uncle
The reason AutoCAD is so shitty for 3D work is because its trying to render all the time depending on which view style you have it in. Dont know about solidworks as I’ve never used it.
I would not recommend AutoCAD for making parts you intend to 3D print if you can help it. Its clunky and runs like shit on some of the best hardware out there. As the object increases in complexity the computer performance will tank. While AutoCAD itself does have some multithreading capabilities, these are limited and often you are running on a single threads performance. I have used it for making models to print. The only reason I have done exactly what I’m saying others shouldnt do is because its what I know how to use. AutoCAD is my day job so I’m fairly intimate with how big of a piece of crap it can be for anything but 2D.
While I do not have direct experience with @Adubs 3D rendering learning, I do have experience with machinists who resoundingly concur. So now I do have independent confirmation. I was fortunate enough to work on a project at the National Radio Astronomy Lab in Greenbank, WV with some aluminum work.
You need to be able to communicate the project with every audience. That’s next level starting now.
Our OP will benefit if you can convey the CPU/MEM/GPU load required in the transfer from Autodesk render engine to this software you have put forth to move the data to the print engine.
There is no extra computational power needed to export into a file format the slicer program will use. The computation is all used during the design and as @gigabit pointed out single threaded performance is still key for AutoCAD. GPU required will depend on the complexity of the part being designed but for most stuff I think a 1050ti will do fine. If you were filleting a lot of edges and had lots of curves you might struggle with performance. Particularly in rotating the part while you’re working on it. AutoCAD doesnt like letting you draw in the Z axis so you have to rotate the part and set that new side as your top. Then X or Y become what was your Z. During this rotation it will slow down becoming unresponsive if the part is complex enough.
Fusion 360 should be considered in its place if possible. Plus its free for hobbyists.
EDIT: as far as slicers go, mo threads = mo betta for the repetier software that I use with slic3r. Cant speak for others but I would imagine its roughly the same.