Laptop graphic card choice

[Nigel]

I'm about to upgrade my laptop. I've specced a DUAL SLI 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GTX. Does anyone know what performance is like and if it's a complete waste?

It's either that or dual go8700m gt.

Laptop is used for CAD work, office and gaming.

 

[David]

you can put 2 gtx's in a laptop?! wtf must be massive! if i were you i'd look on google for reviews...

 

[McBunny]

erm cad work you want a quadro fx not a geforce but the 8800gtx's will be faster than the go's but will be hotter and drain the battery faster

 

[Nigel]

Mcbunny can you even get a laptop with quadro cards? My desktop here at work has an FX1300 I think. I presumed that having a decent graphics card would help when 3d modelling.

David I was shocked when I saw it, couldn't find much on google about the laptop versions. It's just a std sized laptop. Weighs a fair bit but then so did the one it's replacing!

 

[McBunny]

the laptop infront of me has a quadro fx 1600m in it, i just got it out of the box a minute ago

 

[Nigel]

Whos that from?

 

[McBunny]

i recomend the quadro mainly due to driver support in autocad and inventor

 

[McBunny]

its a dell precision M6300

 

[David]

yeh you can defo get quadro on laptops. Quadros as said will be better for autocad, i used to work for a major construction company and they're a lot better supported....as said lol!

 

[Nigel]

But would a quadro completely suck with games? My old 7900gs coped well with both games and running CAD. It struck quite a nice balance.

 

[McBunny]

it depends the 1600m is only 256mb

we have found inventor suite 2008 is a bit picky but its s**t and crashes alot anyway

 

[David]

it would do games too mate...but just won't support dx10 and some other rendering tools i would imagine. I've played games on a quadro worked fine...wow for example lol

 

[Nigel]

It's mostly Autocad with very little inventor anymore (plus it's a much older version.) that I use.

Most Cad work would be on my desktop, but ocassionally i'll need to work from home so running it on the laptop would be a massive advantage!

I just don't want to pay a premium for something that isn't worth it.

 

[McBunny]

if its going to be mainly games and a little 2d cad then get the 8800's

 

[Nigel]

It would probably be:

CAD 30%
Office/browsing 50%
Games 20%

Cad work would be solely 3d based as well.

Thanks for the input so far.

What do you do for a living Mcbunny?

 

[McBunny]

network administrator for a manufacturing company mad up of these company's (i support them all by my self)

www.portasilo.co.uk they use mechanical desktop about 20 seats and 1 inventor seat

www.portastor.com they use 100% inventor about 25 seats

http://www.adventhomes.co.uk & http://www.homeseekerhomes.com use architectural desktop

 

[Nigel]

Ah cool, it's good to get opinions from people in the know, rather than just someones opinion.