Hi, I am a student of Landscape Architecture, recently I bought a Thinkpad X1 Carbon (which is not a really good choice), but I find it works badly with Rhino6 on Windows, e.g. export a large picture costs me 10 minutes+.
Here is the tech spec:
CPU: Intel i7-8650U
Memory: 16 GB LPDDR3 2133MHz
Hard Drive: 512 GB SSD
Graphics: Intel® UHD Graphics 620
So I am thinking of buying an extra dock (Mantiz Venus maybe?) and an extra video card (GTX 1070 maybe?), but I am not sure if it is enough for Rhino6, or should I just buy a new laptop, say dell precision M5520?
Thank you in advance!
P.S. On X1 Carbon, it takes about 2 minutes to open a dwg file (100M+) with CAD2018, is that a normal thing?
Before anything else, I think I’d look into seeing if Lenovo can reconfigure it to include a dedicated graphics card.
There are a lot of folks using similar specs to what you’ve listed… but most would (and should) have opted for a dedicated Graphics Card instead of the integrated one.
However, the Intel i7 CPU, with 16GB RAM is a decent computer build,… and represents a common baseline configuration for a lot of CAD programs.
If Lenovo can re-outfit your laptop for improved graphics, then you could also bump up to 32GB RAM if you wanted to,… and that would probably represent the 2nd most common upgrade from what you now have (e.g. adding in more memory).
BUT,
I think in general, laptops are limited in that if you DO build them up to a high level of performance (spec wise), your Achilles Heel always becomes a Poor Cooling System,… which is not really robust enough to support the work being done… and all of those big rendering projects happen with the fear of overheating the computer during the process.
… Poor Battery life is the other thing that takes a nose dive, so there’s a happy middle ground in my view.
Student status + Freedom of mobility + (hopefully) Studying what you love makes a laptop an Awesome Option… and thats probably why you’ve chosen one.
If there’s an underlying concern here, that what you really want is a computer for heavy lifting… then I think I’d push towards a desktop computer… and always keep a decent laptop around to support a mobile and active student/work life.