Graphics Card for Laptop - help needed

[ng89]

I've been charged with the task of speccing out a laptop for my department to run SolidWorks on. Unfortunately for me, I know very little about computer hardware, nor have I ever owned a laptop. I've been given a $3600 budget.

My company has a strong preference toward purchasing from Dell. So, I have started my search there. I think am having trouble finding a graphics card for their laptops that SolidWorks supports though. The top of the line card seems to be the "NVIDIA Quadro FX 2500M, 512MB (dedicated), OpenGL," which I don't see on

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/videocardtesting.html

Can anyone lend some insight into this? Is this card potentially a subset of one of the ones on SolidWorks website? Am I going to have to go somewhere other than Dell, and if so, where do you suggest?

Sorry I'm so hardware-challenged, but if anyone can take a minute to help me, I'd be very much appreciative.

 

[SBaugh]

You have to search under Dell Mfg to find Laptops and the cards are not changable in a laptop like they are in a desktop.

Look at the M Series from dell, those are your better bet of stable laptop computers. Don't just go with any laptop, because that the card listed in the laptop is certified.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[dezignstuff]

SolidWorks doesn't test the laptop cards, so you won't find them there.

The card you mention is in the M90, which you can probably get for the money you have to spend, but you won't be able to get all the bells and whistles. That card would be the one I would recommend, so I think you're pretty safe with it.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

You have to scroll to the very bottom of the Dell section.

http://img460.imageshack.us/img460/8144/dellmseries2bn.png

Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[ng89]

Ah, very nice CorBlimey, didn't realize there was a Dell section.

Thanks a ton!

Windows 2000
P4 2.40 GHz
Video Card -
Manufacturer: NVIDIA Corporation
Card: Quadro4 900 XGL/PCI/SSE2
Driver: 6.14.10.7184

 

[dezignstuff]

The laptops in there are new to me. It's not just Dell, but also IBM and HP, maybe some others.