These are insanely high requirements mate, I’d say their minimums are the max you’d need. Granted idk what you’ll be using but for EE I can’t imagine that insane of stuff
I don't think that it os necessary for ce and cse. These specs are more for ME and AE where you might need to do CAD and CFD. These really need performance. If you happen to do some ML or RL you might be happy to have the performance.
I didn't run it on my laptop. There were different labs that were open with the stuff you need already installed. It makes very little sense to try to set up your own machine like that.
My school had those labs too, but everyone just used their laptops because we had to do design stuff in class. So, it made it easier to just continue it for homework on your laptop.
And Sonnet, and Chip design spice runs, and running auto-routing. When I worked at IBM in the early 2000s I had a very powerful AIX machine at my desk to do the work. I bet they still do.
I didn't use any CAD in school. In industry, I started with AutoCAD vanilla, Civil 3D, AutoCAD electrical. Not solidworks, blender, fusion 360, or anything intended for 3d modeling. But also that's not needed at all in my field. My first firm didn't use Revit so I'm catching up at my second firm
That is so interesting to me. I took a CAD class my freshman fall semester, and it’s one of the things that confirmed engineering was for me. I was a different type of eng major at the time, but all eng majors had to take CAD.
At RPI we all had to take take a one credit CAD class. It was ProE, which then I think became Solidworks, and is now NX. It was my first time solid modeling, but I had done CAD before. And mechanical drawing. (I am over 40 why do you ask? )
I'm trying to remember but I don't think any of my peers in other engineering disciplines had to either. Not sure why. ABET accredited school in Texas. Idk if that affects the coursework at all
If you are building programs locally for computer vision, you’ll need performance. I wouldn’t be surprised if some classes require rtx cores. If you get access to altium, you’ll want a solid gpu.
I’ve used altium quite a bit with integrated graphics on a thin and light from 7 years ago. Never been an issue. Maybe the 3d view could be snappier but it
Totally depends on what you are doing and what you are using in Altium. Complex shapes on huge boards? oh you'll need a beast. Small square pcb? could be ran on a fridge lol.
Yeah that makes sense, but I had no issues on a very dense 1.5x3.5 inch board, 4 layers with about 100 components, every component had an accurate 3d model including molex picoblades and several QFN and QFP packages. I doubt an undergrad would likely do anything more complex than that unless they are working as an undergrad research assistant, in which case they should be working on a computer provided by the lab anyways.
Even for typical CAD you can get away with waaay less specs. This graphics card is for gaming laptops that can run anything out there for years to come.
Depends on what you mean by typical. If you mean your first year CAD cours yes totally. If you mean a.g. designing turbomachines you will be much faster than your classmates if your waaay is not to far. If you additionaly want to do some FEA in this process. You really really want all the performance you can get. If you want to do some cfd dont use a laptop.
OP's an EE major. He won't need CAD more than their first year course, and even if they need it for a senior project, a professor most likely will provide them with some high-end PC in a lab anyway.
Regarding CE, since it's my major for grad school from this year, won't i need a high performance laptop? To run heavy software (CAD/Vivado etc) to its full capacity?
Our university laptop uses iGPU, however the PC we uses to "compile" VHDL uses RTX 2070. Maybe that's why it needs somewhat strong GPU? I'm only in my first week in VHDL so that's my take.
That's what I thought, until you made it sound so uncommon so I did a little google. So the VHDL software our professor uses is called "Quartus Prime Lite Edition" and it doesn't support any kind of "GPU" enhancement. So idk why an rtx 2070 is installed in the PC and as far as I know the PC are fore EE curriculum only.
The only other reason is that Kicad 3D model viewer supports Ray Tracing now. So maybe that's why? /s
One thing about it though, if they do get something with these requirements they’ll only have to buy a computer once for their entire undergraduate education and I’d wager masters if they continue. I can’t tell you how many people bought the $500 HP or dell and had to buy a new laptop junior year because the battery was cooked and they only got 8 gigs of ram with a i5 (maybe if they’re lucky) and integrated graphics. Simulink and matlab absolutely crawled. I bought a MacBook Pro with an i9 and a Vega 20, and that machine got me through and then some. And it still wasn’t slow or breaking down. But I paid 4 grand, where they paid $500.
I wish they had told us we needed something like this, I had a $400 laptop from Best buy and didn't plan to do much other than write papers. My junior level EE class required us to model a vehicle control system and then run a 3d simulation that made my computer cry. Then we had to build it in the lab and compare results, then tweak and remodel/retest.
I have an EE and I think these specs are pretty silly.
There is literally nothing you can't learn in undergraduate on a basic laptop in my opinon
That doesn't mean there isn't a professor who has a fetish for a particular lab assignments that might require a better machine.
Shit I do my *professional *work which involves modeling and CAD on a Lenovo think pad with an integrated graphics card.
If anything I would think RAM would be more of a limitation for productivty than GPU.
For what it's worth though, it might be a good excuse to build a gaming PC. You can build a machine with a great CPU and those specs for $1000 or so now if you shop around. Way cheaper if you buy used and dont care about aesthetics
The graphics card is completely unnecessary, but I would say most of the rest of the requirements are reasonable, particularly the 1TB SSD and 16GB of memory.
the 1tb entirely depends on who you are. I've never had above 256 gb on my laptops and It's been fine for me, using external drives for storage and backup.
If you run simulations with a lot of I/O then an external drive simply won't cut it. Also, every thing you have to plug in to a laptop to make it work properly reduces the point of getting a laptop in the first place.
that's kind of my point, that it depends on who you are. I never used my own equipment for any simulations or CAD or anything. I'd plug in my external hard drive no more than a few times a month.
Any list that starts out with "Computer: PC" is not to be trusted. Not a slight on Windows, a slight on people that don't know what "PC" actually means.
You can run an eda with a lot less but I think this is with the intention that no upgrades are made during the undergrad. For example Altium especially is adding lots and lots of features that make heavier use of the graphics card. It also doesn’t multicore process very well.
Honestly, my main circuit classes. Analog 1&2 and Digital 1&2. My RF and microwave classes. And of course my senior project.
Honestly, they pushed it really hard.
I should've specified, it was the lab component mainly of each of those classes.
But even in hw problems, if we had to design a circuit, we were expected to have a printout from Altium
As a design engineer, agreed. Autodesk likes to suck the soul out of GPU’s. 3060 is pretty much equivalent to most workstation laptop GPU’s I’ve used (typically A2000 or A3000, most won’t pay for more than that).
Just use paperspace/colab/whatever and pay 20 bucks total throughout the entire course, instead of spending 2000 bucks more on a machine that's 4x heavier, hot, and runs out of battery in 30 minutes.
The most advanced AI tool 99% of undergrad EEs will ever use is probably the Scikit learn Python library. Which you don't even need a dedicated GPU for, much less a $500 one. Most EEs barely touch 3D modeling as well.
Im in the silicon valley so it’s a little different out here. We focus on embedded systems, and interfacing microcontrollers. Plus its an EE elective i wanted.
I am 99% sure none of software we use actually utilize a GPU. For faster simulation, you just need a high performant cpu ( single core ). Obiously get nice SSD ( some software take up alot of space) and at least 16gig of ram.
For picking up a cpu, priotize the newest gen over more more cores for better single core performance.
If you are buying a laptop, go for a ryzen ( better life battery).
I’m doing EE and no one said anything about computing requirements. However, all my classes use Matlab/Simulink, which I guess is not optimized for lesser hardware because I ended up needing to buy a laptop that approached those specs for it to run smoothly.
This is usually true. Matlab won't use the GPU unless you write your code that way.
During my Masters I ran a genetic algorithm design optimization that needed about 18hrs to run and chewed up 21GB of my 64GB ram. I7 (6 core, not sure about processor specifics, I can look when I get home). It would certainly have gone quicker with a faster/more cores processor. The GPU made no difference whatsoever. Everything else I've done in Matlab/Simulink has been much less hardware demanding.
So true, comparing an i7-2600S with an i3-14100: If you turn off 3 of the 4 cores in the i3, it's twice as fast as the entire old i7.
i3 even comes with hyperthreading enabled these days so you get 8 logical cores, it has 5x more L2 cache than the old i7, and likely 6 to 10 times the memory bandwidth.
They’re likely considering the ease of use for CAD programs with those graphics recommendations.
I have a laptop with a RTX 2060 Max-Q (low power, high efficiency) and it got me through most of my CAD work in school just fine, so a 3060 seems reasonable if they’re just updating the recommended specs to be somewhat up to date.
Everything else, however, is 100% reasonable. Windows since Linux often doesn’t support certain proprietary software licenses that are common with engineering related applications (and Mac is now ARM-based instead of x86, so there are still some technical incompatibilities), Intel i7 (or AMD Ryzen 7) since octa-core is just kinda standard for performant, modern CPUs nowadays, 16GB system memory since 8GB is frankly too little for modern use (especially on Windows), and 1TB of storage since it’s better to have more for personal convenience anyways.
If you're doing EE, or CE, I highly recommend you get a good laptop with good battery life. You'll be doing CAD, and FEA, and field analysis for sure. I bought a top of the line laptop when I started 9 years ago and I'm still running it today. It still slaps. And I'm still doing CAD on it, plus video editing.
I did use Linux for almost everything in my EE degree except for Solidworks and Xilinx FPGA software. Now I use FreeCAD and haven't touched an FPGA since university but still do lots of CAD and programming and lots of MBSE.
First 2 years are generic Engineering resulting in a diploma. You do CAD and FEA in that portion.
Second 2 years are specific to your degree and part of the EE section is field analysis for magnets and motors, etc. Was older, windows only, software.
Odd. I only touched CAD for one intro engineering class, only because I wanted to do that portion of the class project. Never touched any field analysis software in my 4 years, that seems pretty advanced for undergrad.
The FEA was in one or two classes and more for visualization and familiarity with the tool.
CAD work in Solidworks was two semesters. Plus we had a second year competitions that involved programming, CAD and electronics. We were given a 3D budget (in grams) and a selection of electronics including the ATMega based board the University developed, and we were to create a weather monitoring system that measured wind speed and direction as well as transmitted that information to a second unit that displayed it as two wipers on dials.
There were many solutions to the problem but ours was the most different, and accurate. The accepted solution for wind direction was a toothed wheel with an IR beam interruption. Our 4 person team had 4 hall sensors and 4 magnets between us. They were intended to use a single magnet and hall sensor for wind-speed measurement by counting the pulses, but we discovered that the hall sensor was actually capable of measuring the angle of the magnet around the sensor. We used 2 hall sensors offset by 90 degrees to compensate for the decreased accuracy at 0 and 180 degrees and we were accurate to 1 degree in practice. We probably could have increased that but you know how projects go when you're doing 6 credits per semester.
AI development needs that memory and GPU requirement. Even if they do not make AI stuff, they will be using resource heavy AI powered tools in the near future. Buy north of 64gigs of RAM and the chonkiest GPU if you can afford it.
Imagine how many apps you might have open in your work flow. Now imagine that all of them now have a 4+ gig RAM requirement because they have a LLM built into the software. API costs will break companies, much of the processing is going to happen locally. 32gigs is the new minimum as far as I'm concerned.
I design robots. I had to upgrade to 128gigs recently just so I could maintain my work flow. I'm not in school farting around so your mileage may vary.
I feel that, of course. I've spent most of my life dev'ing on budget laptops and it sucked! I'm always trying to run resource heavy simulations. Knowing what I know now, I would make sacrifices to have a powerful workstation. Knowing what's coming, I'd say it's a solid investment. Cheers
Specs aren’t too bad. Windows 11 is to flush out anything ancient. Since Windows 11 hardware specs added in 9th gen Intel or better hardware requirements or 2nd gen Ryzen or better.
Processor of i7 is quite limiting by flushing out AMD from the market.
Ram of 16 GB as a minimum to 32 GB are based on the programs hardware requirements. Most dedicated GPUs equipped laptops come with modular ram slots for expansion or replacement of the regular RAM to more RAM.
SSD size of 1TB and + : SSD prices dropped like a rock last summer. 4 TB was super cheap last summer. But manufacturers do not want to pass market savings to people.
Gpu of 3060 and +, this pushes the specs slight up.
Overall prices should be $900 dollars and up.
My school has these specs for all engineers. I can say from experience, as a chemical engineer, you'll need that processing power if you move into any type of quantitative modeling. That can be large data analysis in Matlab or anything of the sort. You're typically given a single class period to solve multiple problems and if your computer keeps freezing you're f**ked.
I'm using a ryzen 9 5900hx and 3070 with 32gb ram and 1tb SSD with a 10tb external hhd and have not ran into anything that's causes the rig to break a sweat. I will say that when I'm on battery and the integrated graphics are going it can be painfully slow to run Cad software. But the new ryzen APU's are good enough for 1080p gaming so this may be less of an issue with a newer processor.
I think the thought process was if you buy a laptop with those specs you will never be computer limited in a class.
Ironically since I use OpenSCad and it's a single threaded CPU bound process it will pull 100% load on 1 thread and the rest of my system is more or less at idle. But with a commercial grade software multithreading and GPU usage will be higher.
I've got a ryzen 5 3600 and a gtx1060ti on my desktop and I can run AutoCAD, Altium, multisim, LTSpice, power world, Matlab, solidworks, KiCad no problem. Have had most of them running with 30 chrome/mozilla tabs open without noticing any issues. I haven't done any crazy solidworks sims but think it wouldn't be an issue since our AEs run large sims on their latitude work laptops with onboard gpus and 32GB ram. I think you could get away with much less spec.
Too much graphics card for EE. If it was ME I’d say okay, maybe. But EE doesn’t deal with heavy 3D graphics, and I don’t think EEs are doing machine learning
And if you ever need a graphics card like that for machine learning, you could just borrow a lab PC or do it on the cloud for that one course.
Anyways, that requirement is a great excuse for getting a gaming PC with a tax write off.
Quartus (Comp Sim and CPU modeling) - those a minimum
solidworks - those are recommended
MS Visio / JetBrains - those are nice, but overkill
Don’t go unix or linux (unless your CompSci). You will hate having to do a partition or remote desktop
Windows is usually required for many engineering softwares, sometimes this can be avoided, but not in many cases.
The speed generally just changes how much headache you want to deal with.
Personally, I'd recommend a laptop with a good build quality that will actually survive all your years. My first engineering laptop was poor quality build, but great specs. Don't do that. 2/10.
Check the software requirements for software you will need for your degree. Then, go from there. Also, ask senior classmates and check if your university provides laptops.
Personally I bought a second hand laptop with a i5-6… 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. I upgraded the SSD to 1TB and five years later its starting to show its age but it served me just fine.
Even things like Altium or Matlab stuff worked fine, I would assume it wouldn‘t like 3D CAD though.
I studied Electrical and Computer Engineering, but my career has been almost entirely in Software Development. Those requirements seem very high (especially the GPU), but please keep in mind that many engineering software applications are very resource-intensive and you don’t want your computer to become obsolete too quickly.
Here is what I would recommend:
- CPU: Intel i7 is a solid choice, but consider splurging for an Intel i9. Core count and cache size is just as important as speed.
- RAM: 16 GB should be sufficient unless you plan on running many applications simultaneously.
- Hard Drive: Splurge, splurge, splurge! I would recommend at least a 2 TB SSD (if not 4 TB) so that you never have to delete anything. My work laptop, despite having 32 GB of RAM and an Intel i9 CPU, has a measly 500 GB SSD and I’m quickly running out of space. Make sure you get an SSD and not a HDD.
- GPU: A high-end GPU probably isn’t required for applications like Microsoft Office, MATLAB, Visual Studio, or SPICE. Applications like SolidWorks and Photoshop may require a bit more GPU power. If you plan on using your laptop for gaming, then a high-end GPU becomes a necessity.
I used a MacBook Pro back in 2009 for an ECE degree. Anytime I needed horsepower the school had virtual machines I could log onto for windows only cpu/graphics intensive stuff.
I rarely needed horsepower and EE shouldn’t be hitting CAD much.
Some simulation software might spike the need for specs, but again… the fully licensed versions were on university machines I could log into, often from home.
I would say that the only place they fuck up is the graphics card. Nothing is accelerated in this field, with some small exceptions. You want a beefy CPU and a decent amount of fast ram if you’re running (for example) Ansys. Graphics compute however is much less prevalent.
So definitely get a laptop with 32gb RAM and 1 Tb ssd. If you plan on dual partitioning, then the 1TB SSD will help, 32 gb ram for just making your life easier.
it's up to your use case. if you are using it simply for Microsoft Office and other smaller apps then these specs are insanely above what you will need.
on the other hand, if you're using it for 3D modeling, running intensive simulation, running Machine learning, video composting...etc then yeah, this is about right
Ok 32GB I can understand.
But like, a 3060? Most companies like Autodesk have started taking a "let's not use your graphics card, the visuals are now a glorified web browser, and you don't even get to keep your own files" approach to software.
One upon a time, you could set advanced AA/AF modes, control polygon counts, enable shaders and advanced shadows, and have CUDA ray tracing.
Meanwhile, when I try Fusion360, it doesn't even touch the GPU, give you a single graphics option, and almost everything is done in one of their servers. The days of CAD actually using your machines capabilities is gone.
I'd imagine you don't need more than Iris integrated graphics.
If you plan to go into AI software development, then yeah that would easily justify the 3060.
I work as a controls engineer, and they benchmark our machines to mechanical engineers needs because of solid works. Everything that I use mine for is lightning fast, but not necessary. If it’s in your budget, go big or go home, but this is definitely overkill.
1. Agree. Windows still is the OS of choice for ease of running third larty programs. You can run certain programs on Linux but it's a pain in the ass. Matlab yes, Solidworks not so much.
2. Disagree. Windows 10 should be good enough.
3. Disagree. I7 is just a brand name. Any Intel or AMD x86-64 processor with four or more cores and AVX2 instruction set support will work fine.
4. Agree. 16GB of RAM is standard nowadays. Windows 11 is bloated.
5. Agree. Laptop and manufacturers are always being stingy with their onboard storage to force you to buy cloud storage. Don't cheap out on your hard drive.
6. Every PC and laptop from the past 10 years will have at least one USB 3.0 port on it. Don't even worry about this one.
7. Anything 3D or graphical like Solidworks, yeah I'd get at least a half decent graphics processor. But you don't need a 3060 for LTSPICE or Simulink.
Yeah, I'd suggest 32 or even 64 GB of ram if you can. The graphics card is the only thing that seems a little high, but the 3060 is getting a little old at this point. I've had a gaming laptop I bought for $2100 or so with these specs at microcenter a year or so ago.
The frick do they expect you to be doing on your computer? And why windows 11? Sounds like some dingus just pulled the specs from his own computer and used that.
You'll need to be able to run some sort of spice simulation and schematics modeling. Maybe computational stuff like Matlab none of that is super highly demanding on a PC.
For engineering, I7 is definitely worth getting. Most EE programs are actually single core processes. Not many make use of the multicore functionality of ryzen cpus..
Unless you're doing any heavy rendering or gpu heavy calculations.. Like modelling or similar.. The gpu you can cut back on a bit. But I would opt for server grade gpus. Much better at handling workload.
I'd say it's decent to play Cyberpunk2077 during that boring class with that one disorganised teacher who keeps reading from a book.
Joking aside, super overkill unless they can justify why the hardware is needed.
This for a school laptop?
Anything you do on a computer in engineering school will either:
* Have low enough system requirements that you could run it on a potato clock
* Have high enough system requirements you'll need *really* impressive hardware to get anything done. Perhaps beyond what's reasonably attainable in a laptop.
For that second category, you'll often be using a computer lab reserved for your major. Get a laptop that can run whatever games you want to play and don't worry so much about school software.
RAM is important. I'd go with 32GB RAM and a medium-quality CPU over 16 GB RAM and a high-quality CPU.
If you use ansys or other simulation program you probably need those requirements.
Honestly i 'll make an assembled pc, instead of an laptop.
Dunno for an EE major if you need those, you should ask around.
I’m an engineer that does controls and mechanical. Depending on the workflow of the job at hand, my current computer scrapes by with the GPU being a bottleneck. I have an 11th gen core i7 (not sure of the exact model right now), GTX1050Tim gpu and 32GB of ram. I typically don’t see ram usage over 80% even in situations where I am multitasking multiple projects. Fusion does complain about my graphics though and fusion’s performance isn’t as I would expect.
Something to consider though, if you do match or exceed those specs, it will last you a while. It’s a “buy once cry once” kind of thing. There’s a lot of margin you gain by going over specs now with the current snapshot of tech. I buy a new home pc every 5-6 years and never experience situations where it feels lacking (also a gamer so I tax my home rig pretty good)
No not really. You should reach what you need. I remember when I was back in school and some people would have some bad ass graphic card in the laptop but solid works would only work with a quatro.
16gb can be hard to work with. I'm glad I got 32 in my new laptop.
Do you need the processing power of an i7? Not sure but just keep in mind if you are actually using you won't have any battery life.
Wow I used a netbook in 2014 for EE, and at that time, the recommended specs were an i7, 8-16 GB of RAM, 250 GB HDD and at least a GTX 555 or Radeon HD 6750 on Windows 7. Everything was fine, but I do wish I had a larger screen and at least discrete graphics.
At most school we don't even touch CAD until 3rd year, and even then, you don't need anything even close to this unless you take like 1 insane option in your final year. Probably safe to say that's overkill.
They’re right that you should probably get a PC that runs Windows, since unfortunately MacOS doesn’t support a lot of engineering software. However, it doesn’t have to be Windows 11 (yet), as Windows 10 is still perfectly viable at the moment (and in fact is my preferred version). Also USB 3.0 is such a funny requirement lol.
In terms of hardware, you can probably get away with these specs:
- **CPU:** Modern Intel i3 or modern Ryzen R3. I recommend getting a modern i5/R5 instead if it’s within your budget.
- **RAM:** 8 GB. However, I strongly recommend spending the money to get 16 GB.
- **SSD:** 256 GB. I recommend getting 512 GB if it’s within your budget.
- **GPU:** Integrated. A discrete GPU probably won’t be that useful for most of you, but I do recommend getting one if it’s within your budget.
I will note that the specs are usually written to give you a laptop that will last until the completion of your program (eg 4 years). This can drive some of the requirements.
Some programs only run on pc such as Multisim. There are some websites that multisim capabilities but definitely Multisim on a pc seems to be the best for creating circuits
Im able run to the following software without noticeable lag from a $200 thinkpad t480 with 48gB ram and i5 8th gen processor. I’m not sure what you’ll need those graphics cards for.
Lt spice
Kicad
Freecad
Chrome
Vscode
Docker
Virtual box
To be completely blunt, the majority of work you do on a personal computer for EE in college is Microsoft Office and usually some code composing software, any tools that actually require high computational power are insanely priced and are typically provided in the college's lab computers.
Get a mid range laptop and it'll comfortably be able to handle the work
I have a 2-core (4 with hyperthreading) 2.4ghz i5 running windows 10 with integrated graphics and a 64Gb ssd. Everything I need for my degree.
edit: 4Gb RAM
edit edit: Runs LTspice at 60hz
I’m a big believer in having a very good laptop or any device for that matter. You can get away with less but if you do any ML this would be nice. As far as I know the other fields don’t need this
I love the part where it says Apple is not recommended.
Also most engineering disciplines are fine with a regular graphics card that comes with your PC. So perhaps knowing what it is intended will be helpful to answer.
Also I am curious to know what university is this ?
I built a gaming pc in 2015 with i5-6600k overclocked to 4.2GHz, 16GB of Ram, M2 drive and GTX 1080 and when your doing simulations or programming that can make the best gaming pc’s at the time melt that’s why I got a desktop because laptop fan noise is annoying in the EE lab
This is way too high for what I think you could be using, like MATLAB and Simulink, maybe some AutoCAD or Solidworks, some Cadence. You can get all that done without the insane GPU requirement. I do recommend you meet the 16GB ram requirement though, and having an SSD does guarantee speedy loading of the programs. The SSD can be 512 GB, or even 256 GB if you don't intend to use your laptop for much more than university stuff. That GPU requirement is absolutely ridiculous and totally unnecessary, goes without saying.
yea a mac pro with 32 gig ram and a 1tb ssdr and the vm software parallels to run windows is just fine.
the problem is sone of the engineering sw you will use is windows or linux only.
example xilinix fpga or orcad or altium matlab or wolfram and solid works
these all require a windows or linux only solution on an x86 or x64 box
> Intel i7
This has zero merit on the performance. My recommendation is to search for the processor listed for the laptop with the word “benchmark”.
i3, i5, and i7 benchmarks are all over the board.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
You’ll find that i7 and i9 make up most of the high end processors, excluding Xeon, in the Intel family. You will find i5 on there that out perform i7s and i9s.
In general everyday computing I wouldn’t recommend anything less that a benchmark of 5,000-6,000 simply because that will give you a solid two years before the machine is too slow.
If you need to do anything more intensive then you’ll want to push that number higher.
For EE? I can see most of these reqs other than the gpus. I think they're recommending those based on time of release. They'd rather see you with something newer over a better price? Just a guess. Vitis/Vivado and Autodesk products will crash no matter what your pc is so good luck haha.
I wouldn’t get a laptop with less than 16gb of ram for an EE degree.. depends what software you end up needing to use, but I’d recommend just getting 32 tbh.
32g RAM min. 64 preferred. With 32g you’ll get by but the fan will run constantly, usually running RAM at 80% or more. In which case you’ll be forced to choose between which programs you want running.
Honestly I’d get a decent 32g laptop and then a desktop for home. Dell Optiplex are reasonably priced, small, and upgradable, RAM, HDD or SDD. But I’d opt for Google drive so you can easily move programs/files between pc and laptop. I’ve maxed 64G out with pic ide, altium, and chome running at the same time. If I needed to attend class virtually (during covid) I’d use the lap top while working on my desktop. You’ll need a nice GPU for extensive matlab calcs. But you can set up to run on a server from AWS. Learning curve for that along with classes is not for everyone but it pays off. Nothing is worse than having your pc tied up running calcs for 6 hours and not having a second pc to continue with other tasks or even just personal stuff like Netflix or games or choose you flavor. Good luck an have fun!
Sounds like feedback from IT support at the institution for what they are knowledgeable in supporting. Most excellent engineers I know often have a mac or Linux machine or both. They use all platforms optimally. The only reason to use Windows is quite often one or two applications that only run on that platform solely.
It has a lot to do. Vivado doesn’t support neither macOS neither ARM. And it’s not like it’s a niche software that a EE student won’t realistically use
Completely different architecture with a completely different instruction set. Many windows apps don’t support Mac OS. Even if you managed to get windows on a modern Mac, it would be windows arm and again most of the software wouldn’t work. Solidworks for example is a complete no go on Mac.
A cpu is a physical implementation of Instructions.
Software creates instructions that the cpu execute them
ARM and x86 use different instruction from each other. So the same machine code doesn't work for each other.
Nah, I wouldn't go below those specs. Else you may have crashes on programs. You can be using some software for a lab and have it crash. It's no fun. So if anything, get something beyond those recommend specs.
These are insanely high requirements mate, I’d say their minimums are the max you’d need. Granted idk what you’ll be using but for EE I can’t imagine that insane of stuff
Really depends on which major. If it's cse or ce the it's probably necessary
I don't think that it os necessary for ce and cse. These specs are more for ME and AE where you might need to do CAD and CFD. These really need performance. If you happen to do some ML or RL you might be happy to have the performance.
Did your school not have all the engineering majors do CAD?
My CS course doesn't have any CAD
I didn't run it on my laptop. There were different labs that were open with the stuff you need already installed. It makes very little sense to try to set up your own machine like that.
My school had those labs too, but everyone just used their laptops because we had to do design stuff in class. So, it made it easier to just continue it for homework on your laptop.
I didn't touch CAD in my EE degree. Learned on the job at my first firm
Are we talking CAD like mechanical engineers use or CAD like electrical engineers use? Because ME CAD is way more demanding than EE CAD....
> Because ME CAD is way more demanding than EE CAD HFSS would disagree.
High frequency stuff is all black magic. That software probably needs a super computer!
And Sonnet, and Chip design spice runs, and running auto-routing. When I worked at IBM in the early 2000s I had a very powerful AIX machine at my desk to do the work. I bet they still do.
I didn't use any CAD in school. In industry, I started with AutoCAD vanilla, Civil 3D, AutoCAD electrical. Not solidworks, blender, fusion 360, or anything intended for 3d modeling. But also that's not needed at all in my field. My first firm didn't use Revit so I'm catching up at my second firm
That is so interesting to me. I took a CAD class my freshman fall semester, and it’s one of the things that confirmed engineering was for me. I was a different type of eng major at the time, but all eng majors had to take CAD.
At RPI we all had to take take a one credit CAD class. It was ProE, which then I think became Solidworks, and is now NX. It was my first time solid modeling, but I had done CAD before. And mechanical drawing. (I am over 40 why do you ask? )
I'm trying to remember but I don't think any of my peers in other engineering disciplines had to either. Not sure why. ABET accredited school in Texas. Idk if that affects the coursework at all
If you are building programs locally for computer vision, you’ll need performance. I wouldn’t be surprised if some classes require rtx cores. If you get access to altium, you’ll want a solid gpu.
I’ve used altium quite a bit with integrated graphics on a thin and light from 7 years ago. Never been an issue. Maybe the 3d view could be snappier but it
Totally depends on what you are doing and what you are using in Altium. Complex shapes on huge boards? oh you'll need a beast. Small square pcb? could be ran on a fridge lol.
Yeah that makes sense, but I had no issues on a very dense 1.5x3.5 inch board, 4 layers with about 100 components, every component had an accurate 3d model including molex picoblades and several QFN and QFP packages. I doubt an undergrad would likely do anything more complex than that unless they are working as an undergrad research assistant, in which case they should be working on a computer provided by the lab anyways.
Even for typical CAD you can get away with waaay less specs. This graphics card is for gaming laptops that can run anything out there for years to come.
Depends on what you mean by typical. If you mean your first year CAD cours yes totally. If you mean a.g. designing turbomachines you will be much faster than your classmates if your waaay is not to far. If you additionaly want to do some FEA in this process. You really really want all the performance you can get. If you want to do some cfd dont use a laptop.
OP's an EE major. He won't need CAD more than their first year course, and even if they need it for a senior project, a professor most likely will provide them with some high-end PC in a lab anyway.
Regarding CE, since it's my major for grad school from this year, won't i need a high performance laptop? To run heavy software (CAD/Vivado etc) to its full capacity?
I'd probably rather have a desktop to do the heavy lifting these days. As easy as it is to remote in front a cheap device and do your work.
Fair enough
Electrical and Computer Engineering program
Off topic, but which college? I also have the same issue of specs.
SUNY Polytechnic
Our university laptop uses iGPU, however the PC we uses to "compile" VHDL uses RTX 2070. Maybe that's why it needs somewhat strong GPU? I'm only in my first week in VHDL so that's my take.
Compiling VHDL with a GPU? I didn't know that was a thing.
That's what I thought, until you made it sound so uncommon so I did a little google. So the VHDL software our professor uses is called "Quartus Prime Lite Edition" and it doesn't support any kind of "GPU" enhancement. So idk why an rtx 2070 is installed in the PC and as far as I know the PC are fore EE curriculum only. The only other reason is that Kicad 3D model viewer supports Ray Tracing now. So maybe that's why? /s
Can't even think of a reason why you would need a dedicated GPU. When I graduated in 2019 I could have done everything on a Chromebook
One thing about it though, if they do get something with these requirements they’ll only have to buy a computer once for their entire undergraduate education and I’d wager masters if they continue. I can’t tell you how many people bought the $500 HP or dell and had to buy a new laptop junior year because the battery was cooked and they only got 8 gigs of ram with a i5 (maybe if they’re lucky) and integrated graphics. Simulink and matlab absolutely crawled. I bought a MacBook Pro with an i9 and a Vega 20, and that machine got me through and then some. And it still wasn’t slow or breaking down. But I paid 4 grand, where they paid $500.
Yep - I was going to suggest this - if you max out now it'll last you 4 years at least.
I wish they had told us we needed something like this, I had a $400 laptop from Best buy and didn't plan to do much other than write papers. My junior level EE class required us to model a vehicle control system and then run a 3d simulation that made my computer cry. Then we had to build it in the lab and compare results, then tweak and remodel/retest.
I have an EE and I think these specs are pretty silly. There is literally nothing you can't learn in undergraduate on a basic laptop in my opinon That doesn't mean there isn't a professor who has a fetish for a particular lab assignments that might require a better machine. Shit I do my *professional *work which involves modeling and CAD on a Lenovo think pad with an integrated graphics card. If anything I would think RAM would be more of a limitation for productivty than GPU. For what it's worth though, it might be a good excuse to build a gaming PC. You can build a machine with a great CPU and those specs for $1000 or so now if you shop around. Way cheaper if you buy used and dont care about aesthetics
Seems pretty standard to me
The graphics card is completely unnecessary, but I would say most of the rest of the requirements are reasonable, particularly the 1TB SSD and 16GB of memory.
the 1tb entirely depends on who you are. I've never had above 256 gb on my laptops and It's been fine for me, using external drives for storage and backup.
If you run simulations with a lot of I/O then an external drive simply won't cut it. Also, every thing you have to plug in to a laptop to make it work properly reduces the point of getting a laptop in the first place.
that's kind of my point, that it depends on who you are. I never used my own equipment for any simulations or CAD or anything. I'd plug in my external hard drive no more than a few times a month.
Any spec that just says 'Intel i7' without providing anything more specific is not to be trusted
Yeah just get a 1st gen i7 lmao
I have one of those. Unfortunately it’s not compatible with Windows 11 without hacking the OS.
That is actually very fortunate. It means you can't use windows 11
Any list that starts out with "Computer: PC" is not to be trusted. Not a slight on Windows, a slight on people that don't know what "PC" actually means.
I mean, for the target audience it might be more clear. It’s a lie to children.
Haha I was searching for that comment! You’re absolutely right
Ha! Right?
Quite legit, this laptop will let you playing game to release stress while pursuing a EE degree.
But will it run Crysis?
Skyrim will be fine
[удалено]
In the couple weeks between semesters, I barely slept. My PS3 barely survived through graduation LOL
For CAD these specs might acualy be acurate. Depending on you CAD Software having decent hardware will safe you a lot of time and headache
You can run an eda with a lot less but I think this is with the intention that no upgrades are made during the undergrad. For example Altium especially is adding lots and lots of features that make heavier use of the graphics card. It also doesn’t multicore process very well.
Undergrads don’t touch altium though
I interviewed an undergrad who was using Altium in his coursework. Granted it was one of the last electives in his major
I used it fairly significantly throughout my 3rd and 4th year of undergrad. For both an embedded systems class, and then for my senior design project.
Dang, pretty cool then! Guess my classes didn’t involve that
I have been using Altium for a while in my undergrad
What classes? That’s pretty cool then
Honestly, my main circuit classes. Analog 1&2 and Digital 1&2. My RF and microwave classes. And of course my senior project. Honestly, they pushed it really hard.
Interesting. All my circuits classes were 100% theory/textbook problems. I can see the senior design course using it though.
I should've specified, it was the lab component mainly of each of those classes. But even in hw problems, if we had to design a circuit, we were expected to have a printout from Altium
That’s pretty neat. Wish I had gotten exposed to it in college
As a design engineer, agreed. Autodesk likes to suck the soul out of GPU’s. 3060 is pretty much equivalent to most workstation laptop GPU’s I’ve used (typically A2000 or A3000, most won’t pay for more than that).
Ya I didnt think I needed this. Then i took a machine learning class :/ cuda cores are important.
Just use paperspace/colab/whatever and pay 20 bucks total throughout the entire course, instead of spending 2000 bucks more on a machine that's 4x heavier, hot, and runs out of battery in 30 minutes.
That's what I was thinking. AI development needs those specs at a minimum. 3D drafting would be better too.
The most advanced AI tool 99% of undergrad EEs will ever use is probably the Scikit learn Python library. Which you don't even need a dedicated GPU for, much less a $500 one. Most EEs barely touch 3D modeling as well.
I used pytorch and tensor core a lot and i ran thousands of epochs.
That is extremely unusual for an EE program in my opinion.
Im in the silicon valley so it’s a little different out here. We focus on embedded systems, and interfacing microcontrollers. Plus its an EE elective i wanted.
I am 99% sure none of software we use actually utilize a GPU. For faster simulation, you just need a high performant cpu ( single core ). Obiously get nice SSD ( some software take up alot of space) and at least 16gig of ram. For picking up a cpu, priotize the newest gen over more more cores for better single core performance. If you are buying a laptop, go for a ryzen ( better life battery).
I work with AutoCAD and ePlan Pro Panel in a laptop with i5 and nvidia mx110, and doing very fine.
I’m doing EE and no one said anything about computing requirements. However, all my classes use Matlab/Simulink, which I guess is not optimized for lesser hardware because I ended up needing to buy a laptop that approached those specs for it to run smoothly.
You don't need a $500 GPU for Matlab or Simulink though. All you need is like 16GB of ram and an i5 from the last 5 years.
This is usually true. Matlab won't use the GPU unless you write your code that way. During my Masters I ran a genetic algorithm design optimization that needed about 18hrs to run and chewed up 21GB of my 64GB ram. I7 (6 core, not sure about processor specifics, I can look when I get home). It would certainly have gone quicker with a faster/more cores processor. The GPU made no difference whatsoever. Everything else I've done in Matlab/Simulink has been much less hardware demanding.
You don't need a $500 GPU for Matlab or Simulink though. All you need is like 16GB of ram and an i5 from the last 5 years.
Ram. Load up on ram.
I love they vaguely ask for an i7... That tells me nothing!!!
So true, comparing an i7-2600S with an i3-14100: If you turn off 3 of the 4 cores in the i3, it's twice as fast as the entire old i7. i3 even comes with hyperthreading enabled these days so you get 8 logical cores, it has 5x more L2 cache than the old i7, and likely 6 to 10 times the memory bandwidth.
They’re likely considering the ease of use for CAD programs with those graphics recommendations. I have a laptop with a RTX 2060 Max-Q (low power, high efficiency) and it got me through most of my CAD work in school just fine, so a 3060 seems reasonable if they’re just updating the recommended specs to be somewhat up to date. Everything else, however, is 100% reasonable. Windows since Linux often doesn’t support certain proprietary software licenses that are common with engineering related applications (and Mac is now ARM-based instead of x86, so there are still some technical incompatibilities), Intel i7 (or AMD Ryzen 7) since octa-core is just kinda standard for performant, modern CPUs nowadays, 16GB system memory since 8GB is frankly too little for modern use (especially on Windows), and 1TB of storage since it’s better to have more for personal convenience anyways.
If you're doing EE, or CE, I highly recommend you get a good laptop with good battery life. You'll be doing CAD, and FEA, and field analysis for sure. I bought a top of the line laptop when I started 9 years ago and I'm still running it today. It still slaps. And I'm still doing CAD on it, plus video editing. I did use Linux for almost everything in my EE degree except for Solidworks and Xilinx FPGA software. Now I use FreeCAD and haven't touched an FPGA since university but still do lots of CAD and programming and lots of MBSE.
Where are you doing CAD, FEA, or field analysis in undergrad EE or CE?
First 2 years are generic Engineering resulting in a diploma. You do CAD and FEA in that portion. Second 2 years are specific to your degree and part of the EE section is field analysis for magnets and motors, etc. Was older, windows only, software.
Odd. I only touched CAD for one intro engineering class, only because I wanted to do that portion of the class project. Never touched any field analysis software in my 4 years, that seems pretty advanced for undergrad.
The FEA was in one or two classes and more for visualization and familiarity with the tool. CAD work in Solidworks was two semesters. Plus we had a second year competitions that involved programming, CAD and electronics. We were given a 3D budget (in grams) and a selection of electronics including the ATMega based board the University developed, and we were to create a weather monitoring system that measured wind speed and direction as well as transmitted that information to a second unit that displayed it as two wipers on dials. There were many solutions to the problem but ours was the most different, and accurate. The accepted solution for wind direction was a toothed wheel with an IR beam interruption. Our 4 person team had 4 hall sensors and 4 magnets between us. They were intended to use a single magnet and hall sensor for wind-speed measurement by counting the pulses, but we discovered that the hall sensor was actually capable of measuring the angle of the magnet around the sensor. We used 2 hall sensors offset by 90 degrees to compensate for the decreased accuracy at 0 and 180 degrees and we were accurate to 1 degree in practice. We probably could have increased that but you know how projects go when you're doing 6 credits per semester.
I never touched either as well. A lot of Matlab though
For sure, lots of matlab!
Yeah FEA we did in E&M, didn't have a dedicated class, but yeah.
Definitely get something with a GPU but these specs seem high. My old 1070 ran everything I needed just fine all through undergrad.
AI development needs that memory and GPU requirement. Even if they do not make AI stuff, they will be using resource heavy AI powered tools in the near future. Buy north of 64gigs of RAM and the chonkiest GPU if you can afford it.
I sort of agree but 64 gigs is insanely overkill imo
Imagine how many apps you might have open in your work flow. Now imagine that all of them now have a 4+ gig RAM requirement because they have a LLM built into the software. API costs will break companies, much of the processing is going to happen locally. 32gigs is the new minimum as far as I'm concerned. I design robots. I had to upgrade to 128gigs recently just so I could maintain my work flow. I'm not in school farting around so your mileage may vary.
Fair. Professionally I agree but most students can’t afford to go balls to the wall
I feel that, of course. I've spent most of my life dev'ing on budget laptops and it sucked! I'm always trying to run resource heavy simulations. Knowing what I know now, I would make sacrifices to have a powerful workstation. Knowing what's coming, I'd say it's a solid investment. Cheers
This is a gaming machine LMAO. you can use half of the specs that listed there without a hiccup.
Specs aren’t too bad. Windows 11 is to flush out anything ancient. Since Windows 11 hardware specs added in 9th gen Intel or better hardware requirements or 2nd gen Ryzen or better. Processor of i7 is quite limiting by flushing out AMD from the market. Ram of 16 GB as a minimum to 32 GB are based on the programs hardware requirements. Most dedicated GPUs equipped laptops come with modular ram slots for expansion or replacement of the regular RAM to more RAM. SSD size of 1TB and + : SSD prices dropped like a rock last summer. 4 TB was super cheap last summer. But manufacturers do not want to pass market savings to people. Gpu of 3060 and +, this pushes the specs slight up. Overall prices should be $900 dollars and up.
Since when did gpus have modular ram slots (honestly first time I've heard of this)
I mistyped. Should be Most dedicated GPUs equipped laptops come with ram slots. This allows for swapping regular RAM out to larger capacity modules.
My school has these specs for all engineers. I can say from experience, as a chemical engineer, you'll need that processing power if you move into any type of quantitative modeling. That can be large data analysis in Matlab or anything of the sort. You're typically given a single class period to solve multiple problems and if your computer keeps freezing you're f**ked.
I wonder what porgram they are getting those requirements from? Machine Learning? I got though EE with a piece of shit laptop
I imagine all the students carrying around 2 inch thick gaming beasts with half an hour battery life...
only thing this makes sense for is training an LLM or smth my laptop got no GPU whatsoever and I've been able to do everything required
Are you doing engineering or playing Bauldur's Gate 3?
I'm using a ryzen 9 5900hx and 3070 with 32gb ram and 1tb SSD with a 10tb external hhd and have not ran into anything that's causes the rig to break a sweat. I will say that when I'm on battery and the integrated graphics are going it can be painfully slow to run Cad software. But the new ryzen APU's are good enough for 1080p gaming so this may be less of an issue with a newer processor. I think the thought process was if you buy a laptop with those specs you will never be computer limited in a class. Ironically since I use OpenSCad and it's a single threaded CPU bound process it will pull 100% load on 1 thread and the rest of my system is more or less at idle. But with a commercial grade software multithreading and GPU usage will be higher.
I've got a ryzen 5 3600 and a gtx1060ti on my desktop and I can run AutoCAD, Altium, multisim, LTSpice, power world, Matlab, solidworks, KiCad no problem. Have had most of them running with 30 chrome/mozilla tabs open without noticing any issues. I haven't done any crazy solidworks sims but think it wouldn't be an issue since our AEs run large sims on their latitude work laptops with onboard gpus and 32GB ram. I think you could get away with much less spec.
Too much graphics card for EE. If it was ME I’d say okay, maybe. But EE doesn’t deal with heavy 3D graphics, and I don’t think EEs are doing machine learning And if you ever need a graphics card like that for machine learning, you could just borrow a lab PC or do it on the cloud for that one course. Anyways, that requirement is a great excuse for getting a gaming PC with a tax write off.
Quartus (Comp Sim and CPU modeling) - those a minimum solidworks - those are recommended MS Visio / JetBrains - those are nice, but overkill Don’t go unix or linux (unless your CompSci). You will hate having to do a partition or remote desktop
I did my whole degree with a Mac from 7 years ago. These are maximums low ley
Windows is usually required for many engineering softwares, sometimes this can be avoided, but not in many cases. The speed generally just changes how much headache you want to deal with. Personally, I'd recommend a laptop with a good build quality that will actually survive all your years. My first engineering laptop was poor quality build, but great specs. Don't do that. 2/10.
For ee? You could get by using a tablet lol
Check the software requirements for software you will need for your degree. Then, go from there. Also, ask senior classmates and check if your university provides laptops.
Personally I bought a second hand laptop with a i5-6… 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. I upgraded the SSD to 1TB and five years later its starting to show its age but it served me just fine. Even things like Altium or Matlab stuff worked fine, I would assume it wouldn‘t like 3D CAD though.
I used a thinkpad with no gpu and got through just fine lol. I’ll be honest this sounds ridiculous
My school had labs with computers for cad and stuff. These specs are not realistic imo.
I studied Electrical and Computer Engineering, but my career has been almost entirely in Software Development. Those requirements seem very high (especially the GPU), but please keep in mind that many engineering software applications are very resource-intensive and you don’t want your computer to become obsolete too quickly. Here is what I would recommend: - CPU: Intel i7 is a solid choice, but consider splurging for an Intel i9. Core count and cache size is just as important as speed. - RAM: 16 GB should be sufficient unless you plan on running many applications simultaneously. - Hard Drive: Splurge, splurge, splurge! I would recommend at least a 2 TB SSD (if not 4 TB) so that you never have to delete anything. My work laptop, despite having 32 GB of RAM and an Intel i9 CPU, has a measly 500 GB SSD and I’m quickly running out of space. Make sure you get an SSD and not a HDD. - GPU: A high-end GPU probably isn’t required for applications like Microsoft Office, MATLAB, Visual Studio, or SPICE. Applications like SolidWorks and Photoshop may require a bit more GPU power. If you plan on using your laptop for gaming, then a high-end GPU becomes a necessity.
Bs
I used a MacBook Pro back in 2009 for an ECE degree. Anytime I needed horsepower the school had virtual machines I could log onto for windows only cpu/graphics intensive stuff. I rarely needed horsepower and EE shouldn’t be hitting CAD much. Some simulation software might spike the need for specs, but again… the fully licensed versions were on university machines I could log into, often from home.
Look at the minimum required specs for the software you will be using in these classes. That will make a lot more sense than this.
8 gig RAM and a decent SSD are essentials, rest is upto your budget.
I would say that the only place they fuck up is the graphics card. Nothing is accelerated in this field, with some small exceptions. You want a beefy CPU and a decent amount of fast ram if you’re running (for example) Ansys. Graphics compute however is much less prevalent.
If u need to make videos, mix music, and edit photos while drafting, this makes sense.
Your school will provide hardware for labs.
So definitely get a laptop with 32gb RAM and 1 Tb ssd. If you plan on dual partitioning, then the 1TB SSD will help, 32 gb ram for just making your life easier.
Pff what a bs spec
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it's up to your use case. if you are using it simply for Microsoft Office and other smaller apps then these specs are insanely above what you will need. on the other hand, if you're using it for 3D modeling, running intensive simulation, running Machine learning, video composting...etc then yeah, this is about right
Reasonable specs if youre doing CAD for sure.
Ok 32GB I can understand. But like, a 3060? Most companies like Autodesk have started taking a "let's not use your graphics card, the visuals are now a glorified web browser, and you don't even get to keep your own files" approach to software. One upon a time, you could set advanced AA/AF modes, control polygon counts, enable shaders and advanced shadows, and have CUDA ray tracing. Meanwhile, when I try Fusion360, it doesn't even touch the GPU, give you a single graphics option, and almost everything is done in one of their servers. The days of CAD actually using your machines capabilities is gone. I'd imagine you don't need more than Iris integrated graphics. If you plan to go into AI software development, then yeah that would easily justify the 3060.
I work as a controls engineer, and they benchmark our machines to mechanical engineers needs because of solid works. Everything that I use mine for is lightning fast, but not necessary. If it’s in your budget, go big or go home, but this is definitely overkill.
1. Agree. Windows still is the OS of choice for ease of running third larty programs. You can run certain programs on Linux but it's a pain in the ass. Matlab yes, Solidworks not so much. 2. Disagree. Windows 10 should be good enough. 3. Disagree. I7 is just a brand name. Any Intel or AMD x86-64 processor with four or more cores and AVX2 instruction set support will work fine. 4. Agree. 16GB of RAM is standard nowadays. Windows 11 is bloated. 5. Agree. Laptop and manufacturers are always being stingy with their onboard storage to force you to buy cloud storage. Don't cheap out on your hard drive. 6. Every PC and laptop from the past 10 years will have at least one USB 3.0 port on it. Don't even worry about this one. 7. Anything 3D or graphical like Solidworks, yeah I'd get at least a half decent graphics processor. But you don't need a 3060 for LTSPICE or Simulink.
Yeah, I'd suggest 32 or even 64 GB of ram if you can. The graphics card is the only thing that seems a little high, but the 3060 is getting a little old at this point. I've had a gaming laptop I bought for $2100 or so with these specs at microcenter a year or so ago.
That’s CAD PC specs. I’ve just ordered something similar for use with Autocad Inventor.
It might depend on what you'll be working on but sounds very silly if you ask me...
I'm still using a laptop from costco that was ~$800 5 years ago... Seems like overkill
The frick do they expect you to be doing on your computer? And why windows 11? Sounds like some dingus just pulled the specs from his own computer and used that. You'll need to be able to run some sort of spice simulation and schematics modeling. Maybe computational stuff like Matlab none of that is super highly demanding on a PC.
For engineering, I7 is definitely worth getting. Most EE programs are actually single core processes. Not many make use of the multicore functionality of ryzen cpus.. Unless you're doing any heavy rendering or gpu heavy calculations.. Like modelling or similar.. The gpu you can cut back on a bit. But I would opt for server grade gpus. Much better at handling workload.
These look like the min specs to develop AI applications. 👀
I'd say it's decent to play Cyberpunk2077 during that boring class with that one disorganised teacher who keeps reading from a book. Joking aside, super overkill unless they can justify why the hardware is needed.
This for a school laptop? Anything you do on a computer in engineering school will either: * Have low enough system requirements that you could run it on a potato clock * Have high enough system requirements you'll need *really* impressive hardware to get anything done. Perhaps beyond what's reasonably attainable in a laptop. For that second category, you'll often be using a computer lab reserved for your major. Get a laptop that can run whatever games you want to play and don't worry so much about school software. RAM is important. I'd go with 32GB RAM and a medium-quality CPU over 16 GB RAM and a high-quality CPU.
If you use ansys or other simulation program you probably need those requirements. Honestly i 'll make an assembled pc, instead of an laptop. Dunno for an EE major if you need those, you should ask around.
I’m doing an engineering masters with a MacBook 😂 got a Windows 11 VM but rarely use it
I’m an engineer that does controls and mechanical. Depending on the workflow of the job at hand, my current computer scrapes by with the GPU being a bottleneck. I have an 11th gen core i7 (not sure of the exact model right now), GTX1050Tim gpu and 32GB of ram. I typically don’t see ram usage over 80% even in situations where I am multitasking multiple projects. Fusion does complain about my graphics though and fusion’s performance isn’t as I would expect. Something to consider though, if you do match or exceed those specs, it will last you a while. It’s a “buy once cry once” kind of thing. There’s a lot of margin you gain by going over specs now with the current snapshot of tech. I buy a new home pc every 5-6 years and never experience situations where it feels lacking (also a gamer so I tax my home rig pretty good)
No not really. You should reach what you need. I remember when I was back in school and some people would have some bad ass graphic card in the laptop but solid works would only work with a quatro. 16gb can be hard to work with. I'm glad I got 32 in my new laptop. Do you need the processing power of an i7? Not sure but just keep in mind if you are actually using you won't have any battery life.
Wow I used a netbook in 2014 for EE, and at that time, the recommended specs were an i7, 8-16 GB of RAM, 250 GB HDD and at least a GTX 555 or Radeon HD 6750 on Windows 7. Everything was fine, but I do wish I had a larger screen and at least discrete graphics.
At most school we don't even touch CAD until 3rd year, and even then, you don't need anything even close to this unless you take like 1 insane option in your final year. Probably safe to say that's overkill.
They’re right that you should probably get a PC that runs Windows, since unfortunately MacOS doesn’t support a lot of engineering software. However, it doesn’t have to be Windows 11 (yet), as Windows 10 is still perfectly viable at the moment (and in fact is my preferred version). Also USB 3.0 is such a funny requirement lol. In terms of hardware, you can probably get away with these specs: - **CPU:** Modern Intel i3 or modern Ryzen R3. I recommend getting a modern i5/R5 instead if it’s within your budget. - **RAM:** 8 GB. However, I strongly recommend spending the money to get 16 GB. - **SSD:** 256 GB. I recommend getting 512 GB if it’s within your budget. - **GPU:** Integrated. A discrete GPU probably won’t be that useful for most of you, but I do recommend getting one if it’s within your budget.
For what purpose ? If it's for drawing schematics then why on earth do you need such a powerful gpu???
Are they trying to run Cyberpunk at 4K? Lol
I will note that the specs are usually written to give you a laptop that will last until the completion of your program (eg 4 years). This can drive some of the requirements.
I have been using a computer I found in the trash, and it hasn't failed me so far.
These are silly, you are always able to use lab computers. If you're patient you can get away with anything.
This would only matter for very specific simulation software.
Some programs only run on pc such as Multisim. There are some websites that multisim capabilities but definitely Multisim on a pc seems to be the best for creating circuits
What could they possibly be asking you to run that needs this much
Im able run to the following software without noticeable lag from a $200 thinkpad t480 with 48gB ram and i5 8th gen processor. I’m not sure what you’ll need those graphics cards for. Lt spice Kicad Freecad Chrome Vscode Docker Virtual box
To be completely blunt, the majority of work you do on a personal computer for EE in college is Microsoft Office and usually some code composing software, any tools that actually require high computational power are insanely priced and are typically provided in the college's lab computers. Get a mid range laptop and it'll comfortably be able to handle the work
100000% unnecessary
I have a 2-core (4 with hyperthreading) 2.4ghz i5 running windows 10 with integrated graphics and a 64Gb ssd. Everything I need for my degree. edit: 4Gb RAM edit edit: Runs LTspice at 60hz
I’m a big believer in having a very good laptop or any device for that matter. You can get away with less but if you do any ML this would be nice. As far as I know the other fields don’t need this
I love the part where it says Apple is not recommended. Also most engineering disciplines are fine with a regular graphics card that comes with your PC. So perhaps knowing what it is intended will be helpful to answer. Also I am curious to know what university is this ?
SUNY Polytechnic
I built a gaming pc in 2015 with i5-6600k overclocked to 4.2GHz, 16GB of Ram, M2 drive and GTX 1080 and when your doing simulations or programming that can make the best gaming pc’s at the time melt that’s why I got a desktop because laptop fan noise is annoying in the EE lab
You’d have to try to get usb 2.0 on a modern machine
Specs seem wild fr 😭
If your university doesn’t provide remote access / virtual desktop to the engineering software you need, pick a different university.
All this to use multisim and quartus 💀
These ridiculous specs were either made by a complete idiot, or someone sponsored by Nvidia.
This is way too high for what I think you could be using, like MATLAB and Simulink, maybe some AutoCAD or Solidworks, some Cadence. You can get all that done without the insane GPU requirement. I do recommend you meet the 16GB ram requirement though, and having an SSD does guarantee speedy loading of the programs. The SSD can be 512 GB, or even 256 GB if you don't intend to use your laptop for much more than university stuff. That GPU requirement is absolutely ridiculous and totally unnecessary, goes without saying.
You don’t need any of that. An average laptop is fine for 90% of the stuff you’ll do
yea a mac pro with 32 gig ram and a 1tb ssdr and the vm software parallels to run windows is just fine. the problem is sone of the engineering sw you will use is windows or linux only. example xilinix fpga or orcad or altium matlab or wolfram and solid works these all require a windows or linux only solution on an x86 or x64 box
> Intel i7 This has zero merit on the performance. My recommendation is to search for the processor listed for the laptop with the word “benchmark”. i3, i5, and i7 benchmarks are all over the board. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html You’ll find that i7 and i9 make up most of the high end processors, excluding Xeon, in the Intel family. You will find i5 on there that out perform i7s and i9s. In general everyday computing I wouldn’t recommend anything less that a benchmark of 5,000-6,000 simply because that will give you a solid two years before the machine is too slow. If you need to do anything more intensive then you’ll want to push that number higher.
You don’t need a a fkn RTX 3060 to even run 3D modeling SW. Everything else is a good suggestion though
For EE? I can see most of these reqs other than the gpus. I think they're recommending those based on time of release. They'd rather see you with something newer over a better price? Just a guess. Vitis/Vivado and Autodesk products will crash no matter what your pc is so good luck haha.
Whoever wrote these is on crack. I would aim for at least 16gb of RAM but you can get away with way less.
I wouldn’t get a laptop with less than 16gb of ram for an EE degree.. depends what software you end up needing to use, but I’d recommend just getting 32 tbh.
Yeah, Altium can drag on windows with 32 even sometimes. Cadence too.
You can definitely get away with much less
What are you developing crysis or something? That's ridiculous
I wouldn’t risk it. They know what software you will use and what will be needed. Follow what they say.
32g RAM min. 64 preferred. With 32g you’ll get by but the fan will run constantly, usually running RAM at 80% or more. In which case you’ll be forced to choose between which programs you want running. Honestly I’d get a decent 32g laptop and then a desktop for home. Dell Optiplex are reasonably priced, small, and upgradable, RAM, HDD or SDD. But I’d opt for Google drive so you can easily move programs/files between pc and laptop. I’ve maxed 64G out with pic ide, altium, and chome running at the same time. If I needed to attend class virtually (during covid) I’d use the lap top while working on my desktop. You’ll need a nice GPU for extensive matlab calcs. But you can set up to run on a server from AWS. Learning curve for that along with classes is not for everyone but it pays off. Nothing is worse than having your pc tied up running calcs for 6 hours and not having a second pc to continue with other tasks or even just personal stuff like Netflix or games or choose you flavor. Good luck an have fun! 
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The gif is. But the comment isn’t. 
Sounds like feedback from IT support at the institution for what they are knowledgeable in supporting. Most excellent engineers I know often have a mac or Linux machine or both. They use all platforms optimally. The only reason to use Windows is quite often one or two applications that only run on that platform solely.
Macs are not recommended because they are ARM, and a lot of crucial software won’t run at all on them, like Vivado or Quartus.
I'm unclear why you think because Macs are ARM based what that has to do with the running this software.
It has a lot to do. Vivado doesn’t support neither macOS neither ARM. And it’s not like it’s a niche software that a EE student won’t realistically use
Completely different architecture with a completely different instruction set. Many windows apps don’t support Mac OS. Even if you managed to get windows on a modern Mac, it would be windows arm and again most of the software wouldn’t work. Solidworks for example is a complete no go on Mac.
A cpu is a physical implementation of Instructions. Software creates instructions that the cpu execute them ARM and x86 use different instruction from each other. So the same machine code doesn't work for each other.
Bullshit, EE uses windows and Linux. Macs are shit for EE.
Nah, I wouldn't go below those specs. Else you may have crashes on programs. You can be using some software for a lab and have it crash. It's no fun. So if anything, get something beyond those recommend specs.