Get 5% off storewide (ends 30th April):

LAPTOP5

CAD Laptop FAQs

What is a CAD Laptop?

CAD stands for Computer Aided Design.


CAD laptops are designed to be used with CAD software such as SolidWorks or AutoCAD. What sets them apart, is their professional graphics capability, enabled by their NVIDIA Quadro or AMD FirePro graphics card - which helps to deliver a smoother CAD application performance. These laptops will usually also come with a robust design.

What laptops can run CAD?

To find out whether a laptop can run CAD, you need to look at the system requirements of the CAD software you intend to use. Each piece of software has a minimum and recommended specifications needed to run them. You can find out more on our Requirements for Design Softwares page. If you plan on using multiple softwares, you’re best choosing the most demanding requirements.


Please check the software producers page in case there have been changes to the system requirements.

What laptops are good for CAD?

To find a laptop that is good for CAD, you really want to choose a mobile workstation laptop. This is a laptop that is specifically designed for carrying out CAD workload. Using the system requirements for the software you'll use, you can search for laptops that will meet those requirements.


In this collection of CAD laptops, we've included filters to help you meet the specification for software like SOLIDWORKS and AutoCAD. You can also choose filters for things like RAM, storage and screen size to ensure you can find the laptop that suits you and meets the requirements of the softwares you'll be using.


Remember, if you wish to use your laptop for multiple things at once, you’ll need even higher specs.

Can I upgrade my CAD laptop later?

Typically the only parts in a laptop that are user serviceable are the RAM and SSD. Not every laptop is guaranteed to be upgradeable so check before you buy. We do offer optional upgrades during checkout on a selection of units if you need even more.

You might want to consider getting something more powerful than what you need to extend the life of your laptop. Newer versions of CAD software will be more demanding so keep this in mind.

What is the best laptop for CAD?

Unfortunately, there's no definitive answer to what the best laptop for CAD is. It is inevitably quite a subjective question. In trying to find the best CAD laptop for you, the three main product lines to consider are Dell Precision, HP ZBook and Lenovo's ThinkPad P Series.

These are all great mobile workstation laptops which are great for CAD.

If you need assistance, you are welcome to get in touch so we can help identify what laptop will suit you.

Can I use a gaming laptop for CAD?

Gaming laptops tend to have gaming graphics cards, which are optimised for gaming. These graphics cards are not optimised for CAD. For this reason, we do not recommend using gaming laptops for CAD, as the performance will be less smooth in some apps.