Laptop mobile GPU's... which is best for 3D/OpenGL?

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My sister has had some financial hardships over the past 2 years or so (has 3 kids and a deadbeat douchbag, soon to be ex husband). She went back to school and is now taking CAD.

last semester I built her a desktop computer for doing CAD work on (the whole 9 yards) but her kids screwed the thing up pretty bad. I still don’t know what the hell is wrong with it so in the mean time I’ve been letting her borrow my ancient laptop to do school work on/send emails/etc.

This semester she’s taking ProEngineer and needs a machine that can handle OpenGL/3D modeling. My father is buying her a laptop for her birthday but doesn’t want to drop 1K+ on one. He was going to pull the trigger on one yesterday that had integrated Intel video but told him to look for one with a nVidia or ATi GPU.

One had the nvidia 7150m gpu and the other had an 8200m. Anyone ever use either of these? How do they handle 3D? I don’t want him to drop 6-700 bones only for it to perform like shit. Are the new Intel onboard video processors decent these days? haven’t used one in forever.

what is a good mobile gpu these days? Can you suggest a cheaper laptop that has the ability to handle 3D decently (doesn’t have to be the best or anything… just decent)? Memory and crap can be added later on.

Reading ProE’s website, they offer software emulation but fuck that noise. was never a fan, it’s usually slow and looks like shit.

thanks

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for under 1K… u’re kinda stuck
i’d say nvidia… but of course they want you to drop $3400 on a quaddro gpu

you options are poop cpu and poop integrated video…
or good cpu (Core2), and poop video… approx $550-700
or… plan on about 1250 for good cpu/decent dedicated card
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8906133&type=product&id=1213046768588

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Everything I read says to look for a dedicated video memory card. A lot I was looking at had shared memory so if you have 1 GB of RAM and a 512MB video card, you only had 512MB of ram to use.

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Definitely look at a dedicated video card.

Go to newegg, and you can do an advanced search just to get an idea of cost vs. components.

Dedicated Video is one of the choices. Also click on “Core 2 Duo” for the processor.

memory isn’t important as even if it comes with 1GB, you can buy another 2GB for cheaper than it would cost coming with the laptop.

an 8400M video card in a laptop should be fine for her needs. Acer is a decent laptop manufacturer as well.

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that site will have all the specs you need. compare gpus when you buy. I had an 8600m gt in my last dell and it would probably be plenty for what you need.