Did a quick search and couldn't find anything on this. My son is starting in the fall and he's been recommended these three options. Any engineering students, parents, or others have any input on why he should choose one over the others?

We'll be buying through 12thman TechnologyI'm sure a version of all 3 of these will suffice, but just thought I'd ask before making a $$$ purchase. Anything really worth spending the extra money for?
TIA - crossposting on Nerdery


Here are the minimum requirements posted on the College of Engineering website:
Approved Devices | Texas A&M University Engineering (tamu.edu)


Dell Precision 5690 - 16in monitor [url=https://shop.12thmantechnology.com/dell-precision-5690-16-i7-16gb-512tb-a1000.html]Link to 12th Man Technology[/url]
Processor Memory Storage Graphics Price
Intel Ultra 7 16GB 512GB Nvidia RTX A1000 $2709.99
Intel Ultra 7 32GB 1TB Nvidia RTX A2000 $3249.99
Intel Ultra 9 64GB 2TB Nvidia RTX A2000 $4499.99

Dell Precision 7680 - 16in monitor Link to 12th Man Technology
Processor Memory Storage Graphics Price
Intel Core I7 16GB 512GB Nvidia RTX A1000 $2709.99
Intel Core I7 16GB 1TB Nvidia RTX A2000 $2949.99
Intel Core I7 32GB 512GB Nvidia RTX A2000 $3044.99
Intel Core I7 32GB 1TB Nvidia RTX A2000 $3090.99

Laptop Studio 2 - 14.4 in monitor Link to 12th Man Technology
Processor Memory Storage Graphics Price
Intel I7 16GB 512GB Intel Iris Xe $1799.99
Intel I7 32GB 1TB Nvidia RTX 4050 $2639.99
Intel I7 64GB 1TB Nvidia RTX 4060 $3090.99
Intel I7 64GB 2TB Nvidia RTX A2000 $4090.99

https://www.microcenter.com/product/663011/asus-rog-strix-g17-g713pi-xs96-173-gaming-laptop-computer-platinum-collection-eclipse-gray

This is the one we ended up with last summer. It appears to be working fine and able to handle all TAMU requirements. Plus it can be serviced at MSC if needed.

I got a higher end Surface Pro for my daughter. As far as the PCs go, I think they have the best form factor and battery life.

We settled for Hp Omen 16 Gaming 13th Gen Intel Core I7 16GB RAM/1TB SSD Nvidia with graphics card up to 6GB for my son. It has been able to handle all the tasks he needs to do with it. I would definitely recommend it, plus it has a long lasting battery life.

I have to laugh at this stuff because I run industry CAD in my work laptop which was half the price of these.

I thought I needed a high end laptop in undergrad, and I got one… but in grad school I just used a small netbook and $600 PC I built myself.

For any special software use the university computers.

I'd wait to buy an expensive laptop until the need presents itself.

Basic deal XPS for $1500 is probably good enough. No, you don't need a fancy graphics card for modern CAD unless you have an absolutely giant assembly. I can guarantee you what I model on my laptop is more complex than anything an 99% of undergrads are going to be modeling.

I'd strongly recommend against 13" and smaller and also avoid anything bigger than 16".

Standard 15" because you get more processing power than the 13" for less, and any bigger it gets really annoying to transport (this is why in grad school I opted for a cheap 11" net book and very cheap self built gaming desktop in my dorm).

Remember, you don't have to buy the thing right now. You can wait.

I know from the students perspective they will think it's needed. The professors and advisors might think so too.

But my experience is that the specs they say are required are extremely excessive. A dedicated graphics card is not needed for modern CAD modeling if that's the concern.

Get an SSD, get some ram, get high res monitor, 15". But don't need to get super top end CPU or graphics.

Modern mid range CPU and
Integrated graphics are fine. My work laptop I do all of my CAD work is an i5 CPU with integrated IRIS-xe graphics.

What on earth do they need these graphics cards for? Are they making special FX??

I want to know what software is required has these requirements. They're excessive.

Gaming is probably what the students want the specs for.