The best laptop for CAD and AutoCAD

The rise in 3D printing means the best laptops for CAD and AutoCAD are in more demand than ever. Fortunately, computer-aided design (CAD) no longer requires huge, expensive, resource-hungry mainframes, and there are laptops that can do the job, opening fields such as architecture, product design, interior design and fashion to many more creatives.

Whether you're an architect, engineer or student, our guide will help you navigate the sea of options and land the perfect device for your needs. 3D modelling applications such as the market leader AutoCAD still need relatively powerful hardware to run, and we've reviewed a wide range of laptops to pick out those that are up to the job, testing their suitability for various CAD operations and against standard benchmarks.

Note that not all CAD software is Mac-compatible. So you'll need to verify the availability of a Mac version of the software you use before purchasing an Apple device. As for AutoCAD, only the 2024 version works natively on Apple kit, and it still has some missing features that could be crucial for your workflow. Finally, if 3D modelling is your main interest, our list of the best laptops for 3D modelling is the one to read next.

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Quick list

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Best overall for CAD

What you need to know: The ASUS ProArt P16 is a cutting-edge 16-inch laptop that combines AMD's latest Ryzen AI processor with NVIDIA's RTX 4070 GPU, wrapped in a sleek package designed for creative professionals. It's not just powerful; it's intelligently designed to enhance your CAD workflow.

Design: The 16-inch 4K OLED touchscreen is the star of the show, offering 3840x2400 resolution and 100% coverage of the P3 color gamut. This ensures that your CAD designs are displayed with exceptional clarity and colour accuracy. Meawhile the integrated ASUS Dial in the touchpad is a game-changer for CAD work, allowing for precise control and customisable functions. And the ProArt Creator Hub, featuring AI-powered tools like StoryCube for media organisation and MuseTree for generative art, adds extra value for creative professionals working alongside their CAD projects.

Performance: ASUS has engineered in fully 160W of total CPU and GPU cooling, allowing the Intel i9-13980HX processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics chip to do their thing, and as our reviewer found in his testing, it's just about all the power you'll ever need. You can have up to 32GB of RAM, which should cover even the most heavy-duty CAD workflows. And there are SSD storage options up to 8TB of super-fast PCIe Gen 4 spec.

Battery: Despite its powerful components, the ProArt P16 manages to deliver impressive battery life, with over 10 hours of video playback in tests. This is a significant improvement over previous models, making it more suitable for professionals on the go.

Price: For less than £/$3,000 this is a competitive price for a studio laptop that will last a demanding professional for years. We found that its benchmark scores in many cases rival (and sometimes outdo) the near-$4K MacBook Pro M3 Max.

Read more: ASUS ProArt P16 review

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Best dual-screen laptop for CAD and AutoCAD

What you need to know: The ASUS Zenbook Duo OLED 2024 is a groundbreaking laptop featuring two 14-inch OLED touchscreens, allowing for unparalleled workspace customization. It's powered by Intel's latest Core Ultra 9 processor and comes with ample RAM and storage for CAD applications.

Design: The standout feature is the dual-screen design, with both displays offering 2880x1800 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. The screens can be used in various configurations, either stacked or side-by-side, providing flexibility for different CAD workflows. The detachable keyboard adds to its versatility.

Performance: The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor in this laptop provides excellent performance for CAD work. While the integrated Intel Arc Graphics may not match dedicated GPUs for the most demanding 3D tasks, it's capable of handling most CAD applications efficiently. The 32GB of RAM ensures smooth multitasking, even with complex projects. The latest Cinebench 2024 benchmark is hard on processors, but in our tests the Zenbook Duo OLED put in a score that’s between the Apple M1 and M1 Max.

Battery: Battery life is impressive when using a single screen, lasting over 12 hours in tests. However, using both screens simultaneously can significantly reduce battery life, making it best suited for use near a power source during intensive dual-screen sessions.

Price: The ASUS Zenbook Duo OLED 2024 starts at £1,699 and goes up to around £2K. That's MacBook levels of expensive, but without M3 levels of performance, although its form-factor is a unique proposition.

Read more: ASUS Zenbook Duo OLED 2024 review

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Best big screen for CAD

What you need to know: The Dell XPS 17 has a gorgeous, large screen with a high resolution can be a great help when designing in a CAD application, giving you more room to work, and to show off your projects to co-workers and clients. This laptop can get pretty expensive in its higher configurations, but you will get the specs and power to match.

Design: The Dell XPS 17 proves a large-screen laptop doesn't have to be big and bulky. This is an impressively thin and light laptop, with the same attractive design found in the smaller Dell XPS 13 and XPS 15 laptops.

Performance: The 17-inch 3840 x 2400 InfinityEdge touch display, with its 4K resolution, anti-reflective coating and 500 nits of brightness, is a pleasure to use. You also get 100% Adobe RGB and 94% DCI-P3 color gamuts, and a decent 1600:1 contrast ratio. The internals are impressive too. Our reviewer found that whether it was tackling graphically demanding and processor-intensive tasks or basic productivity workloads, everything ran quickly and smoothly, and it stayed cool, too. On the downside, the anti-reflective coating wasn't quite enough to allow us to work on this laptop outdoors in broad daylight.

Battery: Dell reckons this laptop will deliver 5 hours and 59 minutes of battery power, and we got 5 hours and 45 in our tests. Considering the laptop’s 4K screen and RTX 3060 graphics, that’s not bad.

Price: The Dell XPS 17 will cost you between $1,500-$4,000 depending on the configuration. That's expensive, but we reckon it gives pretty good bang-for-buck overall.

Read more: Dell XPS 17 review

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Best 2-in-1 laptop for CAD

What you need to know: The Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio boasts an excellent PixelSense touchscreen that will make your work look its very best, especially if you use a stylus for your work (although you'll have to buy that separately). It looks great at every angle and the refresh rate of 120Hz ensures everything is super-smooth. However, it does come with a high starting price, which will put many people off, especially considering a decent MacBook Pro can be bought for cheaper.

Design: This laptop is pretty much in a league of its own: Microsoft has managed to create a 2-in-1 laptop/tablet that is a joy to look at. The build quality is right up there with the best Apple products, with a solid aluminium chassis, and the keyboard is excellent too. The base of the laptop is a little more boxy and cumbersome, though, and to move between the different states requires a fair amount of grabbing hold of the screen

Performance: We ran a number of benchmark tests with Geekbench and Cinebench to test the CPU and GPU performance. Our conclusion? This a high performing laptop that will serve all types of CAD design well. Geekbench scored the CPU single-core at 1296 and the multi-core at 6008. The equivalent test through Cinebench resulted in 893 and 5284 scores respectively.

Battery: Microsoft claims 16 hours of battery life, but our reviewer found this wasn't the case. Carrying out a range of everyday tasks, he lost 75% of charge in only five hours.

Price: The Surface Laptop Studio 2 starts at $1,999 /£2,069 which rises to £2,949 for the business model we reviewed. We think that's a bit steep for what's on offer.

Read more: Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 review

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Best workstation for CAD

What you need to know: The Dell Precision 7780 is a professional-grade laptop designed for creative professionals who need serious computing power. It features a large 17.3-inch display, powerful 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, and NVIDIA RTX 3500 GPU, making it capable of handling complex CAD and 3D modelling tasks with ease.

Design: The laptop boasts a robust build with a metallic exterior and soft-touch interior. Its 17.3-inch display offers a spacious workspace, though it lacks a 4K option. The 180-degree hinge allows for flexible viewing angles, and handily for those with older devices, the port selection includes a USB-A port. However, the off-centre trackpad placement may be a drawback for some people, and it's quite heavy at 3.05 kg (6.73 lbs).

Performance: The Intel Core i7-13850HX processor and NVIDIA RTX 3500 GPU deliver exceptional performance for CAD applications. This was evident across all my benchmark tests, beginning with the Geekbench CPU single-core test that scored 1,968 and the multi-core equivalent that scored 9,450. Cinebench CPU scores were equally good, with the single and multi-core scores coming in at 1,457 and 15,024, respectively. Overall, the laptop excels in both single-core and multi-core tasks, making it suitable for a wide range of creative workflows.

Battery: The 93 Wh battery provides only about three hours of creative work, emphasising this laptop's role as a desk-bound workstation rather than a portable solution.

Price: The Dell Precision 7780 default configuration costs £3,118.82. Storage upgrades are possible all the way from an extra 512GB for £155.22 up to 4TB for £989.82.

Read more: Dell Precision 7780 review

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Best Mac for CAD

What you need to know: A lot of CAD and AutoCAD software doesn't run on Macs, so they're not the most obvious choice for this list. Even if they do, you may still be better off avoiding Apple. For example, the 2024 Mac version of AutoCAD lacks some features from the Windows version, that might be key for you, such as 3D Rendering and Drawing History.

As for other CAD software, check out the specifications before you buy. For instance, many have Mac-compatible versions but some of these may not be suitable for MacBooks specifically. If you've considered all this, though, and still want an Apple laptop, here's the one we recommend.

The MacBook Pro comes in 14- and 16-inch versions, and you can select the M3 Max chip if you need supercharged power. We lean toward the 16-inch model for that extra screen space for CAD work.

Design: This laptop has the sleek, polished looks Apple is known for, along with the the lovely new liquid retina XDR display, featuring promotion and pro reference. Our reviewer also liked the keyboard, with backlit keys that are low profile but feel responsive, and act as if they have greater travel than they really do.

Performance: As we found in our review, even the entry-level M3 in the base 14-inch is no slouch and the M3 Max is an absolute monster. All MacBook Pros also offer stellar battery life that most high-performance Windows laptops can only dream of. This means you can visit clients, work on the road and much more, all without worrying about having to plug it in.

Battery: Our battery tests impressed us, with our reviewer managed to work for 10 hours using demanding 3D software before running out of juice. The 100-watt-hour battery promises up to 22 hours of media playback.

Price: Starting at $1,499/£1,499, this MacBook offers good value for money albeit at a high price, and you will need to pay more for the maximum configuration, including the M3 Max chip.

Read more: MacBook Pro M3 review

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Best big-screen laptop for CAD for value

What you need to know: If you're just starting out in CAD design, you'll want something that won't break the bank. This laptop manages to offer a big screen and a decent amount of power without the typically large price tag. and the 15.6-inch display does an incredible job of colour replication and delivering the required brightness in bright spaces.

Design: That low price does come with a few compromises. And one is that the aluminium chassis of this laptop is not very exciting, and most generously described as "no-frills". However, on the plus side, our reviewer really liked the size, weight and display, which he described as "super portable". He was also pleasantly surprised by the quality and brightness of the screen. The keyboard is also no frills, but does the job. The keys have a short travel distance and are responsive and pleasant to use.

Performance: For an affordable machine, this laptop impressed us in our benchmark tests, which showed good (if not great) results when it comes to power. The Swift X will comfortably handle everyday tasks and quite a bit more. Our reviewer had dozens of tabs open in Chrome, all the while image editing in Photoshop, and the machine didn't slow at all. The dual fans fired up after an hour of this, but it wasn't particularly noisy or off-putting.

Battery: The Swift X 16 has a 60Wh high-capacity battery which produces over 10 hours of YouTube playback and totals around 15 hours total battery life when performing low-intensity tasks such as web browsing and web apps.

Price: The Swift X 16 costs just $999 / £899 for the base model, while the configuration we reviewed 12th-gen Intel Core i7-1260P CPU, Intel’s Arc A370M GPU, 16GB of RAM and a 16-inch 2,560 x 1,600 WUXGA display running on Windows 11 Home will set you back $1,249.99 in the US and £1,299 in the UK.

Read more: Acer Swift X 16 review

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Best laptop for CAD for portability

What you need to know: The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) is a lightweight yet powerful laptop featuring a gorgeous 3K OLED touchscreen and Intel's latest AI-boosted processor. It's designed for creative professionals who need portability without sacrificing performance or display quality.

Design: The laptop boasts a slim profile (1.49cm thick) and lightweight build (1.28kg), rivaling the MacBook Air in portability. The 14-inch 3K OLED touchscreen offers exceptional colour accuracy and sharpness, with a 120Hz refresh rate and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage. The ASUS Pencil 2 is included with the device, and you get USB-A 3.2 port, an HDMI 2.1 TMDS port and two Thunderbolt 4 ports, which support power delivery and a display, so one of those can double as a DP port for an external monitor.

Performance: The Intel Core Ultra processor with AI Boost NPU provides impressive performance, particularly in creative applications. Our benchmark scores rival some gaming laptops and even outperform the M3 MacBook Pro in multi-core tests. The Intel Arc Graphics, while improved over previous integrated options, may still limit performance in graphics-intensive tasks.

Battery: The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) boasts impressive battery life, making it suitable for all-day use without needing constant recharging. Expect up to 15 hours of battery life on a single charge.

Price: The entry-level model is very keenly priced at £1,099.99, undercutting the new MacBook Air. Even the top-spec model comes in at £1,399.

Read more: ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) review

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Best premium laptop for CAD

What you need to know: The HP Omen Transcend 14 packs serious performance into a sleek, portable package. It features Intel's latest Core Ultra processor with a dedicated NPU for AI tasks, paired with NVIDIA RTX graphics. The 14-inch 2.8K OLED display offers excellent colour accuracy and sharpness, ideal for detailed CAD work.

Design: Despite its gaming pedigree, the Omen Transcend 14 sports a professional look that won't draw unwanted attention in the office. At just 1.63kg and 1.79cm thick, it's highly portable for a machine with this level of performance. The 16:10 aspect ratio display provides extra vertical space for CAD applications.

Performance: The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and NVIDIA RTX 4070 graphics delivers exceptional performance for CAD applications and 3D rendering. The 32GB of RAM ensures smooth multitasking even with complex projects. In our benchmark tests, it outperformed many rival gaming laptops and matches some desktop replacements.

Battery: One of the Omen Transcend 14's standout features is its battery life. HP claims over eight hours, and real-world testing confirms impressive longevity for a high-performance laptop. This makes it a viable option for CAD professionals who need to work away from a power outlet.

Price: In the US, the HP Omen Transcend 14 costs $1,599.99 for the base model and $,1979.99 for the model we tested, while the UK price are £1,799 for the test spec, and £1,449 for base spec.

Read more: HP Omen Transcend 14 review

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Also tested

While the options above may be our top choices for various elements of CAD and AutoCAD work, there are a lot of laptops out there worthy of your attention. We'll be constantly updating the list of other laptops we've tested that you should feel confident in using in your CAD work, so if none of the above quite does it for you, all hope isn't lost: you might just find your future workmate below.

ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED
The screen may not be the biggest, but this ultraportable model more than makes up for it with its bright, sharp OLED display, 32GB of RAM and great ergonomics. It's the ultimate in portability at only 1kg (less than an iPad Pro with a keyboard attached). Fantastic for CAD work on the go.
Read our 4.5-star review.

LG Gram SuperSlim If you're on the go a lot with your work, you'll love that LG gram SuperSlim, which as the name suggests is light (only 990g), thin and very easy on the eye. Its beautiful 15.6-inch OLED display makes it a joy to look at while working on your CAD designs, and battery life is decent too.
Read our 4-star review.

MSI Creator Z17 This large, heavy laptop is made for professional creatives, and it has a lot of power inside, with options up to 64GB of RAM, oodles of storage and a bright, 17-inch touchscreen. The latter is compatible with the MSI Pen stylus so you can write or draw directly onto it.
Read our 4-star review.

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FAQs

• Processor: 2.5GHz (3+ GHz recommended)
• Memory: 8GB (32GB recommended)
• Disk space: 10GB
• Display: 1920 x 1080 resolution

There is a separate AutoCAD 2024 for Mac, which closes the gap between using AutoCAD on Windows and Mac. AutoCAD can now run on Apple silicon for the first time, meaning the experience is almost the same as on Windows when using a Mac with an M2 or M3 chip. However, there are still a few missing features such as 3D Rendering and Drawing History.

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How to choose

If you want to run AutoCAD, you’re best off looking at a laptop with the latest Intel Core i7 or Core i9 chips, but how powerful a machine do you need in practice? That really depends on what kind of work you're doing in CAD.

If you're considering a MacBook, bear in mind that 3D and CAD software doesn't run identically on Mac processors, though comparable versions are available for most of the software options. AutoCAD is the one to watch here, as only the 2024 version runs on a Mac, and it still has some differences that might not work for your needs (see above). Be sure to check before you buy.

Actually, much CAD work doesn't need an uber-powerful machine, especially if you're working in 2D. However, working in 3D will be more demanding and will need a more powerful laptop.

In general, the more complex and large-scale your projects, the more power you'll need and the more you'll have to spend, especially if you’re also looking for your laptop to run heavier 3D modelling software. But many software types are less power-hungry, meaning you can get away with a less powerful computer.

For longevity, the ideal machine will have high-end components, including an abundance of RAM, a multi-core processor and a dedicated graphics card that can manage complex work. However, if you're working on relatively simple projects, you’ll probably be happy with meeting the minimal requirements.

For design work, you'll also want a large screen to reduce eye strain and so that your work can be displayed to its fullest. While you'll need to consider battery life, the power in these laptops means this is where you might need to compromise. Here, we've aimed for laptops with enough battery to get through the day.

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How we test

Testing a laptop for CAD work starts with considering the overall specification of the machine. Does it have a balanced setup with evenly matched core components, including the CPU, GPU and RAM? It's no good pairing a cutting-edge CPU with barely any memory and vice versa.

We then run benchmarks to ensure that the key components are delivering their full performance, so you can rely on every last bit and hertz to make the most of your CAD workflow. Laptops are much more prone to thermal and power issues than desktops, so you can't assume that a given processor or graphics chip will perform the same in every portable system. That said, there are minimum specs that you have to look out for in general. You need a 2.5GHz process (3+ GHz recommended), at least 8GB of RAM (great if it's 32GB or above), a Full HD display (1920x1080) at a minimum and at least 10GB of disk space.

Storage performance tends to be more consistent between desktop and mobile. However, laptop makers rarely provide detailed specifications for the SSDs they fit. So we test for sequential throughput and random access to make sure no below-par drives sneak through.

As for screen quality, the last word in colour accuracy isn't typically essential for CAD workflows. However, a screen with at least 95% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space is always a good idea. A sensitive touch screen is very useful if you like to design with a stylus. It's also a good idea to go with a high pixel density panel for sharp fonts and viewing fine details in designs.

We assess all these hardware qualities when considering how suitable a laptop is for CAD workflows, alongside ergonomics, build and usability, including keyboard quality, chassis rigidity, trackpad response and more. For more options, see our pick of the best laptops for game development.

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