One of my business partners is a rocketman... he is constantly jetting off to meet with clients in other cities, and even other countries. While he is on the road he really needs a high powered mobile workstation laptop so he can use CAD and Revit. We have tried a few of the more common off the shelf systems and they all have the same problems, they max out with too little RAM and they have too weak of graphics cards.

I've seen a few real tanks of systems in the 17" size that come with up to a K5100M Quadro and 32gig of RAM, but he really wants a 15" form factor. I realize that whatever we find him is most likely going to be a cinder block of a laptop, but that is the price we have to pay for power I assume.

Anyone here have any input?

We have already tried a Macbook Pro top of the line (bad idea... great form factor terrible performance) and a Dell M3800 Precision Mobile Workstation (topped out with a K1100 quatro and only 16gb of RAM).

We use the Dell 6800 as our top of the line.  Awesome machine. What CAD are you running?  The AMD cards tend to run better for CAD in the 6800.  My current laptop is a 6700 a couple years old and I guarantee you partner won't run his harder.

Whatever the current version is. Our problem is Xrefs, we use a shit ton of them... so the big roadblock is RAM as I understand it. 16GB of RAM just doesn't cut it.

Dell Precision or HP Zbook

Both support 32Gb of Ram and offer K2100m Quadro graphics cards

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m4800-workstation/pd

http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/Laptops/zbook-15-mobile-workstation-243578--1#features

However if you can wait a few weeks, Dell will release their updated mobile precision lineup of computers:

http://www.neowin.net/news/dell-unveils-six-new-precision-workstations-starting-699

The Dell Precision 15 7000 looks like the ideal up to date computer for your needs.

Creo, Solidworks, etc?  I ask because there are known issues with Nvidia cards and some CAD platforms.  We deal with Creo and use AMD cards as they don't have the crash issues we get with Nvidia.

The precision series was built around CAD/resource intensive users. 32GB is fine, and upgrading is simple as well.

If the workload involves huge simulations, assemblies or rendering that is capable of overwhelming that machine regularly...mobile work isn't for you.

Currently looking at the Dell M4800 and the Levono ThinkPad W541, both with 32gb and the K2100M.

The problem I have finding a computer for my partner is that he is too mobile to have a desktop, but he really needs a good desktop workstation. He is our chief designer (we design curtain wall systems) so he really needs as powerful of a laptop as we can get him. We've tried remote access through VPN to a workstation in our office, but he never seems to have a stable / fast enough connection. He is always on the road and always on the move, and he needs to be able to get into our CAD files and our Revit stuff.

We tried a Dell M3800 with the K1100M and 16GB of RAM but he kept bottoming it out. We think it is the RAM and not the graphics. All of our office desktop workstations have between 16 and 24 gig of RAM with Quadro 610(?) family of cards and they seem to run ok with the stuff we are doing. My workstation is a newer Dell Precision with 40 gig of RAM and a midrange Quadro and I've never noticed any hiccups in Revit or CAD. There is talk we will be moving into Catia in the near future.

Right now the guy who needs the laptop is back using his Macbook Pro against my advice. I have no clue why he likes that thing so much as it is woefully underpowered. I think he is just attached to the form factor and I keep telling him whatever we get him is going to be a suitcase compared to that mac. If only technology were ten more years ahead right now...

I would avoid the lenovo.  They have various issued compared to their dell/hp counterparts.

Does he spend a lot of time without any sort of internet connectivity?

Not so much without, but with inconsistent connectivity or restricted connectivity.

We are also limited by our office upload speeds for VPN connectivity. Even on the best of days with the best of connections using VPN access through our office is "grumpy".

I talked with him Wednesday and I think we are going to go with the Dell M4800. He seems resigned to carrying a brick again.

Dell has a new precision that is much lighter than the standard models, might be worth looking into.

Are you talking about the M3800? We have one of those in our office. It tops out at a K1100M and 16gb of ram. He brought that thing to its knees pretty easily... I think its the ram.

M3800 isn't a new model

Dell precision 15 5000 series (5510)  starts at 3.93 pounds

http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-precision-15-5000-workstation

I hadn't seen that... Any idea on when it comes out? We need this laptop sooner rather than later.

Dell is holding an event later this month.  So I would expect end of october/early november.

Keep in mind that mobile performance will not be equal to your desktop quadro card performance.  They're not the same card.

I realize that... we just need more power. More ram specifically, and if we can get a better quadro card to boot then that is even better.

?We were actually using my partner's laptop on Friday in the office, -trying- to work in a heavy file. I had the same file open on my desktop and I was having no problems... my partner's laptop was like a fat kid trying to chase down the ding ding man. It just wasn't having it.

Seems like the new options are live:

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstation/pd?oc=xctop551015us

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m7510-workstation/pd?oc=xctomp751015us