My 4 year old workstation:

HP Compaq 6000 Pro Microtower

Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.66GHz

12GB (11.9) Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 531 MHZ

HP 3048h (XU1 Processor) mobo

ATI FirePro V5800 (FireGL)

500GB Seagate ST350418AS ATA (SATA)

I'm itching for a new computer, as this one is starting to show its age.  In January, most of our engineers who have laptops were upgraded to HP 8560W's I believe.  Two of those are being used with SolidWorks, and it looks like they don't have any performance issues.  I was given one of their hand-me-down laptops (HP 6930P) that I use to access my workstation remotely.

I occasionally do some photo renderings for Marketing, and am told that I will probably be running some flow simulations when the time comes.  So my question is, is it worth it to get a SW-ready laptop, or get the 'perfect' tower and use the laptop as needed for remote access? 

One of the biggest pros I have for the laptop is that if anything were to happen to the laptop while in transit, it wouldn't mean losing my SW machine.  The con being that I need to have a strong enough wifi signal (not a problem at home) to run our VNC client and run Remote Desktop.

I have been looking a lot at Xi Computers, trying to see what is available and what I really "need". 

Any thoughts on what to look for?

Thanks