Work and gaming notebook

hamzaaa

Hey guys,

I know hardware is a rare topic in the polycount forums, but there is so much knowledge and experience in this forum that I thought that some of you may also help me out with deciding what notebook I shall buy. Unfortunately I am really a numbnut when it comes to hardware... ^^
I want to use the notebook for work (modeling, texturing etc. you know the deal) and for state of the art games. My budget is around 1500€ (~2000$). Are there any notebooks you can recommend? Is there anything I need to be very aware of? What is really important?
Thanks in advance guys!

JamesWild

Laptops and 3D work don't really mix unless you're doing lightweight mobile dev or something. Most come with poor graphics cards and silly strong CPUs/RAM and produce a lot of heat if you actually try and work on them, rapidly clogging up with dust and dying very young. (usually three years is exceptional) You also usually get saddled with a very poor 1366x768 display.

Is there a reason you want a notebook specifically? They're good for doing a lot of the other work (can easily program/communicate/document on almost any laptop out there) but 3D and audio (most laptops come with very bad, absurd latency audio with tons of noise) I've found kill high end laptops and are unusable on low end.

Iconic

If you're going to spend two grand on your laptop it's going to work just fine. I spent two grand on mine three years ago - the one I still use today, and it works fine with any program and game. I bought a Malibal Satori P170EM. It's probably not worth two grand now if that's still the running price, but that's better for you because your going to get more ram, more storage, and a better video card for that price.

People often knock laptops because you are spending more for less because you're paying for the lightweight hardware. If you think it will be more convenient, and you can afford it - I say go for it.

cooliejc

I used a laptop in college (a well equipped Dell) and it worked for 3 years before I built myself a desktop. I'm again at the point where I'd like the mobility and freedom to take my projects anywhere.

I like the macbook pro, but not that I need to run bootcamp to use Max. If that ends up being the only downside, I may take the plunge (maybe learn Maya too, wtf!).

Anybody have a laptop they love to use for environment art?

hamzaaa

Let's say it like this, I am traveling a lot and I need to have a mobile device which can handle my work as well as my passion. As 3D Work (for Games) and gaming requires kinda the same hardware I thought I'd just buy a decent gaming laptop with more RAM and a decent cpu to be fine. I got my eye on this one:

Schenker XMG A722 ADVANCED Gaming Notebook 43,9cm (17.3")

Cpu: Intel® Core™ i7 3630QM 2,4 - 3,0 GHz
Ram: 16 GB DDR3 SDRAM (1600 MHz)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M, 2048 MB GDDR5
HDD: SSD (250 GB) and HDD (750 GB 7200rpm)
Display: Glare or Non-glare, 43,9 cm (17,3"), 1920 x 1080 Pixels

it costs around 1500€, what do you think?

Thanks for your help!

hamzaaa

Another question I just asked myself, is it true that AMD Radeon graphics cards don't work very well with 3d software like max and maya? Can someone confirm that? Should I bet on nvidia for sure when it comes to working?

Goat Justice

I've been using laptops for my main machines for several years now. The biggest issue I've run into has been color accuracy. I'm sure there are exceptions out there, but the color gamut of many laptop screens is a lot more limited than a good desktop monitor. I ended up getting a second monitor for Photoshop work when I'm at home.