Halp!? Best laptop for 3D
polycounter lvl 4
So after working hard for me the 5 yrs my old hp G60 finally is going to.computer heaven (but where do all the calculators go??!?!) doing me proud on its 3gb of ram and single core processor with only 512.dedicatd graphics card.. The keyboard and screen is going with the battery and giving up the ghost.
So ive been saving and have a choice to make...ive narrowed it down to the two best i could find for my price range. Now i know a lot of people will say "could get a pc for that much and have better specs etc..." but a PC just isnt an option with a 2yr old running around and even.less space in our small studio flat. So for now a high end, decent spec desktop replacement laptop will do.
For my price range of up to 900 ive narrowed it down to two;
1. Dell inspiron i7 hadley
http://m.dell.com/mt/www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-17-7737/pd.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn&oc=cn77304
2. HP Envy
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/hp-envy-17-j053ea-17-laptop-silver-21492783-pdt.html
both have great specs but what i wanna make sure of is that im picking the.right one to handle modelling, sculpting (my g60 has to sculpt a character in parts with parts only going up to a max of 6mill polys and even then baking has to lower them down to a max of 2 mill otherwise xnormal crashes). So.i.need the new laptop to be able to handle large polycounfs wholst sculpting, it needs to be able to bake large textures (g60 only allows me 2048 atm at a push) and the new one needs to be.able to handle max, ps, mudbox, zbrush and engines obv. Of course also.needs to render well, atm my g60 takes 1hr just to render a mediocre near hd image.
So which of these 2 would be best at that?
Hp has a better processor (not by much) but the Dell has a better graphics card and 4gbs more Ram.
Anybody got any suggestions about which is best for what i need? Or any other laptop suggestions for the same or lower price?
Thanks.in advance
So ive been saving and have a choice to make...ive narrowed it down to the two best i could find for my price range. Now i know a lot of people will say "could get a pc for that much and have better specs etc..." but a PC just isnt an option with a 2yr old running around and even.less space in our small studio flat. So for now a high end, decent spec desktop replacement laptop will do.
For my price range of up to 900 ive narrowed it down to two;
1. Dell inspiron i7 hadley
http://m.dell.com/mt/www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-17-7737/pd.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn&oc=cn77304
2. HP Envy
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/hp-envy-17-j053ea-17-laptop-silver-21492783-pdt.html
both have great specs but what i wanna make sure of is that im picking the.right one to handle modelling, sculpting (my g60 has to sculpt a character in parts with parts only going up to a max of 6mill polys and even then baking has to lower them down to a max of 2 mill otherwise xnormal crashes). So.i.need the new laptop to be able to handle large polycounfs wholst sculpting, it needs to be able to bake large textures (g60 only allows me 2048 atm at a push) and the new one needs to be.able to handle max, ps, mudbox, zbrush and engines obv. Of course also.needs to render well, atm my g60 takes 1hr just to render a mediocre near hd image.
So which of these 2 would be best at that?
Hp has a better processor (not by much) but the Dell has a better graphics card and 4gbs more Ram.
Anybody got any suggestions about which is best for what i need? Or any other laptop suggestions for the same or lower price?
Thanks.in advance
Replies
Not sure if youv checked, but you can get costum built laptops at pcspecialist.co.uk for real cheap!
The i7-4700MQ is about TWICE as fast as the i7-4500U
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4700MQ+%40+2.40GHz
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4500U+%40+1.80GHz
Yeah the dell is dual core but that shouldnt make a difference right? Think my g60 is a dual core but its over 5yrs.old and still handles max zbrush and ps... So a i7 dual core should handle things a lot better. Ideally the dell would have the processor the.hp has but...cant configure dell laptops...:/
Personally my sketchbook goes everywhere I go, my system stays where it's at. I don't have a strong desire to carry it around everywhere I go, I go other places to get away from it, heh. But it really depends on your needs, if you're a digital nomad, I guess portability could be important.
Just a matter of picking which of the two above are better for what i need =\
But to answer your question, I'd still go with the Envy 17.
The 740m score 1800 on 3dmark 11 while the 750m scores 2500. Not too large of a difference.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html
You get 4gb more RAM with the dell; however, I really think the 4700MQ is worth it.
Rendering = Usually CPU
Baking = CPU or CUDA or OpenGL (depending on program)
Encoding = CPU
Polycounts = GPU(?)
I love having a strong CPU but to each their own.
You should open up a few of the programs you use regularly and see what part of your computer is being used and decide based on that.
Rendering is the GPU
Baking is either your CPU or GPU depending on the program
Polycounts are dependent on the application.
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/
No need to thank me
Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Intel® Corei7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4700MQ (2.40GHz) 6MB
16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 8GB)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Also, when i got my laptop, i only had it built with 2gig of ram, and bought 16gb separately from amazon for a fraction of the price and installed that myself (real easy btw)
which in this case would bring down the price to 770 delivered. so drop on another 50-60 for 16gig ram and your under £900
I realize this is a 15" laptop and the dell one is 17, but they do a 17" version too, for i think £20 more.
http://3xs.scan.co.uk/configurator/3xs-graphite-lg175
i upgraded to the i7 4700mq, added a 128gb mSATA ssd, removed the OS and other software (as i have my own OS disc). it's been really nice so far and i have no regrets about it at all, and if i ever want/need to upgrade the ram then there are still slots to do so.
Maximum point count in zbrush is determined by RAM - gpu has no significant impact
Everything else is a combination of the three
That 4gb barrier is annoying and very limiting but there are ways of working that keep you under that cap. Plus when zBrush v5 comes out it will be 64bit and use a lot more ram, so planning a head would be wise.
This rocks, except for the hardrive, I personally think there should be a SSD as the main drive, be it laptop or desktop SSD is awesome.
It's incredibly fast if you have all of your applications, working files and swap files on the SSD drive, its close to having everything stored in ram. CPU's and GPU's have gotten incredibly fast but the read/write time of platter hard drives has been locked in at the same speeds for quite a while, its a hardware limitation, the record player can only spin so fast and it takes the arm a while to get to all the records in the jukebox.
Going SSD has the biggest impact on programs that use hard drive space sort of like ram (swap files) and a lot do, suddenly the bottle neck of accessing and storing data on the hard drive is gone and things run incredibly fast.
I do worry about their stability, when they go they are gone and there isn't much warning. More than likely your data is also gone, so you need a plan to back up, which you should have already no matter what because all hardware has an expiration date. Some parts manufactures tell you how many hours of operation you can expect. Depending on what you do and how you operate that could shorten or expand the lifespan, typically laptops have shorter lifespans and when one part goes the whole thing needs to be replaced.
Batteries don't last forever and weaken with each charge. Most laptop users end up just leaving them tethered and plugged in anyway.
Heat is a major issue with laptops and manufactures are notorious for inadequate cooling, I think that's so they can sell more laptops sooner... So to keep the laptop cool you have to get a bunch of external cooling devices that are normally cheap and noisy. It's easier to build a quite PC with proper cooling.
When a platter drive fails in a laptop or a desktop it's normally a mechanical issue like the reader arm is out of alignment, the data can be fine if (as long as it wasn't written with a bad arm). If you can fix the arm you can get most of it back, which is normally outside the reach of your average user anyway so the data is as good as lost to most people, unless they want to pay someone to "restore the hard drive". Platter drives do tend to warn you when they are going out so you can back up most of your file, but not always and sometimes it's the platters that are failing and your data is gone or wasn't written properly.
Personally given the mechanical fragility of platter drives I wouldn't get a laptop unless it came with SSD, best for speed and less moving parts that can break on you when you drop it or knock it. They do run hotter than platter drives so that is a concern but again it's easy to keep it cool in a desktop.
If you want a laptop for portability from room to room for certain activities then you could look into a few different low cost devices instead of trying to get one expensive thing to do it all.
Personally I have a cheap and quite micro PC next to my TV for media streaming and internet couch surfing, it plays some games and if it wasn't weird working in max on a giant TV from across the room I could use it for work, but don't.
We have a tablet for everyone to use for simple things (it floats around the house) this keeps everyone else in the house from having to use the other systems.
We have a laptop (because my wife thought portability was important but it hasn't moved since we bought it). I don't think its been turned on since Halloween...
2 PC's in our spare bedroom/office. One is my main system and the other acts as a backup server and a storage hub for everything in the house (even our phones).
This sounds like a lot of expensive hardware but I've done it in small easy to purchase chunks. If and when something goes down it won't take the whole thing with it.
Just some stuff to think about...
least with a desktop you can replace most of the bits.
HP G60 after 5 years of service blue screen of deathed on me whilst backing up files
hopefully.at the current time im backing up my laptops hdd tomy external drive..but it.might just be backing up to.my internal cause.i.cant remember what either was called.
This is good because if it aint my external it means my hdd is fine and its just my os..which.means i can get a usb cradle.and transfer files to a.new rig.
If its to my external thats.good because of well..its backed up..
So nlw i really have to get on and decide which of the hp or dell to go with
Many thanks for helping and will definately start posting work done on my new laptop asap