The best laptop for 3d work

Silva_Spoon

Im looking into getting a laptop to do 3d (3dsmax) and 2d (photoshop) work on and I was wondering what kind of specs you guys think would be suitable. Anyone know about hyperthreading? Can video/graphics cards be installed? What kind of price range should I be saving for? Who is the most reputable company to buy from? ect. Thanks in advance for any help.

Cubik

I prefer Dell since I lease mine from my school so I don't have to pay a fortune for it. It's a Dell Inspiron 9100 and it works pretty well with Photoshop and Max but I'm sure there must be many better alternatives out there.

MoP

Mine's made by some random tiny no-hope company, but it's got a Radeon 9000 Mobility in it, which runs 3dsmax very well. It even does DX viewport shaders!
However, it's over a year old now, so I'm sure you can do better than that these days.

CheapAlert

It's not the best, but my old k6 433 Presario 1277 can run Blender nicely, as well as Painter, Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.

GoK

one word... alienware! well thats two words together i suppose bu... oww forget it!

Jody

lkraan

I have had a couple of different laptops for my job, travel with them a lot and am not very carefull with them. Out of the Dell, Toshiba and IBM laptops that I've had the IBM beat them all by far. They are light but very very reliable and strong. The screen is protected with a very hard layer on the outside and I found especially the Dell to have very cheap plastic which broke and cracked very easily.

milla

I have the Alienware Area-51M 7700 and it rocks for 3D. The display is seriously impressive, and it's got oodles of grunt.

Badge

i believe something with a large viewing anlge is a must. especially for texture work.

MoP

TRENDY ALIENWARE! I want one, but don't have the money

Eric Chadwick

Beware Alienware support, we just had a bad experience ordering a laptop. Wrong processor. They were dog-slow in responding, then sent the wrong thing, twice! Yuck. Hardware's great, but service left something to be desired, at least for us.

BTW, the glowing alien head embedded on the case is kinda goofy, looks a bit sophomoric. But hey, they're mostly for gaming rigs so what can I say?

todman

I've got a dual pentium 3 gig, I don't know it's loaded and it's a Toshiba widescreen and it's awesome. I can play Doom 3 on it with no problems. It works great with 3d Max.

dabu

Wow, ok Ill be a minority here.

I've been running Maya on the Mac for about 3 years now, my latest lappy, a G4 1.25 with 1.25 gigs o ram rocks for graphics, I usually run Maya and Photoshop simultaneously, and if Im updating my site, Flash as well (along with itunes, mail, safari, ichat, and occasionally iphoto as well)

I got this machine 8 months ago refurbed for 1570$ Of course adding a 1 gig dimm added 700$ on top of that, but my point is that for my needs, its beefy enough to handle stuff, since I travel constantly... and I don't trust my Dell tower, which I use solely for modeling/mapping in Maya and playing games.

Of course it can't run Max, Zbrush, etc... so maybe never mind.

Silva_Spoon

Well after checking out the specs on the Alienware Area-51m 7700 I'm hooked! I would love to get one so I started checking out ebay, but Im so damn skeptic of spending that kind of money on ebay, let alone those guys who wanna take the transaction outside of ebay. Some got prices so low its got to be a scam. Like $900 for one. I dont know. Brand new from Alienware they are so expensive. The one I got my eye on is:

[1] MJ-12m 7700

Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Case: Alienware® MJ12m 7700 Case with 17" WideSXGA+ 1680 x 1050 LCD Display with Built-in Camera - Xeno Grey
Motherboard: Intel® 915P Chipset Supporting PCI-Express
Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 560J w/ HT Technology 3.6GHz 1MB Cache
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 533MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Graphics Accelerator: Alienware® MJ12m 7700 NVIDIA Quadro FX Go 1400 with 256MB of DDR memory
Hard Drive: Extreme Performance - RAID 0 - 120GB (60GB x 2) 5400 RPM ATA100
Primary Optical Drive: 8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW Combo w/Software
Secondary Optical Drive: 24x10x24 CD-RW / 8X DVD Combo w/Software MPEG2 Decoder
Floppy Drive: USB Floppy Drive
Modem: 56K Modem with V.92 Technology
Ethernet NIC: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Wireless Network: External Wireless 802.11a/b/g PCMCIA Card
Digital Audio Hardware: Intel® High-Definition Audio (24-bit, 192Khz) with 7.1 surround sound
Optional External Displays: No Monitor
Mobile Power: Belkin® AC Anywhere 300W
Additional Battery: Alienware® 7700 series Primary Lithium-Ion Smart Battery Pack
Free Alienware Mousepad: Free Alienware® Mousepad
Automated Support: AlienAutopsy: Automated Technical Support Request System

[1] Free Shipping Mail-In Rebate; on Alienware systems excluding peripherals - Continental U.S. Only
[1] $300 Instant Rebate; On Select Systems
[1] Special Financing Offer; 90 Days Same As Cash Financing with the Alienware Credit Card

SubTotal: $4,466.00
Shipping: $99.00
Discount: $300.00
Tax: $0.00
Order Total: $4,265.00

Which is outragously expensive but it would kick my desktops ass! I dont know I always say if your gonna do it, DO IT TO DEF! I think im gonna take those specs up to a few places and see if I can get one built with the same specs for less somewhere else. We'll see.

Snowfly

My take on this is, after using a Desktop Replacement for a while, you're going to want a more portable notebook for doing light duty tasks (i.e. modeling, rigging, unwrapping, animating), and keeping the desktop handy for texture work.

Your system is gonna be good for 2 hours on the road, and is what...12 pounds?, which kind of defeats the point of getting a laptop.

MoP

Yeah, battery life is a major concern. If it's not plugged into the mains, and I'm running Max or Zbrush, or watching a DVD, I'd be lucky if it made it past an hour on a full charge. Not too useful.

Joshua Stubbles

I've got that Alienware Area-51m 7700. Picked it up in January. It runs anything I throw at it, which is a good thing. We've had to do player photo shoots in Las Vegas, and it came in quite handy there. Was able to use Photoshop and 3dmsax with ease, as well as some serious 3d gaming


Eric - sorry about your bad Alienware experience. This laptop is my 3rd system from Alienware, and I've never had an issue with them. Their support has always been top notch for me.

milla

Yeah the battery life isn't the best with the 7700. I get just over an hour. I got it so I could work anywhere around my home and garden, and use an outdoor extension cable if I'm going to be anywhere more than an hour. I contract from home, doing a range of tasks, all computer-related, so my main use for the battery is relocation of my system around our property. Even when I've gone into town with it I've noted that the commuter trains here have powerpoints at selected seats, so it's a non-issue for me.

If you need to be able to work off battery power for hours you'd do better to get a less powerful machine with a spare battery. Even notebooks with good battery life tend to only get a few hours, and they don't tend to have a lot of vertex-pulling power or such good displays as the 7700, but there are some good ones about if you aren't after a desktop replacement.

For artwork I've never seen a notebook that comes close to this one, in terms of display colour reproduction and sheer 3D grunt, but despite a 12 cell battery you get that power at the cost of longevity.

Re. size, that's an artifact of having the kickarse display. I'm a weedy wee female and I have no trouble moving my beastie around though. I haven't had the problems, touted by reviewers, using it on my lap either - I have full sensation in my legs after hours