Macbook Pro i7 help
polycounter lvl 12
Anyone here got the new Macbook pro?
I'm need to get a laptop for myself, but I'm confused on what to get. I don't want one of those heavy and huge workstation laptops, I'm looking for something easy to carry around and powerful enough to run maya, photoshop and zbrush. Will mostly be doing modeling and animation.
I like the size of the macbook pro and people say its got good build quality.
If anyone has the i7 macbook pro could you please tell me how zbrush runs on it. How high can you subdivide the mesh.
If anyone has any other recommendations, I'd be happy to check them out.
Sorry if there's already a thread like this, Will greatly appreciate your help guys..
I'm need to get a laptop for myself, but I'm confused on what to get. I don't want one of those heavy and huge workstation laptops, I'm looking for something easy to carry around and powerful enough to run maya, photoshop and zbrush. Will mostly be doing modeling and animation.
I like the size of the macbook pro and people say its got good build quality.
If anyone has the i7 macbook pro could you please tell me how zbrush runs on it. How high can you subdivide the mesh.
If anyone has any other recommendations, I'd be happy to check them out.
Sorry if there's already a thread like this, Will greatly appreciate your help guys..
- 2.66GHz Intel Core i7
- 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 512MB
- 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm
- MacBook Pro 15-inch Hi-Res Antiglare Widescreen Display
Replies
general question would be - are you OK with running these apps under OSX? pixologic doesn't exactly seem quick in porting new zbrush versions to the mac, maya is said to be a rather broken thing on the apple. and you will miss out on all sorts of little utilities (think xnormal, various engines) and perhaps maya-plugins (nex, ...?) that are only being developed for windows.
i think it's a brilliant and reliable system, osx is pretty nifty as a laptop-OS and my next laptop for sure will be another apple. however, i do not use mine for much 3d at all...
for the day-to-day job i'd find it quite restricting to having to look for 'alternative' tools all the time and be on the least-supported platform.
I've got the 13" Pro with the integrated gpu, and a 15" Pro with the GeForce 9800, both have 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo's and 4GB RAM.
Performance wise, I can comfortably push 25 million in ZBrush before things get sluggish. However, if you plan to send that anywhere other than ZBrush, then I find Topogun struggles with much more than about 5 million, and Max about 2 million.
I know you asked about the i7 but at least it should give you some idea.
And yes, the build quality is insanely good. My 15" is one of the older ones and not as solid, but the new unibody ones are awesome.
If you're happy to pay the 'Apple Tax' then go for it, my 13" MBP is one of the best things I've ever bought! Still showing no signs of slowing down either and it's about a year and a half old.
/end AppleFanboy rant
odd that GoZ is only available for the OSX version of zbrush
I thought about running these apps under OSX and yeah windows usually seems to come first and im okay with that mostly because I will have somewhat access to a desktop pc for more serious work when needed, but because I will be traveling I need a reliable and stable laptop on which I can work.
Also for starters I'll stick with 4gb ram, if and when required I can always upgrade it to 8gb.
Though one thing that's a concern for me now is Thomasp mentioning Maya being sort of a broken thing on a mac, how broken exactly? :P
I don't use Maya enough to give you a detailed answer but I had some issues with 2010 after upgrading to Snow Leopard. It was mainly visual though, things like selection handles and gizmos not displaying properly. They may have released a fix but I haven't checked. I tried the 2011 demo though and all seems to be ok now. As I said, take my comments with a pinch of salt because I only use Maya occassionally on OS X.
there are quite a few reports out there on various graphical and performance glitches and incompatibilities between certain osx and maya releases preventing one from even starting maya in some cases. from what i recall the maya-port has always been a bit of a troubled one throughout the years and apple radically changing the hardware and OS surely hasn't helped.
you better head over to autodesk and check their qualification charts first to see what applies to your case.
i believe autodesk is still advising to not install the most recent releases of maya on the current version of osx: http://mayastation.typepad.com/maya-station/2010/04/maya-on-mac-1063.html
also, check the forums for 'osx' or 'mac' issues, there are quite some posts: http://area.autodesk.com/forum/autodesk-maya
While I'll still keep the MCP an option I've started looking at other laptops too.
So far I've come across two which I like.
The Sager NP8690 seems very good but the battery life is bad. Ive heard nothing but good things about ThinkPad's and the W510 seems very nice. What do you guys recommend.
My priority is Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop.
Lenovo ThinkPad W510
and
Sager NP8690
The sager looks good and has a great resolution. (the full HD) Realize though you don't have to buy it from them alone as Sagers are still based on ODM (Clevo). (As well as Macs for that matter, though they keep whom they use hush hush).