What Laptop Should I Get?

Nevinvex · Sep 2008

So I'm gona get a new laptop soon. I just don't know what. I'll be working with 3dsmax and photoshop and hopefully will learn zbrush. I haven't studied the market like I used to when I got my current computer, so I'm asking for your help. Graphics card will be important ofc, specially since you can't change it. Anyway, price should be max arround 900 euros. Here is an aditional site. You can list laptops based on their graphics card! (Yeah i'm graphics card obsessed:poly122:)
Thanks.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html

Cody · Sep 2008

Graphics cards aren't that big of a factor unless you are going to be playing some demanding games at high resolutions. If you are going to be using it mostly for Max, Photoshop, and z-brush, CPU and RAM should be your main concern. I have desktop that I mainly use for gaming, and a laptop that I mostly use for my 3d, because I like to work on my 3d everywhere. My laptop is a HP with an AMD 2.0Ghz Dual core, and 2 gigs of RAM. It does have a dedicated graphics card, GeForce 6150, nothing special but runs TF2 pretty well, and I run a 22" off it. It has had no problem with anything I have thrown at it with Max, photoshop and mudbox, and I have done multi million poly meshes in mudbox, and very high tri counts in max doing sub-D modeling. So, you probably won't need a system as powerful as you think you do IMO.

joe gracey · Sep 2008

Here's some options I found:

Dell

Alienware

Top 5 gaming laptops

5 gaming laptops for under $1,500

Hope that helps!

flaagan · Sep 2008

From my experience over the years, HP, Dell, and Toshiba are the ones to go with, in that order. Stay away from Sony, as well as a few others, who have proprietary hardware / software setups, as those tend to fail since they're so low-volume. Look into ram prices from places like NewEgg, as it may be a good choice to lowball the from the factory ram and buy better stuff aftermarket. I highly recommend not skimping on vid card / cpu power, as those are two things you can't readily upgrade, and you'll be stuck with what you get for as long as you own it. As for case design, avoid the ones with all the flashy lights and crap, as that stuff usually cant be shut off and just becomes annoying. Check between Dell and HP for starters to see what either offers as the best setup for what you're willing to spend.

Cody · Sep 2008

oh ya, and for my laptop above, I paid 500 US at best buy [on sale].
And alienware's are overpriced and bad quality, so stay the hell away from them. and as stated above hp's are great.

kat · Sep 2008

Cody wrote: »

Graphics cards aren't that big of a factor unless you are going to be playing some demanding games at high resolutions...

You need to pay particular attention to what GFX chip is being used in a laptop, especially for 3D development work because that aspect of 3D makes greater use of OpenGL as a draw-type rather than DirectX and sadly nVidia has pretty poor driver support of OpenGL - I've been reading for some time that nVidia don't support it in their consumer cards properly (if at all), i.e. you have to go the route of their highend workstation cards to get proper OpenGL support.

So Nevinvex when you've made a choice or two on what laptop you like the look of do a search on the Internet for "[brand/model] graphic problems" (and so on) and see what crops up, you'll be glad you did.

PolyHertz · Sep 2008

I disagree with Cody, I used to use a Geforce8600 till getting a 9800 a few months back and my performance in mudbox nearly doubled. ram and cpu are also important, I wouldn't get anything with less then a core2duo at 2.4ghz, and 3gb of ram. Screen resolution is also a real factor as I've run into some 3d apps that will cut off (without means to scroll) menus when running below x1050 resolutions. for hdds 5400 is the sweet spot as above that and you'll be running with alot of extra heat and below it becomes a real bottleneck.

Flynny · Sep 2008

Im just gonna put in my opinion:
Recently got a dell xps m1530 myself, runs maya brilliantly, great weight, great everything actually. Ive recently been running tf2 on almost fulll settings whilst having it output a movie on the hdmi to the good ol tv

But there is 1 thing that blemishes this brill laptop, the Nvidia 8600m GT card (its in alot of really good laptops like macbook pro etc) theres a problem with the card its self that makes it go kaput much too early through a heat problem.

Good luck with your choice mate i wouldnt worry tooo much about performance though because i think so long as you pay for the bells and whistles, youl be all good

vahl · Sep 2008

I just bought one, the ASUS G1SN-AP048C, it comes with 4 gigs ram, 15.4" screen, 2ghz core2duo and a 9500m 512 megs. I wanted to take the ASUS X57VM-AS039C Gamer because while it had less ram (3 gigs), it had a 9600 M with 1024 video RAM, but they were out of stock and I needed a laptop now. Both were between 800 and 900€, which should be around the same, but in $ for you (since Europe get fucked in the butt with sandpaper on that side).

anyway, the one I took (ASUS G1SN-AP048C) runs everything better than my home PC, from UT3 to zbrsuh.

a friend of mine got the Toshiba G50 (which wasn't available down here, of course, because on top of being fucked in the butt with sandpaper regarding prices, we are too regarding release dates) he seemed quite happy with it, although i think 18 inches is to big (hence the 15" on the one I took). it's quite expensive too ( around 1500€ here)

thomasp · Sep 2008

one thing apart from grapics cards and stuff you might want to look into is how hot a laptop model of your choice gets and what happens with the noise level when it runs under load for a while. because of all the tiny fans running at high RPMs and all the electronics crammed into a laptop some become insanely noisy right under your fingertips. too distracting to do anything, really.

Nevinvex · Sep 2008

Ok I found this. I know MSI isn't a mainstream notebook maker, I remember them making mainboarts tho, but look at those components! I can't find anything better at the same pricerange. It's freakin 750 euros.

http://www.emag.ro/notebook_laptop/notebook-msi-gx600px-211eu-core2-duo-t8100-21ghz-3gb-250gb-negru--pGX600PX-211EU

EDIT: There's a 15.4 and a 17 inch version. Damnit I can't make up my mind.

What Laptop Should I Get?

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