Hi there. Just wanted to find out what is the best laptop configuration and model for high-mobility architects, at a reasonable price of course (Sony Vaio and Alienware stuff do not exactly fit my budget). Thanks for suggestions!
CHECK OUT ASUS ... THEY ACTUALLY BUILD THE POWERBOOKS AND SONY VIA, AND THE HAVE A SWEEEEEET LINE OF THEIR OWN NOTEBOOKS. THEY LOOK TOTALLY HOT AND HAVE MEGA MUSCLE. NOT CHEAP!
I am not sure why some don't like the way the dell's look. imho, they look pretty good. Alienwares look horrible (no professional could go anywhere with a their logo).
Chekc out the 6000. Great deal, looks really nice (just bought my mom one), light, etc. Look for the coupons on www.techbargain.com
It's really your only option if you want service (no one offers Dell's service, I don't think - 24 onsite support? Not sure, though, but I know I couldn't stand sending my laptop in if something went wrong) and a good deal.
The new Acer's look nice (the high end ones), but I don't think you'll find the coupons. FYI, they all cost about the same without coupons.
Sony, I think, makes the best ultraportable and best screens, but they ain't cheap.
I am not going to promote any brands, but I will warn that you should be careful with support. Read reviews online to find which computer companys offer good support.
A friend of mine bought an A__r and was bragging on and on about how cheap and powerful it was. Not long after he was yelling, and at points, almost in tears on the phone. He probably sent it back to them three times in two months. They never "fixed" it.
i think you have to evalute you needs. laptops seem to be spread across a spectrum. some are built for ultra-portability, being small and lightweight, while others focus on the features.
and i agree with having good support. laptops, because you tend to move them around encounter more problems.
I just recently purchased the x540, this lil baby can roll, its so great at all the things you need computers to do, like computing, computering, computationizing, and it even comps like a race horse! i would highly recomend picking one up, or just testing one out. Computation has never been so computable, or so lappable!
acer tech support is said to be bad, but we've bought 4 acers notebooks (from the $600 one to the $2000 one) and never have had any problem whatsoever - knocking wood...
and i think they look very professional and sleek (except the ferraris, which imho are a bit flashy), if looks are what you are concerned about.
acer tech support is said to be bad, but we've bought 4 acers notebooks (from the $600 one to the $2000 one) and never have had any problem whatsoever - knocking wood...
and i think they look very professional and sleek (except the ferraris, which imho are a bit flashy), if looks are what you are concerned about.
I regret buying my sony viao s460; the price for its function is not worth it in the long run. Don't purchase a 512 mb ram; good inexpensive notebooks nowaday comes with 1024 mb ram if you look around; ie - hp. Make sure it's a pentium M; I believe the celeron processor often causes overheating if you leave on your laptop on for long periods of time. I'd also go for at least 100 GB storage. HP has pretty good notebooks for its price and functions though the customer service is terrible. IBM has superb with the customer service; I'm not sure how the notebooks are like.
I don't know why I mentioned IBM - my "high-tech" friend bought himself an inexpensive IBM not too long ago. Recently, his fan gave out and he called customer service to have it fixed; the next day, an IBM representative came to his work place to fix his problem. His laptop looked a little outdated; I wasn't sure if IBM continued making laptops or not, but talk about great customer service.
I have a Mac. Powerbook G4. I like it. I can do everything I need-draft and take that into illustrator and photoshop seemlessly. It renders pretty quickly in VW as well. I use to run a Windows based system, and since switching to Mac, I'll never go back.
Honestly, I say go with whatever you feel most comfortable with. A computer shouldn't be the "be all end all" but just another tool. If anyone relies too heavily on it, then I think they are missing the point to begin with-crappy designers are designers who start with a computer screen.
i would recommend you at least check out www.buyabs.com/ its a site for gamers so the graphics capabilities are top notch, and they receive high marks for customer service.
i too have the vaio s460. i like it, although the wireless card tends to overheat the drive controller when i use the wireless for a long period of time. i have been meaning to pick up a new internal wireless card for it, but to be honest, it doesn't bother me too much, as i plug it into the network in the office and dont use the wireless all that much at home.
i was seduced by the design of the s460, and i am still fond of it... i don't like dell laptops, although some of thier basic cheapies have a sort of minimal appliance aesthetic that doesn't bother me. if i were to buy another and weren't going to carry it around so much, i would spend $500 on a dell inspiron 1300 and be done with it.
i also considered ibm, but they had no widescreen display laptops when i bought, and hp, which was a close second to the s460, had lousy graphics ability. i was dead set on getting something with a graphics chipset, if you do any modelling on it, you should really avoid the intel integrated graphics.
Hi there. Thanks for your comments and suggestions. For the moment I think I'll stick to ASUS W1 Carbon, which seems to perfectly fit my needs - a powerful computer in a superb aluminium-carbon "bulletproof" jacket. But still, I'm not that sure on the perfect configuration -I use computers about 12 hours a day, working in Autocad, Archicad, Photoshop, Illustrator and 3dsMax. My laptop should be powerful, yet slim and very very shock resistant. If you have further remarks, post them here.
Thanks a lot guys for your support!
you guys should check out the notebooks with the dual core processors. Also, wait for the vista to come out (or are they out already?) since they're formatted for the dual core. Dual core works well for multi-tasking.
my minimum configuration (for photoshop, illustrator, autocad, maya, rhino):
1GB RAM
100GB HD, 5400rpm, Pent M or better, 1.67 GHz or better
better than mainstream graphics card: ati x1600 or better (heard negative things about nvidia geforce running with maya)--
DVI port for hookup to apple cinema display
bluetooth for use with wireless keyboard
15.4" screen
under 6.6 lb.
good looks
good service
$2000 or less
I did alot of research on this recently and i ended up getting the asus a6ja--has all the above and in addition has core duo for faster processing, and I upped the RAM to 2 GB. The warranty is 2-years international and they are built solid, and have a good reputation in europe for service.
i have a powerbook G4, upgraded to 1.25GB ram, it ran really well until a few weeks ago, the harddrive totally crapped out, i called apple care, backed everything up, sent my baby in and got it back 5 days (2 of which were weekend days) after the initial call to customer service (and even got a new display - they must have been feeling generous). aside from that glitch, which was repaired much more quickly than i had expected, it's been an incredibly portable and reliable machine. oh and sexy too.
superglue, it depends on the laptop you have - you might need to call customer service. For my acer laptop, adding/changing the ram does not void the warranty. But changing the harddrive might...
so it depends on the manufacturer
It's up to what you wan't to do with it, if all your gonna be doing with it is autocad and adobe creative suite stuff you can get basically any comp, get the centrino though, the pentium M is a nice processor, and don't skimp on ram and HDD space, i cannot cannot emphasize the RAM enough. The dell 6000 is nice, i have one. IF though you want a 3D rendering laptop with proper capability and run acad and cs, i think the best thing would to build your own and get price quotes from various companies like dell, IBM, etc. For the 3D stuff your gonna wanna have at least 1 gig of ram, an open GL video card (ati make good mobile ones), and have a decent processor in there as well, probably at least 2 gig. DO NOT, imho, buy a VAIO or an ALIENWARE, they are overpriced, their customer service sucks and the vaio will break on you if you breathe on it hard enough AND they're usually bugged to hell. This is all from my experience anyway, if any of you has a vaio you've had for at least 6 months and it's been good to you and want to share the experience you would be the first i've ever heard of.
I've had my viao for about six month though I'm not completely satisfied with how fast it runs (512 mb ram). What weak sauce. Also, I don't know if my laptop is suppose to come with 80G of harddrive storage like it advertised, but when I got it - there was 69 G. I figure it was probably the extra programs that came with the laptop. Any thoughts on this? Is that how it's suppose to be? I wish I was more computer literate at the time I purchased my viao. I trusted the brand which was why I bought it & because it was a convenient size for me. To get upgraded as far as the RAM, that's about another $500-$600.
Also do consider, that mobility in laptop is a compromise- in which you are sacrificing performance for that extra mobility. Also, many laptops are not rugged, where dropping it or banging it a little can damage the hard drive.
I built my own desktop and its great- I could customize a pc for my archtiecture(and occasional music,video) needs and have just what I need, instead of buying a gamers pc and getting things you dont really need(overspec) along with the necessities.
i'm not to happy with my Dull Inspiron 6000 design. it's kinda squeaky with all the trim pieces and the design is clunky and tired. However, the 15" screen is unbelievable @1200x1920 acad dwgs look like paper.
"I use computers about 12 hours a day, working in Autocad, Archicad, Photoshop, Illustrator and 3dsMax. My laptop should be powerful..."
12 HOURS A DAY!! means you're not walking around with it... the time saved with the performance of a faster computer would be well worth it in my book... I have been researching computers for too long looking to buy a new workstation and bought their 7400 dual opteron version and If I needed a laptop I'd get this for myself. It's easily faster than 90% of the workstations/desktops on the market today and if you're behind it for 12 hours... you could either get a lot more done, or spend more time at the Pub! (well, you know what I mean!)
probably over your budget but if any laptop is worth it ~ this is ... if you're interested let me know and I'll get you in touch with the chap that I bought through... extremely helpful and gave me a discount!
I bought few days ago an IBM T43p-2687, or Lenovo T43p-2687 if you want.
The reason, simple: 128MB ATI Mobility FireGL V3200 one of the best graphic cards you can get to produce 3D graphics (Maya, 3dstudio etc.) but not to reproduce 3D graphics (gaming cards)
In addition: very light, one of the few laptops with a 15" screen and resolution higher than 1280x1024 (this one has a 1600x1200), and as mentioned before good service.
My previous laptop was a Fujitsu with a superb 'crystal view' screen but now they sell them with a to low resolution (1200x900 I think) for 3D modeling and other arch. related stuff.
As I final reason to buy the IBM was ...I read somewhere that a soldier in Iraq got shot and the metal cover of the IBM saved him! and the laptop still worked afterwards as well!!!
stropoulos - all graphic cards only 'reproduce' graphics, including the FireGLs and Quadros - none of them 'make' graphics. Too many people think an expensive graphic card will make them render faster and it doesn't, not at all (helps you move large polygon scenes around better, but that's it).
It's nice having a good graphic card, but make sure you put the money into a fast processor #1 and lotsa RAM #2. A great graphic card will not help you render any faster.
And, uh, I hope that story isn't the real reason you bought that machine! It's a nice machine, but bullet proof.
but it renders on the graphic card's processor, so it doesn't eat all the CPU power and you can continue working in the mean time
(hardware render vs. software render/ accelerator vs gamer -graphic card)
Sorry to hijack the thread, but it seems there is a common misconception of the vid card - rendering relationsip amung architects/students . . .
Trace has it right ~
There are two types of rendering... REALTIME on screen - when modeling/drawing/typing... etc - which is what the video card does
the other type is OUTPUT RENDERING - which is not done in the video card at all... it's all system memory and CPU... if you render an image or animation, your video card sits there and idles... doing nothing.
There is however, as stropoulus stated, a dedicated Hardware rendering devices such as ( http://artvps.com/page/15/pure.htm ) which plugs into an empty PCI slot and is basically a mini motherboard and multiple single funtion processors which handles only OUTPUT rendering chores... freeing up your systems video card and cpu for seamless workflow. I do not have any first hand experience with these devices so I don't know if there would still be enough of your systems resources left to continue working. I'll email ART-VPS again to find out... oh yeah, those little PCI-X cards cost $5600 each but equal over 10 - p4 3.0ghz machines in terms of raw power - delicious : )
stropoulus ...When you are rending, your systems' default setting is to dedicate 100% of its resources to that rendering task. However, if you have a multi core system (either dual core CPU's on a single socket or multiple CPU's on multiple sockets or multiple dual core CPU's on multiple sockets), you can set an "affinity" via task manager for whatever program you are rendering with and dedicate 50% of the CPU to that specific task, freeing up the other core/processor to continue working... it's nearly impossible to continue working when rendering at 100% CPU usage (keep and eye on task mgr) no matter what video card, processor, and ram you have. You can also do this, albeit is not as efficient, with a single core processor such as a P4, P4M, Celeron, etc, but the 50% that's not being used for rendering is sharing its FSB (Front Side Bus) with the rendering, which in turn slows the rendering and anything else you are trying to do... Multi core or mulitple cpu systems are "Ideal" for working in this way
So in all there are only 2 types of graphics cards:
"workstation" - quadrofx, firegl, 3dlabs, etc
"gaming" - geforce, radeon,... and all the variants in between
the only real difference between the two is the drivers... which is what you pay for when buying a workstation class video card. Physically, the cards can be identical, but the workstation cards run better in 3d because thier drivers are optimized for specific programs (i.e...MAXtreme drivers for 3d Studio and ____ drivers for Maya... i forget the name). You can actually have a gaming card with more raw power but have it perform slower in realtime 3d work due to the fact that the drivers are not made specifically for 3d work. Likewise, a workstation card will not perform as well in games as a gaming card... You can, however, do a "softmod" to a gaming card (the card has to be of a specific genetic line... Geforce6800gt AGP...and others) in which, through windows, you re-write the drivers for the gaming card and turn it into near workstation card (performance of a softmodded gaming card never matches true workstation cards). I have read about 6800's being turned into QuadroFX's 3400's and radeon 9600 Pro's being turned into FireGL's with great success. This seemingly quick and easy "fix" is however, not without drawbacks... there is an inherent risk when tinkering with drivers such as instability, and other assorted wierd viewport phenomena that occurs only with softmodded cards.
stropoulos - I think, perhaps, someone mislead you. Cowgill has covered about everything.
Bottom line, though, is that graphics cards WILL NOT help you output faster. Meaning, if you have a rendering that will take 6 hours to render with a Geforce II, it'll render in 6 hours with a Quadro 4500 as well (let's not nit pick about the screen - assume it's 'off').
FYI - there are, as cowgill notes, 'real' rendering cards, like the ARTVPS, or whatever they are calling it. Those cards cost more than most workstations, though, and only support raytracing (no GI for now).
However, nvidia and others are working towards 'real' rendering on the gpu. Gelato is the first step (someone correct me if I am mistaken or names have changed) in that direction, but again, it ain't here yet (for the most part) and costs a ton. Sometime we'll have it, though, but don't hold your breath.
When someone asks for computer advice, i always advise against paying for high end graphic cards. it's a great help for Hollywoood that deal with large textures and need real time updates, but for architecture it barely makes a noticable difference (I've used many cards, from old Geforces to new Quadros and FireGLs) and the money is MUCH better spent on a faster cpu, more ram, or faster hard drives.
trace -- does the screen have anything to do with output rendering anyway - ?
Yeah, dedicated harware raytracers are prohibitively expensive, but if someone was to invest in a renderfarm it could easily be a viable option... and makes much more logistical sense (less space, heat, electricity bill...)! Art-VPS is collaborating with Mental Images (i.e. mental ray) ... which is exiting news if you can get a dedicated renderer to run Mental Ray... one of the best, albeit finicky rendering engines available. Also, you could get away without a built-in GI, via hdri and some clever bounce lights.
Gaming cards to privide more "bang for your buck" over thier workstation kin . . . just depends on who's paying for it - you or your boss! A faster CPU can easily prove itself a wise investment when it cuts your rendering times from allnight to a few hours!
as trace mentioned, there are some laptops on the market that can be configured to come in RAID 0 arrangements which would make bootup and program opening and file - open/save/autosave functions quite snappy! I'd recommend 2 - 7200rpm 100gb hd's in RAID 0.
_____________________________
danielmunteanu,
In my Opinion, and depending on what your budget is, you may be better off to get a laptop that has just enough mustard do to presentations/meetings/ etc... and invest the rest of your budget into a really fast desktop workstation, from which you'd do most of your work. The amount of cost spent to get even a decent laptop for 3D work would fetch a poly/pixel crunching desktop workstation... that could easily outpreform the "decent" laptop by 25-50%. Think P4m vs Athlon FX60!
hmm, never heard that problem about 0 as bootdisk setup.
not to be pretentious, HOW does 0 perform worse than a single disk. Of course a single Fujitsu turning @ 15k will be faster than 2 - 5400 rpm drives in RAID 0... it's relative to a point.
I would just be scared to have RAID 0 in a laptop. I was too scared to have it in my main workstation, which was RAID 1, but then config'd it to RAID 5, which seems like a great balance.
Thankfully, there are higher capacity/faster drives for laptops. Just spec'd one for a friend today and they finally have 100gig 7200rpm drives (I think 60 was the most a few months back).
I hear Toshiba will have HUGE capacity drives for laptops very soon. That woudl be very nice.
cowgill - well, I've heard people say that if you have a large screen and it's rendering, that it is using the graphic card, so, theoretically, it could slow things down with a lesser card. Seems silly to me, but I tend to talk more than a I know ;-)
Thanks for the link, over my head stuff I am afraid. I wait for easy to understand news and then finally, mainstream production (I am not a tweaker or self builder - give it to me with a power button and a warranty!)
I think that Art card and MR are getting desparate. MR is certainly powerful for Hwood, but not for the rest. Adesk has lost tons of people because of the integration and, imho, will drop MR from the Max package (or offer a cheaper version of Max).
VRay, Final Render, Brazil are just better products and are sooo much cheaper (although I have not kept on track with MR's licensing changes).
specifically the second to last paragraph about using identical drives independently - for design-related type tasks, having the pagefile and apps on a separate drive will be more noticable than High STR, unless all you do is boot windows.
add in the increased risk of data loss and the general shoddy quality of most motherboard built in RAID controllers, and it's just a plain bad idea.
I don't think the video card has anything to do when output rendering... only if the rendering was completed in an absurd (like nanoseconds) amount of time would the video card become a factor when displaying the already calculated rendering... like gaming in real-time. However, when running extra large displays (like an Apple 30") there is a min. required amount of video card muscle to drive such a huge display... which, still only relates to real-time or viewport performance.
A cheaper version of Max is much welcome here. I graduate soon and actually thought about picking up a copy of XSI @ $500 for freelance 3D work... but IF Max, without MR, would drop to around 1k I'd love not having to learn another program and just keep FR or pick try V-Ray.
alright - I'm suspicious of my own thought on RAID 0 now! Thanks for the links...
. . . in the last 20 mins. to sum up the dozen articles I've found - stating that, despite my best wishes, RAID 0 is virtually useless unless in a server environment...
"RAID-0 arrays will win you just about any benchmark, but they'll deliver virtually nothing more than that for real world desktop performance. That's just the cold hard truth."
Best Laptop available on the market
Hi there. Just wanted to find out what is the best laptop configuration and model for high-mobility architects, at a reasonable price of course (Sony Vaio and Alienware stuff do not exactly fit my budget). Thanks for suggestions!
dell inspiron 6000 is a good deal
mackbookpro - you gotta love it!
check out Acer, they probably offer the best performance at the best price, and they aren't as hideous as those ugly dell's
CHECK OUT ASUS ... THEY ACTUALLY BUILD THE POWERBOOKS AND SONY VIA, AND THE HAVE A SWEEEEEET LINE OF THEIR OWN NOTEBOOKS. THEY LOOK TOTALLY HOT AND HAVE MEGA MUSCLE. NOT CHEAP!
I am not sure why some don't like the way the dell's look. imho, they look pretty good. Alienwares look horrible (no professional could go anywhere with a their logo).
Chekc out the 6000. Great deal, looks really nice (just bought my mom one), light, etc. Look for the coupons on www.techbargain.com
It's really your only option if you want service (no one offers Dell's service, I don't think - 24 onsite support? Not sure, though, but I know I couldn't stand sending my laptop in if something went wrong) and a good deal.
The new Acer's look nice (the high end ones), but I don't think you'll find the coupons. FYI, they all cost about the same without coupons.
Sony, I think, makes the best ultraportable and best screens, but they ain't cheap.
check out the asus a6ja- only in uk right now i think--has core duo and ati x1600 graphics card. very solid, good service, and good looks too.
check out pro-star. same systems as alienware, voodoo, etc. - all made by clevo. you will save about $1000 for the same system.
macbook pro all the way.
Here I am. The negative guy.
I am not going to promote any brands, but I will warn that you should be careful with support. Read reviews online to find which computer companys offer good support.
A friend of mine bought an A__r and was bragging on and on about how cheap and powerful it was. Not long after he was yelling, and at points, almost in tears on the phone. He probably sent it back to them three times in two months. They never "fixed" it.
"companies"
Damn. And I even had my coffee.
i think you have to evalute you needs. laptops seem to be spread across a spectrum. some are built for ultra-portability, being small and lightweight, while others focus on the features.
and i agree with having good support. laptops, because you tend to move them around encounter more problems.
I just recently purchased the x540, this lil baby can roll, its so great at all the things you need computers to do, like computing, computering, computationizing, and it even comps like a race horse! i would highly recomend picking one up, or just testing one out. Computation has never been so computable, or so lappable!
oh. and the second they finally get windows to work on the new intel macs i'm making the switch.
acer tech support is said to be bad, but we've bought 4 acers notebooks (from the $600 one to the $2000 one) and never have had any problem whatsoever - knocking wood...
and i think they look very professional and sleek (except the ferraris, which imho are a bit flashy), if looks are what you are concerned about.
acer tech support is said to be bad, but we've bought 4 acers notebooks (from the $600 one to the $2000 one) and never have had any problem whatsoever - knocking wood...
and i think they look very professional and sleek (except the ferraris, which imho are a bit flashy), if looks are what you are concerned about.
I LIKE MY BOXX. I ALSO HAVE A IBOOK, BUT IT'S OUT OF DATE (3 YRS)
Checkout VooDoo computers. They are known for their gaming systems, similar to alienware. Not cheap though.
Yup, I'll buy a Mac when Vista will work on them gorgeous 17ers!
Same here.
I regret buying my sony viao s460; the price for its function is not worth it in the long run. Don't purchase a 512 mb ram; good inexpensive notebooks nowaday comes with 1024 mb ram if you look around; ie - hp. Make sure it's a pentium M; I believe the celeron processor often causes overheating if you leave on your laptop on for long periods of time. I'd also go for at least 100 GB storage. HP has pretty good notebooks for its price and functions though the customer service is terrible. IBM has superb with the customer service; I'm not sure how the notebooks are like.
IBM is superb with the customer service I mean.
IBM doesn't make laptops anymore.
the thinkpads were sold to lenovo, an asian company
I don't know why I mentioned IBM - my "high-tech" friend bought himself an inexpensive IBM not too long ago. Recently, his fan gave out and he called customer service to have it fixed; the next day, an IBM representative came to his work place to fix his problem. His laptop looked a little outdated; I wasn't sure if IBM continued making laptops or not, but talk about great customer service.
I have a Mac. Powerbook G4. I like it. I can do everything I need-draft and take that into illustrator and photoshop seemlessly. It renders pretty quickly in VW as well. I use to run a Windows based system, and since switching to Mac, I'll never go back.
Honestly, I say go with whatever you feel most comfortable with. A computer shouldn't be the "be all end all" but just another tool. If anyone relies too heavily on it, then I think they are missing the point to begin with-crappy designers are designers who start with a computer screen.
i would recommend you at least check out www.buyabs.com/ its a site for gamers so the graphics capabilities are top notch, and they receive high marks for customer service.
i too have the vaio s460. i like it, although the wireless card tends to overheat the drive controller when i use the wireless for a long period of time. i have been meaning to pick up a new internal wireless card for it, but to be honest, it doesn't bother me too much, as i plug it into the network in the office and dont use the wireless all that much at home.
i was seduced by the design of the s460, and i am still fond of it... i don't like dell laptops, although some of thier basic cheapies have a sort of minimal appliance aesthetic that doesn't bother me. if i were to buy another and weren't going to carry it around so much, i would spend $500 on a dell inspiron 1300 and be done with it.
i also considered ibm, but they had no widescreen display laptops when i bought, and hp, which was a close second to the s460, had lousy graphics ability. i was dead set on getting something with a graphics chipset, if you do any modelling on it, you should really avoid the intel integrated graphics.
Hi there. Thanks for your comments and suggestions. For the moment I think I'll stick to ASUS W1 Carbon, which seems to perfectly fit my needs - a powerful computer in a superb aluminium-carbon "bulletproof" jacket. But still, I'm not that sure on the perfect configuration -I use computers about 12 hours a day, working in Autocad, Archicad, Photoshop, Illustrator and 3dsMax. My laptop should be powerful, yet slim and very very shock resistant. If you have further remarks, post them here.
Thanks a lot guys for your support!
you guys should check out the notebooks with the dual core processors. Also, wait for the vista to come out (or are they out already?) since they're formatted for the dual core. Dual core works well for multi-tasking.
my minimum configuration (for photoshop, illustrator, autocad, maya, rhino):
1GB RAM
100GB HD, 5400rpm, Pent M or better, 1.67 GHz or better
better than mainstream graphics card: ati x1600 or better (heard negative things about nvidia geforce running with maya)--
DVI port for hookup to apple cinema display
bluetooth for use with wireless keyboard
15.4" screen
under 6.6 lb.
good looks
good service
$2000 or less
I did alot of research on this recently and i ended up getting the asus a6ja--has all the above and in addition has core duo for faster processing, and I upped the RAM to 2 GB. The warranty is 2-years international and they are built solid, and have a good reputation in europe for service.
i have a powerbook G4, upgraded to 1.25GB ram, it ran really well until a few weeks ago, the harddrive totally crapped out, i called apple care, backed everything up, sent my baby in and got it back 5 days (2 of which were weekend days) after the initial call to customer service (and even got a new display - they must have been feeling generous). aside from that glitch, which was repaired much more quickly than i had expected, it's been an incredibly portable and reliable machine. oh and sexy too.
is there any way I can upgrade my ram and harddrive space without going through sony customer service?
superglue, it depends on the laptop you have - you might need to call customer service. For my acer laptop, adding/changing the ram does not void the warranty. But changing the harddrive might...
so it depends on the manufacturer
i have a s460; I figure sony's going to overcharge for an upgrade like they overcharge their product.
It's up to what you wan't to do with it, if all your gonna be doing with it is autocad and adobe creative suite stuff you can get basically any comp, get the centrino though, the pentium M is a nice processor, and don't skimp on ram and HDD space, i cannot cannot emphasize the RAM enough. The dell 6000 is nice, i have one. IF though you want a 3D rendering laptop with proper capability and run acad and cs, i think the best thing would to build your own and get price quotes from various companies like dell, IBM, etc. For the 3D stuff your gonna wanna have at least 1 gig of ram, an open GL video card (ati make good mobile ones), and have a decent processor in there as well, probably at least 2 gig. DO NOT, imho, buy a VAIO or an ALIENWARE, they are overpriced, their customer service sucks and the vaio will break on you if you breathe on it hard enough AND they're usually bugged to hell. This is all from my experience anyway, if any of you has a vaio you've had for at least 6 months and it's been good to you and want to share the experience you would be the first i've ever heard of.
screens are so damn nice on them Sony's. Shame their service sucks.
I've had my viao for about six month though I'm not completely satisfied with how fast it runs (512 mb ram). What weak sauce. Also, I don't know if my laptop is suppose to come with 80G of harddrive storage like it advertised, but when I got it - there was 69 G. I figure it was probably the extra programs that came with the laptop. Any thoughts on this? Is that how it's suppose to be? I wish I was more computer literate at the time I purchased my viao. I trusted the brand which was why I bought it & because it was a convenient size for me. To get upgraded as far as the RAM, that's about another $500-$600.
!!!
Also do consider, that mobility in laptop is a compromise- in which you are sacrificing performance for that extra mobility. Also, many laptops are not rugged, where dropping it or banging it a little can damage the hard drive.
I built my own desktop and its great- I could customize a pc for my archtiecture(and occasional music,video) needs and have just what I need, instead of buying a gamers pc and getting things you dont really need(overspec) along with the necessities.
i'm not to happy with my Dull Inspiron 6000 design. it's kinda squeaky with all the trim pieces and the design is clunky and tired. However, the 15" screen is unbelievable @1200x1920 acad dwgs look like paper.
"I use computers about 12 hours a day, working in Autocad, Archicad, Photoshop, Illustrator and 3dsMax. My laptop should be powerful..."
12 HOURS A DAY!! means you're not walking around with it... the time saved with the performance of a faster computer would be well worth it in my book... I have been researching computers for too long looking to buy a new workstation and bought their 7400 dual opteron version and If I needed a laptop I'd get this for myself. It's easily faster than 90% of the workstations/desktops on the market today and if you're behind it for 12 hours... you could either get a lot more done, or spend more time at the Pub! (well, you know what I mean!)
http://boxxtech.com/products/cf_step2.asp?ModelInstanceID=640&cmdBaseSelected.x=58&cmdBaseSelected.y=9&cmdBaseSelected=Continue
probably over your budget but if any laptop is worth it ~ this is ... if you're interested let me know and I'll get you in touch with the chap that I bought through... extremely helpful and gave me a discount!
I bought few days ago an IBM T43p-2687, or Lenovo T43p-2687 if you want.
The reason, simple: 128MB ATI Mobility FireGL V3200 one of the best graphic cards you can get to produce 3D graphics (Maya, 3dstudio etc.) but not to reproduce 3D graphics (gaming cards)
In addition: very light, one of the few laptops with a 15" screen and resolution higher than 1280x1024 (this one has a 1600x1200), and as mentioned before good service.
My previous laptop was a Fujitsu with a superb 'crystal view' screen but now they sell them with a to low resolution (1200x900 I think) for 3D modeling and other arch. related stuff.
As I final reason to buy the IBM was ...I read somewhere that a soldier in Iraq got shot and the metal cover of the IBM saved him! and the laptop still worked afterwards as well!!!
stropoulos - all graphic cards only 'reproduce' graphics, including the FireGLs and Quadros - none of them 'make' graphics. Too many people think an expensive graphic card will make them render faster and it doesn't, not at all (helps you move large polygon scenes around better, but that's it).
It's nice having a good graphic card, but make sure you put the money into a fast processor #1 and lotsa RAM #2. A great graphic card will not help you render any faster.
And, uh, I hope that story isn't the real reason you bought that machine! It's a nice machine, but bullet proof.
its true that it doesn't render faster...
but it renders on the graphic card's processor, so it doesn't eat all the CPU power and you can continue working in the mean time
(hardware render vs. software render/ accelerator vs gamer -graphic card)
Sorry to hijack the thread, but it seems there is a common misconception of the vid card - rendering relationsip amung architects/students . . .
Trace has it right ~
There are two types of rendering... REALTIME on screen - when modeling/drawing/typing... etc - which is what the video card does
the other type is OUTPUT RENDERING - which is not done in the video card at all... it's all system memory and CPU... if you render an image or animation, your video card sits there and idles... doing nothing.
There is however, as stropoulus stated, a dedicated Hardware rendering devices such as ( http://artvps.com/page/15/pure.htm ) which plugs into an empty PCI slot and is basically a mini motherboard and multiple single funtion processors which handles only OUTPUT rendering chores... freeing up your systems video card and cpu for seamless workflow. I do not have any first hand experience with these devices so I don't know if there would still be enough of your systems resources left to continue working. I'll email ART-VPS again to find out... oh yeah, those little PCI-X cards cost $5600 each but equal over 10 - p4 3.0ghz machines in terms of raw power - delicious : )
stropoulus ...When you are rending, your systems' default setting is to dedicate 100% of its resources to that rendering task. However, if you have a multi core system (either dual core CPU's on a single socket or multiple CPU's on multiple sockets or multiple dual core CPU's on multiple sockets), you can set an "affinity" via task manager for whatever program you are rendering with and dedicate 50% of the CPU to that specific task, freeing up the other core/processor to continue working... it's nearly impossible to continue working when rendering at 100% CPU usage (keep and eye on task mgr) no matter what video card, processor, and ram you have. You can also do this, albeit is not as efficient, with a single core processor such as a P4, P4M, Celeron, etc, but the 50% that's not being used for rendering is sharing its FSB (Front Side Bus) with the rendering, which in turn slows the rendering and anything else you are trying to do... Multi core or mulitple cpu systems are "Ideal" for working in this way
So in all there are only 2 types of graphics cards:
"workstation" - quadrofx, firegl, 3dlabs, etc
"gaming" - geforce, radeon,... and all the variants in between
the only real difference between the two is the drivers... which is what you pay for when buying a workstation class video card. Physically, the cards can be identical, but the workstation cards run better in 3d because thier drivers are optimized for specific programs (i.e...MAXtreme drivers for 3d Studio and ____ drivers for Maya... i forget the name). You can actually have a gaming card with more raw power but have it perform slower in realtime 3d work due to the fact that the drivers are not made specifically for 3d work. Likewise, a workstation card will not perform as well in games as a gaming card... You can, however, do a "softmod" to a gaming card (the card has to be of a specific genetic line... Geforce6800gt AGP...and others) in which, through windows, you re-write the drivers for the gaming card and turn it into near workstation card (performance of a softmodded gaming card never matches true workstation cards). I have read about 6800's being turned into QuadroFX's 3400's and radeon 9600 Pro's being turned into FireGL's with great success. This seemingly quick and easy "fix" is however, not without drawbacks... there is an inherent risk when tinkering with drivers such as instability, and other assorted wierd viewport phenomena that occurs only with softmodded cards.
when in doubt about hardware things... poke around this forum:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=23
stropoulos - I think, perhaps, someone mislead you. Cowgill has covered about everything.
Bottom line, though, is that graphics cards WILL NOT help you output faster. Meaning, if you have a rendering that will take 6 hours to render with a Geforce II, it'll render in 6 hours with a Quadro 4500 as well (let's not nit pick about the screen - assume it's 'off').
FYI - there are, as cowgill notes, 'real' rendering cards, like the ARTVPS, or whatever they are calling it. Those cards cost more than most workstations, though, and only support raytracing (no GI for now).
However, nvidia and others are working towards 'real' rendering on the gpu. Gelato is the first step (someone correct me if I am mistaken or names have changed) in that direction, but again, it ain't here yet (for the most part) and costs a ton. Sometime we'll have it, though, but don't hold your breath.
When someone asks for computer advice, i always advise against paying for high end graphic cards. it's a great help for Hollywoood that deal with large textures and need real time updates, but for architecture it barely makes a noticable difference (I've used many cards, from old Geforces to new Quadros and FireGLs) and the money is MUCH better spent on a faster cpu, more ram, or faster hard drives.
Hope that clarifies everything.
trace -- does the screen have anything to do with output rendering anyway - ?
Yeah, dedicated harware raytracers are prohibitively expensive, but if someone was to invest in a renderfarm it could easily be a viable option... and makes much more logistical sense (less space, heat, electricity bill...)! Art-VPS is collaborating with Mental Images (i.e. mental ray) ... which is exiting news if you can get a dedicated renderer to run Mental Ray... one of the best, albeit finicky rendering engines available. Also, you could get away without a built-in GI, via hdri and some clever bounce lights.
Gaming cards to privide more "bang for your buck" over thier workstation kin . . . just depends on who's paying for it - you or your boss! A faster CPU can easily prove itself a wise investment when it cuts your rendering times from allnight to a few hours!
as trace mentioned, there are some laptops on the market that can be configured to come in RAID 0 arrangements which would make bootup and program opening and file - open/save/autosave functions quite snappy! I'd recommend 2 - 7200rpm 100gb hd's in RAID 0.
_____________________________
danielmunteanu,
In my Opinion, and depending on what your budget is, you may be better off to get a laptop that has just enough mustard do to presentations/meetings/ etc... and invest the rest of your budget into a really fast desktop workstation, from which you'd do most of your work. The amount of cost spent to get even a decent laptop for 3D work would fetch a poly/pixel crunching desktop workstation... that could easily outpreform the "decent" laptop by 25-50%. Think P4m vs Athlon FX60!
trace you may be interested in this thread: perhaps where things 3D are headed ~
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=327860
RAID 0 as a bootdisk is a terrible idea, and usually performs worse than separate disks.
hmm, never heard that problem about 0 as bootdisk setup.
not to be pretentious, HOW does 0 perform worse than a single disk. Of course a single Fujitsu turning @ 15k will be faster than 2 - 5400 rpm drives in RAID 0... it's relative to a point.
I would just be scared to have RAID 0 in a laptop. I was too scared to have it in my main workstation, which was RAID 1, but then config'd it to RAID 5, which seems like a great balance.
Thankfully, there are higher capacity/faster drives for laptops. Just spec'd one for a friend today and they finally have 100gig 7200rpm drives (I think 60 was the most a few months back).
I hear Toshiba will have HUGE capacity drives for laptops very soon. That woudl be very nice.
cowgill - well, I've heard people say that if you have a large screen and it's rendering, that it is using the graphic card, so, theoretically, it could slow things down with a lesser card. Seems silly to me, but I tend to talk more than a I know ;-)
Thanks for the link, over my head stuff I am afraid. I wait for easy to understand news and then finally, mainstream production (I am not a tweaker or self builder - give it to me with a power button and a warranty!)
I think that Art card and MR are getting desparate. MR is certainly powerful for Hwood, but not for the rest. Adesk has lost tons of people because of the integration and, imho, will drop MR from the Max package (or offer a cheaper version of Max).
VRay, Final Render, Brazil are just better products and are sooo much cheaper (although I have not kept on track with MR's licensing changes).
see here
specifically the second to last paragraph about using identical drives independently - for design-related type tasks, having the pagefile and apps on a separate drive will be more noticable than High STR, unless all you do is boot windows.
add in the increased risk of data loss and the general shoddy quality of most motherboard built in RAID controllers, and it's just a plain bad idea.
I don't think the video card has anything to do when output rendering... only if the rendering was completed in an absurd (like nanoseconds) amount of time would the video card become a factor when displaying the already calculated rendering... like gaming in real-time. However, when running extra large displays (like an Apple 30") there is a min. required amount of video card muscle to drive such a huge display... which, still only relates to real-time or viewport performance.
A cheaper version of Max is much welcome here. I graduate soon and actually thought about picking up a copy of XSI @ $500 for freelance 3D work... but IF Max, without MR, would drop to around 1k I'd love not having to learn another program and just keep FR or pick try V-Ray.
alright - I'm suspicious of my own thought on RAID 0 now! Thanks for the links...
this is where I was misinformed:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles1297/index03.asp
. . . in the last 20 mins. to sum up the dozen articles I've found - stating that, despite my best wishes, RAID 0 is virtually useless unless in a server environment...
"RAID-0 arrays will win you just about any benchmark, but they'll deliver virtually nothing more than that for real world desktop performance. That's just the cold hard truth."
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