3 years ago i had a fire pro card or whatever the ati pro series was called at the time --- it was nails with everything except sketchup, which crashed all the time
switched to a quadro fx by pny and it was a fine card, but i did not find its performance on par with the fire pro, but that may be b/c for almost the same money as the quadro fx, the fire pro had had twice the RAM, still, the quadro fx was stable with sketchup, which i was using a lot at the time, and that is all that mattered
upgraded to rhino in early 08 and it became my workhorse instead of sketchup --- it worked fine with the quadro fx
started learning modo in late 2009 as a compliment to rhino --- modo rocks but it crushed the quadro fx card i had --- modo can fly and it has an excellent real-time render preview and the quadro fx could not keep up -- blue screens all the time
so last september, i upgraded my GPU --- i searched forums and also called mcneel ---- on the modo forums, you learn that nvidia cards are more problem-free --- on the rhino forums, it seems a toss up but more people choosing nvidia --- i called mcneel about rhino and the person i spoke with would not say which was better, but did say that the developers (at the time) used nvidia cards --- i took that as a sign that nvidia was the way to go
but i was underwhelmed with the performance of my quadro fx card, so i tried an upper tier gamer card with a lot of RAM -- the 275 GTX --- it works great with everything and it was a huge performance booster and is very stable --- unless i were using 3dmax, or some software for which there is a specifically written driver, i don't know that i would ever again purchase a mid to upper end quadro fx or fire pro card --- it is very difficult for me to justify --- i'd rather put the money in RAM or CPU or GPU RAM in a high end gamer card
would you consider the cinebench benchmark the best indicator of a good GPU for design work?
Also, the ATI 5850 is a relatively new card and uses a high power consumption which causes overheating and the Envy has problems with heat dissipation because it only has 1 fan.
Can the heating issue affect the performance of the card?
it can slow performance of the processor b/c the processors are designed to scale back voltages and percent of cores used when the chip approaches its thermal envelope
heating issues also shorten the life of the laptop because over time, you literally temper all of the components increasing the likelihood of a break
with respect to benchmarks, unless someone is testing your software in particular, they are only useful in getting a general sense of likely performance, there are no guaranties
miamiDC, I don't know how flexible your funds are, but I failed to tell you about a 35% off coupon on lenovo.com on all laptops above 1500 bucks. i configured a W510 with an i7 720QM, 8GB of RAM, FX880M 1GB graphics card and all other fancy features which came out to just 1300 bucks after tax
miamiDC, I don't know how flexible your funds are, but I failed to tell you about a 35% off coupon on lenovo.com on all laptops above 1500 bucks. i configured a W510 with an i7 720QM, 8GB of RAM, FX880M 1GB graphics card and all other fancy features which came out to just 1300 bucks after tax
Voltaire, thanks for the heads up, Ive actually been looking closely at the W510 as well now that i have seen all these issues with the Envy and Sony Vaio F series.
if temperature continues to be a concern, you can also look at notebooks by clevo and toshiba
at least with toshiba's beast gaming system, there are multiple fans
and clevo makes laptops for many companies and they also have versions with multiple fans
the lenovo looks very good as well and may be a very smart purchase --- they do make very good systems
and $1300 to $1500 may be smart
one way to look at it is that rather than spending $2500 on a big rig of a laptop with high-end hardware, for $1300, if you can get you something that delivers 75-90% of the performance for 50-60% of the price, then perhaps rather than this unit having to last you 4-5 years b/c of the investment you made, figure $1300 every 2-3 years is a better investment than $2600 every 4-5 years --- something like that
you're not saving money per se, but you are not losing it either and you may be spending it in the most shrewd way possible and ensuring that you will continue to have good performance over the next several years
i guess I figured I would try to get performance for the programs i need in a sleek design(not a fan of the Thinkpad design). One downside to the W510 which I really would want is a back-lit keyboard, but that's the trade off you make for other features like a nicer graphics card.
I probably should just go ahead and buy a laptop and deal with it and stop over-thinking and researching so much into their problems.
that's it, it is all trade-offs, there is not an ideal to be had, so as long as you know what you're getting, why and what it will do and won't do, that is as good as its gonna get
Voltaire, when/how did you get the 35% discount on the W510. I want to buy that machine, but with the specs its like 1800+. not to sound really dumb, but i cant seem to figure out how to apply those deals on their website.
Do you like it? my only concern is that it may be heavy and a pain to carry, but hoping the performance outweighs that.
That certainly looks awesome on paper. What do you know about this display, is it 1900x1080?
I bought the sony f12 last weekend and am slightly underwhelmed with the display and massive feel to it. I might be exercising the generous return policy.
I was looking at the F12 for a while and when I went to look at it at Best Buy I wasnt impressed with the screen either.
The FHD is 1920x1080 with a matte finish, but dont quote me on the matte finish. Here's a thread about the comparison of screens available with the W510:
Worth noting that the W510 has 4 dimm slots, so you can get the bare minimum 2GB and then drop in 2x4GB + another 2GB for a total of 12 pretty cheaply. Just have to make sure you get them in the right slots so you don't lose dual channel throughput.
Nice laptop, but I really wish they were thinner/lighter. 6+ lbs is silly for a laptop.
for serial! LENOVO LENOVO LENOVO. Get the employee discount code off the internet and save tons. I am using a W700...get one with the built WACOM digital pad and pen. Builld one with a Qaud Core and save tons. Best resolution screen on the market. Plus its dorky matte black and not flashy. Spill your coffee on the keypad and have no need to replace it because it is resilient. Seriously, its a great buy for the price. Just need to wait 3-5 weeks for it to come to you from Asia.
i picked up that model sony laptop but with the smaller 310m video card and 4gigs of ram. I needed it mostly for Revit, so i spent the past weekend seeing how it worked some of my existing job files, no larger than 40mb in size.
I can't believe how well this i7 processor runs. For renderings it stomps the hell out of my 2 yr old desktop with a q6600 quadcore processor overclocked to 3.0ghz.
I didn't notice any limitations with the video card, however I don't use it for gaming and am not sure how else to really stress test just a video card in Revit beyond rotating shadow visualizations - which it handled decently.
This is the post I've been looking for in the past few days. I'm also wanting to purchase a good computer that can take anything. I was also thinking to get the HP Envy 14, but I saw here that it gets pretty hot. The other laptop you guys talk about here is a SONY VAIO...and I hate to say that I don't ever want to buy a SONY computer again. I currently have a SONY VAIO that I got in June 2007..so it's 3 years old. After that many years I guess SONY computers don't really match the expectations of the current technologies...the programs we use...like ADOBE, (like for ex. it doesn't take Photoshop CS4 and CS5) can't work on my computer and the RAM can't be upgraded. At the beginning, my SONY was a bad a$$ computer..it was awesome! but not anymore. I have VISTA on it which SUCKS..but when I tried upgrading it to WINDOWS 7, SONY doesn't happen to have all the drivers updated for the new stuff. WHICH DRIVES ME CRAZY.
so..i want to buy the LENOVO you got because it seems like a lot of pple here recommended it.
I want to know how is it working for you? Please!! revlis also wants to know if there are any problems with it. any comments?
Sorry I've been busy I am currently studying abroad in Genoa, Italy and have been pretty busy with classes starting and all.
The Lenovo is everything I could ask for and more. The screen is amazing, does not get hot at all, lightweight for what it has inside and so on.
The only downside to the Thinkpad are the speakers. Search on Notebookreview Forums and other forums about the speaker issue(when it gets loud it makes a vibrating noise on the left speaker). But speakers arent that imprtant to me because you can hook up headphones or external speakers and works great. If speakers are important i would go another route, but everything else works flawlessly.
I highly recommend it.
PS I also found a 4GB RAM stick for $100 on newegg.com and it works perfect. Now I'm running 8 GB (2 DIMM) and can get up to 16 GB RAM for just $200 more (the upgrade on Lenovo is 300 for each 4 GB stick).
I am currently trying to pick a laptop for grad school and I am wavering between a PC and a Mac. I understand that PCs generally offer more bang for your buck and that in the past almost all architecture software has been geared towards PCs. Running bootcamp seems a bit counterintuitive. But now Autocad and Rhino are both coming out with Mac versions.
Is the need to run bootcamp going to be eliminated? Is there going to be a mass shift towards Macs? I am interested to know people's thoughts. The safe choice seems to be a PC, but these new releases have me intrigued.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again; getting a laptop for school is in all essence a waste of money.
You can get a PC that is three times as powerful for half the price of a good laptop and then tag a 300-400 netbook on top of that for the times you actually have to do some computing on the move.
Put the big computer in the studio, lock it down, and move about with your little netbook for when you want to take notes in class, or check your email while professors blabber about their 250 trips to china for the 251th time.
You're gonna be in the studio most of the time, and upgradeability and actual computing power matter a lot throughout 2-3 years, especially if you actually get into digital design.
Also, on the specs on that Asus G73 laptop... I got that for 750 dollars 2 and a half years ago on a desktop (actually I had a TB of HD space, on top of a much better card (Nvidia 9800GTX)). Oh and my quad core wasn't a gutted "mobile" type.
I agree with using a desktop if you can. I built my own when I was in school ;)
FireGL/FirePro/Quadro graphics are nice, but you will be paying a premium for them. Not really necessary with the crappy displays most laptops have nowadays. The 1600x1200 LCD on my old (bought during my 1st year of college...retired by 2nd year) IBM T42p (~2002) still can't be beat by many of the laptops students are buying these days. Higher res = better. 1366x768 ain't gonna cut it unless you have an external monitor.
Desktops will last you much longer and actually stand up to the demands and strains (heat) of rendering for hours on end.
remember upgradeability too.
if we hit another point where nvidia starts cranking out cheap cards like they did two years back, and forcing prices to go down to the point i could get a 9800gtx for 70 bucks, you're gonna want to take advantage of that. you won't be able to with a laptop.
M. Arch laptop
3 years ago i had a fire pro card or whatever the ati pro series was called at the time --- it was nails with everything except sketchup, which crashed all the time
switched to a quadro fx by pny and it was a fine card, but i did not find its performance on par with the fire pro, but that may be b/c for almost the same money as the quadro fx, the fire pro had had twice the RAM, still, the quadro fx was stable with sketchup, which i was using a lot at the time, and that is all that mattered
upgraded to rhino in early 08 and it became my workhorse instead of sketchup --- it worked fine with the quadro fx
started learning modo in late 2009 as a compliment to rhino --- modo rocks but it crushed the quadro fx card i had --- modo can fly and it has an excellent real-time render preview and the quadro fx could not keep up -- blue screens all the time
so last september, i upgraded my GPU --- i searched forums and also called mcneel ---- on the modo forums, you learn that nvidia cards are more problem-free --- on the rhino forums, it seems a toss up but more people choosing nvidia --- i called mcneel about rhino and the person i spoke with would not say which was better, but did say that the developers (at the time) used nvidia cards --- i took that as a sign that nvidia was the way to go
but i was underwhelmed with the performance of my quadro fx card, so i tried an upper tier gamer card with a lot of RAM -- the 275 GTX --- it works great with everything and it was a huge performance booster and is very stable --- unless i were using 3dmax, or some software for which there is a specifically written driver, i don't know that i would ever again purchase a mid to upper end quadro fx or fire pro card --- it is very difficult for me to justify --- i'd rather put the money in RAM or CPU or GPU RAM in a high end gamer card
would you consider the cinebench benchmark the best indicator of a good GPU for design work?
Also, the ATI 5850 is a relatively new card and uses a high power consumption which causes overheating and the Envy has problems with heat dissipation because it only has 1 fan.
Can the heating issue affect the performance of the card?
heating issues can do two things
it can slow performance of the processor b/c the processors are designed to scale back voltages and percent of cores used when the chip approaches its thermal envelope
heating issues also shorten the life of the laptop because over time, you literally temper all of the components increasing the likelihood of a break
with respect to benchmarks, unless someone is testing your software in particular, they are only useful in getting a general sense of likely performance, there are no guaranties
miamiDC, I don't know how flexible your funds are, but I failed to tell you about a 35% off coupon on lenovo.com on all laptops above 1500 bucks. i configured a W510 with an i7 720QM, 8GB of RAM, FX880M 1GB graphics card and all other fancy features which came out to just 1300 bucks after tax
miamiDC, I don't know how flexible your funds are, but I failed to tell you about a 35% off coupon on lenovo.com on all laptops above 1500 bucks. i configured a W510 with an i7 720QM, 8GB of RAM, FX880M 1GB graphics card and all other fancy features which came out to just 1300 bucks after tax
very interesting, look at what i found. check the second page when they get into the 5850 card in the Envy 17:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/what-notebook-should-i-buy/503818-hp-envy-17-versus-sony-vaio-f-series-vpcf127-2.html
Voltaire, thanks for the heads up, Ive actually been looking closely at the W510 as well now that i have seen all these issues with the Envy and Sony Vaio F series.
if temperature continues to be a concern, you can also look at notebooks by clevo and toshiba
at least with toshiba's beast gaming system, there are multiple fans
and clevo makes laptops for many companies and they also have versions with multiple fans
the lenovo looks very good as well and may be a very smart purchase --- they do make very good systems
and $1300 to $1500 may be smart
one way to look at it is that rather than spending $2500 on a big rig of a laptop with high-end hardware, for $1300, if you can get you something that delivers 75-90% of the performance for 50-60% of the price, then perhaps rather than this unit having to last you 4-5 years b/c of the investment you made, figure $1300 every 2-3 years is a better investment than $2600 every 4-5 years --- something like that
you're not saving money per se, but you are not losing it either and you may be spending it in the most shrewd way possible and ensuring that you will continue to have good performance over the next several years
i guess I figured I would try to get performance for the programs i need in a sleek design(not a fan of the Thinkpad design). One downside to the W510 which I really would want is a back-lit keyboard, but that's the trade off you make for other features like a nicer graphics card.
I probably should just go ahead and buy a laptop and deal with it and stop over-thinking and researching so much into their problems.
that's it, it is all trade-offs, there is not an ideal to be had, so as long as you know what you're getting, why and what it will do and won't do, that is as good as its gonna get
Voltaire, when/how did you get the 35% discount on the W510. I want to buy that machine, but with the specs its like 1800+. not to sound really dumb, but i cant seem to figure out how to apply those deals on their website.
Do you like it? my only concern is that it may be heavy and a pain to carry, but hoping the performance outweighs that.
@ pigeon
There is a discount already applied, and I also found this 15% coupon:
USPTHINKBTS
And the winner is.....
Lenovo Thinkpad W510!
congrats. specs?
Congratulations, good choice ;)! Realistically, Thinkpads are no-nonsense machines made for work.
congratulations!
Thanks! Yeah I got 835 dollars off their original price with their discount and then using the 15% discount i posted earlier.
Specs:
Intel Core i7-820QM Processor (8M Cache, 1.73 GHz) Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64
15.6" FHD Display (95% Gamut, 270nit) with LED Backlight NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M Graphics with 1GB DDR3 memory 4 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM) 500 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
I got 4 gigs ram 1 DIMM so I only need to buy one 4 gig strip and it will be much cheaper than Lenovo's upgrade.
The graphics card has CUDA and will work well with CAD programs.
That certainly looks awesome on paper. What do you know about this display, is it 1900x1080?
I bought the sony f12 last weekend and am slightly underwhelmed with the display and massive feel to it. I might be exercising the generous return policy.
I was looking at the F12 for a while and when I went to look at it at Best Buy I wasnt impressed with the screen either.
The FHD is 1920x1080 with a matte finish, but dont quote me on the matte finish. Here's a thread about the comparison of screens available with the W510:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/493447-display-comparison-hd-vs-fhd.html
Anyone know the best(cheapest) place to get 4 GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz SODIMM Memory?
newegg or tigerdirect, depending on your state for sales tax.
Worth noting that the W510 has 4 dimm slots, so you can get the bare minimum 2GB and then drop in 2x4GB + another 2GB for a total of 12 pretty cheaply. Just have to make sure you get them in the right slots so you don't lose dual channel throughput.
Nice laptop, but I really wish they were thinner/lighter. 6+ lbs is silly for a laptop.
for serial! LENOVO LENOVO LENOVO. Get the employee discount code off the internet and save tons. I am using a W700...get one with the built WACOM digital pad and pen. Builld one with a Qaud Core and save tons. Best resolution screen on the market. Plus its dorky matte black and not flashy. Spill your coffee on the keypad and have no need to replace it because it is resilient. Seriously, its a great buy for the price. Just need to wait 3-5 weeks for it to come to you from Asia.
another place to find memory,usually cheap, is www.forallmemory.com
Hot or not? rhino, 3ds, adobe, and a little bit of maya.
Sony VAIO F series
Intel® Core™ i7-740QM processor (1.73GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 2.93GHz
Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit
320GB Hard Disk Drive (5400rpm)
6GB (4GBx1 + 2GBx1) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
CD/DVD player/burner
16.4" VAIO Display (1600x900)
NVIDIA® GeForce® 330M GPU (1GB VRAM)
i know the graphics card is kind of a bummer, but im wondering if the processor and ram can make up for that.
is an HP with an i5 processor and an ATI Radeon HD 5650 better than the sonY?
fade,
i picked up that model sony laptop but with the smaller 310m video card and 4gigs of ram. I needed it mostly for Revit, so i spent the past weekend seeing how it worked some of my existing job files, no larger than 40mb in size.
I can't believe how well this i7 processor runs. For renderings it stomps the hell out of my 2 yr old desktop with a q6600 quadcore processor overclocked to 3.0ghz.
I didn't notice any limitations with the video card, however I don't use it for gaming and am not sure how else to really stress test just a video card in Revit beyond rotating shadow visualizations - which it handled decently.
That said, I recommend sticking with the i7.
thanks Thom, ive only had hp's, aoI might go for an hp with the i7 processor, they seem to be all the rave.
Miami DC- im looking at that same lenovo myself. how is it working out so far?
living up to expectations? problems, complaints?
@ MiamiDC,
This is the post I've been looking for in the past few days. I'm also wanting to purchase a good computer that can take anything. I was also thinking to get the HP Envy 14, but I saw here that it gets pretty hot. The other laptop you guys talk about here is a SONY VAIO...and I hate to say that I don't ever want to buy a SONY computer again. I currently have a SONY VAIO that I got in June 2007..so it's 3 years old. After that many years I guess SONY computers don't really match the expectations of the current technologies...the programs we use...like ADOBE, (like for ex. it doesn't take Photoshop CS4 and CS5) can't work on my computer and the RAM can't be upgraded. At the beginning, my SONY was a bad a$$ computer..it was awesome! but not anymore. I have VISTA on it which SUCKS..but when I tried upgrading it to WINDOWS 7, SONY doesn't happen to have all the drivers updated for the new stuff. WHICH DRIVES ME CRAZY.
so..i want to buy the LENOVO you got because it seems like a lot of pple here recommended it.
I want to know how is it working for you? Please!! revlis also wants to know if there are any problems with it. any comments?
Thanks!
Sorry I've been busy I am currently studying abroad in Genoa, Italy and have been pretty busy with classes starting and all.
The Lenovo is everything I could ask for and more. The screen is amazing, does not get hot at all, lightweight for what it has inside and so on.
The only downside to the Thinkpad are the speakers. Search on Notebookreview Forums and other forums about the speaker issue(when it gets loud it makes a vibrating noise on the left speaker). But speakers arent that imprtant to me because you can hook up headphones or external speakers and works great. If speakers are important i would go another route, but everything else works flawlessly.
I highly recommend it.
PS I also found a 4GB RAM stick for $100 on newegg.com and it works perfect. Now I'm running 8 GB (2 DIMM) and can get up to 16 GB RAM for just $200 more (the upgrade on Lenovo is 300 for each 4 GB stick).
If you have any other questions just let me know!
thanks MIAMIDC.. i bought this computer yesterday except I got the i7-740QM instead. I hope there is not much of a difference.
I'll get it next month for sure..hehe...but hopefully it gets here before i start school on Sep 23rd.
Thanks to everyone's suggestions on this post...
I'll let you know my take on the LENOVO Thinkpad w510... :)
ASUS G73. check it out on youtube and www.xoticpc.com .
I7, 4x2GB ram, HD5870 graphics, two 500GB 7200RPM drives, 17.2inch Full HD screen and only $1200-$1600 depending on some slight config differnece.
I am currently trying to pick a laptop for grad school and I am wavering between a PC and a Mac. I understand that PCs generally offer more bang for your buck and that in the past almost all architecture software has been geared towards PCs. Running bootcamp seems a bit counterintuitive. But now Autocad and Rhino are both coming out with Mac versions.
Is the need to run bootcamp going to be eliminated? Is there going to be a mass shift towards Macs? I am interested to know people's thoughts. The safe choice seems to be a PC, but these new releases have me intrigued.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again; getting a laptop for school is in all essence a waste of money.
You can get a PC that is three times as powerful for half the price of a good laptop and then tag a 300-400 netbook on top of that for the times you actually have to do some computing on the move.
Put the big computer in the studio, lock it down, and move about with your little netbook for when you want to take notes in class, or check your email while professors blabber about their 250 trips to china for the 251th time.
You're gonna be in the studio most of the time, and upgradeability and actual computing power matter a lot throughout 2-3 years, especially if you actually get into digital design.
Also, on the specs on that Asus G73 laptop... I got that for 750 dollars 2 and a half years ago on a desktop (actually I had a TB of HD space, on top of a much better card (Nvidia 9800GTX)). Oh and my quad core wasn't a gutted "mobile" type.
I agree with using a desktop if you can. I built my own when I was in school ;)
FireGL/FirePro/Quadro graphics are nice, but you will be paying a premium for them. Not really necessary with the crappy displays most laptops have nowadays. The 1600x1200 LCD on my old (bought during my 1st year of college...retired by 2nd year) IBM T42p (~2002) still can't be beat by many of the laptops students are buying these days. Higher res = better. 1366x768 ain't gonna cut it unless you have an external monitor.
Desktops will last you much longer and actually stand up to the demands and strains (heat) of rendering for hours on end.
remember upgradeability too.
if we hit another point where nvidia starts cranking out cheap cards like they did two years back, and forcing prices to go down to the point i could get a 9800gtx for 70 bucks, you're gonna want to take advantage of that. you won't be able to with a laptop.
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