What do you use?
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To answer your first question, my current machine is a core 2 duo E6750, 4GB of Ram and a 7800GT graphics card. Oh its runnign vista btw.
As for what you should get it really depends on what you want to use it for. If you want a dedicated modelling/rendering machine your probably better of going for a pimped out desktop PC as you'll get much better hardware for your money than you will with either a laptop or a mac.
If you want it for more general stuff like browsing the web with the occasional bit of SUing on the side a macbook pro would do you well.
More generally, if you want to run SU make sure your computer (whatever it is) has a graphics card, without this SU is pretty much crippled. As for a CPU, go for a dual core, no point getting anything less these days. If your feeling quite tech savy you could only get the minimum of RAM with your macbook pro and then add some more in yourself (apple harware is generally very overpriced
)Finally, hard drives. Just get as much as you can afford really. But be on the look out for large cheap drives (if you get a desktop) as they're a good way to improve your PC cheaply. Never hurts to have a few spare HDDs lying around, anyway.
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Thanks Remus for your reply.
I was thinking od using the computer as a study/gaming computer.
And as it looks now, I'm very into a quite powerful laptop to be able to take it with me to school and such.
Hopefully I will be attending a architectural course somewhere in the UK next year and therefore want to be able to run SU and CAD programs. -
If you're looking at it for school purposes, contact the architecture dept you're considering as they may have requirements for student computers. I've toyed off and on with going back to school to become a "real" architect, and University of Virginia is VERY specific with what they want your laptop to have. Configured per their wants, Dell came in around $4400, hP around $3000. Just something to think about, since I doubt you'll want to buy a second machine.
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Thanks Dave, I will look in to it.
I have a few universities I'm e-mailing with. -
i use the biggest crap-box dell has to offer. <sarcasm> with -1 cores, 0.005 gb of RAM and no grafix card, it was just made for gamming, rendering, and making high poly models. </sarcasm>
it also has only 15% of its hard drive space left, so it crawls when trying to open anyting, especialy Photoshop and ilustrator ect.
i want alienware. -
Hehe, yeah, Alienware doesn't seem to bad, just that I want some mobility and their laptops aren't that mobile
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Right now I'm using a Macbook 2GHz with Mac OSX 10.5.2, and I have a G4 tower back at my parents house. I've used macs since 1999 starting off with a revision D iMac. There was a brief time I switched to windows with an IBM T40 thinkpad but it died on me about three months later (I only really needed it for Microstation), so I went back to Apple - now I just use bootcamp to use Microstation.
If you are doing architecture, there seems to be a healthy mix of PC's and Macs floating around in the diploma studios where I am at; I'm of the opinion it comes down to personal preference. I just find Macs easier to use.
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I use an octo core Mac Pro with 16 gb of RAM and a Dell XPS 710 dual core with 4 gb of RAM. While the latter's great for modelling, the first's the obvious choice for rendering.
I run Vista on the Mac, as I don't like the Mac version of SU. Also, as it stands now, there's just more software available for Windows.
I agree with Remus on the price of Apple hardware. If money's an issue for you (wasn't for me as my employer paid for the Mac
), I'd go with Windows. Just to shed some light on the price differences: I recently bought 16 gb of Kingston RAM for my Mac. Cost me about € 700. If I had bought Apple RAM, I would've spent + € 2000.€ 1300 is a lot of cash in my book.
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I'm using a Dell PRECISION M6300, 2,4 GHz Core2duo T7700, 3GB Ram, Nvidia Quadro FX 1600 M. I've never had a matter, It works fine and it is super fast using sketchup. The price?
1700 €. Purchased in Feb. 2008. Then it was the cheapest notebook with that specs.
Now you can configure your Precision even with X7900 Extreme cpu and the newest FX 3600 M Nvidia OpenGl graphic card.
So I suggest you to consider a laptop like this. -
Thanks guys for all the replies.. now I will toss this back and fourth over the summer and see if I will chose XP or Mac. I will also try to get in contact with some universities to see if they have some kind of guidelines that the computer should follow.
Thanks yet again!
Love this forum
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It seems that a laptop is what you are needing for school, the only advice I have for you is make sure you get one with a dedicated video card and NOT an integrated one.
There are many options available but your price bracket is from about $1200 to $$$$I am not a Dell fan but must say the XPS range is proving to be a great product for 3D work, they have a few configurations available that are dual core / core Duo with speeds from 1.83 ghz to 2.6 ghz, with up to 4 Gb ram and Nvidia 8000 series dedicated cards, generally a good combination for the uses you require.
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