probly been asked but... - Page 2

He could spec out a CL56 really well and stay in his budget.

Although the Ferrari provides the advantage of 64-bit architecture, but at his budget the hit on the RAM and HDD speed won't be worth it. (If he had 2000+++ he could upgrade these).

For under 2k he can get a CL56 w/ 1.8 Dothan (probably NEEDS dothan over Banias), 1gig RAM, and a 7200 RPM 60giger. And of course the indispensable 128mb 9700.

If you do use maya, memory will be the biggest thing to cash in on. Try to get 1GB. This will allow for a much speedier machine. A 1.8 Dothan sounds like it can handle what you're doing. Make sure to get a 128vram card (m10 or m11)
Pentium M: CL56, Aopen 1557G (available at ibuypower as battalion e turbo) mitac 8050, acer 2025, dell I8600.

Athlon64: ferrari 3200 is best bet.

The Ferrari isn't actually all that fast.

The Emachines is about the same performance, if not better, & MUCH cheaper. And with what you've saved you can swap in a 7k60, 1Gb, & eventually faster CPU too & still be under the price of the Ferrari.

We might not be here tomaro

I say you look again next yr.

You could probably get away with a 1.7.

It's not like the Dothan won't render your stuff ... it'll render it just fine. It'll just take longer than a P4 or Athlon 64. Keep in mind that the difference would be a few minutes typically, if that.

If you can live with it taking a little longer, the CL56 may be a better option. If you want the brute force at the expense of batterly life, the ferrari may be a better choice. Downside is you can't customize a ferrari (to my knowledge) like you can the Compal.

Tough call.

Super

PMs are SSE2 capable and should perform just as well as P4s in rendering.

A 1.7 is more than enough for basic models. You might want to go 1.5 or 1.6 if you want to save $$$. Those will be the best value if you don't usually do your project 2 days before they're due

SXGA+ is a must, as well as 1GB of ram. Everything else is not so important, although the 7200 hdd would be nice to have.

Where? i need one...soon. O, and w/ a nice warentee

I would have recommended HP nw8000, but then I looked at Canadian HP site, and it seems that you don't have any good nw8000 models. The one you've got is crazy expensive too.

Hey Tweak, I'm an ID student as well. I found that for me, these were priorities:
1) portability
as an ID student you're probably used to no sleep and working overnights at school, going home for showers. I find that it's great to get away from school from time to time and take my work with me to cafe's / friends houses. Plus at my school security is on people's minds and it's great to have a light laptop to throw in your bag and take with you easily and hassle free and not have to leave it behind when you go to another class or something.

2) cpu vs. memory
since I do most sketching by hand anyways, photoshop/illustrator/rhino or alias come later on in the process for me, and the ability to run multiple programs at once outweighs the ability to run them all as fast as possible. It'll be well worth your money to spend it on memory (at least a gig) more than processor speed.

3) graphics
My laptop has 64MB of video ram, I'd say that's the bare minimum, I'd wish I'd gotten a laptop with more. I don't know what kind of modelling you're doing in Rhino, but I've done some fairly complex ones and I've found Rhino chunk around sometimes. Not that it's unusable (far from it), but it's just not as nice as some friends of mine who have 128MB. Make sure you get at least a 9600 ATI as it supports the lastest graphics stuff from microsoft and is still part of the "newer" generation of cards. Spring for more if you got the cash as you can't necessarily upgrade the graphics processor like you can the CPU.

4) Screen resolution
I got a 1400x1050 (sxga+) screen. I wouldn't get anything less and with my eyesight, I wouldn't get anything more either. If you're used to squinting at screens, get the UXGA screens (1600x1200), but really, go to the store and see for yourself the resolution of screens. Also, running a high resolution screen at resolutions less than the "optimal" native resolution looks pretty crappy, and I've found is unacceptable for doing precise graphics work.
For programs like photoshop/illustrator/rhino or alias or UG, the more resolution the better off you are, but working on a laptop for hours on end, sometimes days on end, can get tiresome if the resolution is just too damn high.

5) Hard Drive
I got a fast one so programs load faster and everything from windows swapping to web browsers reading from cache is faster. I hear that 5400rpm is just fine though so if you're strapped for cash, the 7200rpm one maybe out of reach.

6) Make sure you get a burner of some kind, dvd or cd.

7) battery life
I've found that having great battery life is really convienent, but not necessarily the killer of a laptop. Most of the time at school I'm near an outlet because other people with laptops need power too, so outlets are not far and few between. However, it is nice to be able to do other things outside of school work with a laptop, like sit outside in the shade or something (don't know if you do that). Or, if you're in a lecture hall and you're sitting in the middle with no outlets and the lecture is 2 or 3 hours long, it's nice to have a quiet laptop that'll run the whole time on battery. My last Bio class I'll ever have to take was like that.

Anyway, hope this helps. Here's what I ended up getting in February of this year:
ASUS M6800N
1.7Ghz Banias Pentium-M (dothan was not out yet)
15.1" SXGA+ 1400x1050
64MB ATI 9600
60GB 7200rpm Hitachi 8MB cache HD
1 GB DDR333 ram (2 512 DIMMS)
DVD/CDRW cdrom burner
WindowsXP Professional (do not get home edition)

My setup for me works great for ID.

-Orb

on a side note, another reason I went with the ASUS M6N was the design of it:

it's very clean, it won an award in taiwan (Silver TaiwanInnovalue 2004 Notebook category). The design is good in that the right hand side has nothing but the DVD drive (no cables to get in the way when you eject a cd). The form of it is (in my opinion) much more elegant than the CL56. It also has a rubbery polymer of some kind surrounding the keyboard (which is nice to the touch, and when you spend quite a lot of time typing it's nicer to bump into that material than some other hard plastic all the time). The ports are nicely placed as well.
If you get a chance, go check out the laptops you are looking at in person. It really makes a difference. This laptop is sexy, and takes a different approach than just boxy.
I know it sounds lame sometimes to pick products based on what they look like, but I think it equally lame to spend money on items that you don't appreciate the design of. These of course are just my opinions as an ID student so take it with a grain of salt, and probably some pepper.
Glad I could be of some kind of help! I've found the people on these forums very helpful when I was making my own decision about a laptop. (it took me close to 4 months to find a laptop I liked).
-Orb

I'm sure it does.