Best computer spec?

[grum64]

Evenin' All

I'm looking to buy a new laptop mainly for using LDD and would also like to have a go with LDD2POV and SR 3D. I also do a bit of video editing/converting.

As a lot of the time I'll be using it on my lap tray, size & weight is important so I've been looking at laptops with a 13 to 15 inch screen. I use an iPad a lot and get on fine with that for browsing etc., but can't help wondering if a 13 inch screen be too small?

The spec I've been looking at is:

Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4700MQ @ 2.40GHz

16GB Corsair® Vengeance™ DDR3 1600MHz (2x8GB)

NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 765M - 2GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX 11

256GB Samsung 840 Pro SATA 3 6Gb/s Solid-State Drive

What do think? I think it's OK but would welcome other opinions. Have any of you bought a laptop you'd be happy to recommend?

I'd be grateful if any of you good folk could help suggest a laptop with a spec that'll run everything above & more with no trouble and be relatively future proof. Budget around £1200.

Thank you in advance.

[Palathadric]

All I can say is that I don't think I'd be able to get a computer half as good as that for the equivalent of 1200 Pounds. To me, that looks really good.

You may find the 256 GB SSD a bit small if you're going to be doing video editing.

A 13-inch screen also does sound very small.

[grum64]

Good Evening Palathadric

Thank you for your very quick reply.

I've been looking at gaming laptops built by a UK company called Utopia. They build a couple, a 13" and a 15" that both fall into my price range and have the spec I'm looking at.

You can find them here:

http://www.utopiacomputers.co.uk/?module&id=custom-laptops

I've also been looking at this one from Dell, it's £794.99 after an offered discount. The only difference I can see is the graphics card, it's is a GT750M and it has a 1TB SATA hybrid drive (what ever a hydrid drive is?!).

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15-7537/pd?oc=cn75316&model_id=inspiron-15-7537

They're both very tempting indeed, each for different reasons, but I don't want to buy one that's too big, heavy or too small.

Oh I'm in a quandary.

Edited March 27, 2014 by grum64

[legolijntje]

Are you sure the cpu is only 2.4 ghz? It is pretty low for today's standards...

Other specs are great though (especially for a laptop, are you sure it's a laptop? ). These are quite high specs (except for the cpu) and this is by far enough for ldd and SR3D, you can easily play aaa+ games on that thing in HD at high settings with about 60fps...

You might want to take a external hdd for video editing. The ssd isn't large and it is recommended to do video editing on a hdd, since a ssd has a limited amoun of write cycles per cell (although you can video-edit on the sdd without worrying too). Don't worry about it though, because endurance tests show the drive will keep going until you buy a new one But keep the sdd in any case. I have an ssd myself, and it's one of the best upgrades you can do to your pc these days. The start-up speeds of Windows and software is just magnificent. It really shows that all our technogloy is fast enough, but the old hdd is the bottleneck.

[grum64]

Great advice. Thank you.

Upgrading to the (Haswell) Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4810MQ @ 2.80GHz takes the cost of the Upopia Haze 15 with the other spec unchanged to £1242.

Do you think the upgraded CPU will be sufficient and will it give a noticeable jump in performance? Going any higher adds considerably to the cost.

[Calabar]

I think that the i7-4700MQ is probably more powerful than needed. You don't need to spend more money for an upgrade.

@legolijntje: it is a quad core (4c/8t) on a mobile device, and there is the "turbo" (maximum frequency is 3,4 ghz).

If you don't need "portability" from you laptop (i.e. light, slim, long lasting battery, low heat, etc...) probably the 15" is the best choice: you can have a numpad and the space for some extra expansion slots, for example an m-sata slot (check if the laptop have it) that allow you to install both the standard hard drive and an m-sata SSD without removing the DVD drive.

PS: an hybrid disk or SSHD is a standard hard drive with an SSD cache. This combination usually grant good performances and a good storage space.

I hope the screen resolution is higher than 1366x768. A good thing would be a display with a better technology than the usual TN (an IPS for example).

Anyway the laptop is a bit "oversized" for the use you described above.

Besides you can obtain similar results with 7-800 £ (but obviously not the same quality).

Maybe you could start to use the power of such a machine if you decide to render images of creations made with LDD/LDRAW&CO, but usually laptops are not adequate for this kind of tasks (because of heat dissipation issues).

Edited March 27, 2014 by Calabar

[Palathadric]

The Inspiron's 5400rpm drive sounds a bit weak compared to the other specs, but I don't really know what a "Hybrid" drive is. The 8GB cache sounds good.

Since the computers support USB 3.0, then it should be quite decent to get one with just the SSD, although I did notice that the Haze-15 accepts Dual HDD/SSD which is

I guess the question you need to ask yourself is if you really need such a high-performance laptop though? Will you be using it for heavy gaming as well? If not, you can probably quite easily make do with something far less powerful.

For such high-performance computers I would always recommend getting a desktop over a laptop, but that's just me, I suppose.

EDIT: Whoa, apparently I had this page open far longer than I realized. I did not even see Calabar's reply.

Maybe you could start to use the power of such a machine if you decide to render images of creations made with LDD/LDRAW&CO, but usually laptops are not adequate for this kind of tasks (because of heat dissipation issues).

This. Very much this. Rendering can really burn up a laptop so to speak. I should know.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Palathadric

[grum64]

Thank you for your very quick & most informative answers.

Thinking about what you've said, I think I might be bogging myself down by trying to get the absolute most 'bang for my bucks'. In doing so I seem to be losing sight of my own original requirements. Something with a 14" full HD screen & is powerful enough to run LDD etc., easily & edit the odd video. The nearest I can get is the Utopia Sabre 13, it has the power & the HD screen but at 13" is the screen too small?

I'm giving myself a real headache over this. I think I'd best sleep on it.

Thanks again.

[DuckBricks]

Good evening,

I do a lot of LDD and video editing (green screen with Premiere Pro, After Effects etc) and am a very serious film-maker. Unfortunately, I use a Macbook Pro Retina Display, and I will have to say overall Macs are the best computer for your criteria...

Thanks,

legozebra

[Brickdoctor]

Good evening,

I do a lot of LDD and video editing (green screen with Premiere Pro, After Effects etc) and am a very serious film-maker. Unfortunately, I use a Macbook Pro Retina Display, and I will have to say overall Macs are the best computer for your criteria...

Thanks,

legozebra

Not necessarily when it comes to virtual LEGO. LDD2PovRay is Windows-only, and so is SR-3D. Last time I tried it on a virtual machine (which admittedly was a while ago), SR-3D wouldn't run, and of course rendering takes a while and forces you to set aside more resources to the virtual machine.

[weavil]

http://www.xidax.com/laptops/xm-9

This is a sugestion. (my 2 cents)

[lego2lego]

Not necessarily when it comes to virtual LEGO. LDD2PovRay is Windows-only, and so is SR-3D. Last time I tried it on a virtual machine (which admittedly was a while ago), SR-3D wouldn't run, and of course rendering takes a while and forces you to set aside more resources to the virtual machine.

SR-3D does run in combination with Bootcamp/Win 7, and we (MAC users) have Bricksmith, although not as advanced as SR3D it works quite well. Rendering can be done on the "MAC side" so to speak with Pov-Ray 3.7, even if you build the model in a Windows application.

[Brickdoctor]

SR-3D does run in combination with Bootcamp/Win 7,

Oh, interesting; I never tried that. Makes sense, though, that just booting up in Windows would work even if running it in a virtual machine didn't.

and we (MAC users) have Bricksmith, although not as advanced as SR3D it works quite well. Rendering can be done on the "MAC side" so to speak with Pov-Ray 3.7, even if you build the model in a Windows application.

Right, but LDD2PovRay is Windows-only.

[legolijntje]

I think that the i7-4700MQ is probably more powerful than needed. You don't need to spend more money for an upgrade.

@legolijntje: it is a quad core (4c/8t) on a mobile device, and there is the "turbo" (maximum frequency is 3,4 ghz).

[...]

Yes, it is a quad core and it is a mobile device, but still...

Compared to the other specs the cpu really is behind of the rest. It's not neccesarily a bad cpu, but 2,4 ghz is a bit low. I mean, there are already smartphones with about 2,4ghz (although you can';t really compare cmartphone cpu and pc cpu). The turbo might be a 3,4ghz, but it's better to not use it too much in a laptop, as it will produce more heat.

It would be good enough of course for what grum want's to do.

[lego2lego]

Right, but LDD2PovRay is Windows-only.

True, but who'd want to build in LDD?

[legolijntje]

True, but who'd want to build in LDD?

But who wants to use a mac....

[lego2lego]

But who wants to use a mac....

This is going to escalate....... I'll be smart this time.

[Calabar]

http://www.xidax.com/laptops/xm-9

This is a sugestion. (my 2 cents)

It seems a bit overbudget, and the price is in USD: the user is British, and he should be able to get the laptop in England. Does the vendor sells in UK too?

I saw the config, and I think that a game oriented video card such as the GTX 880M is really excessive.

Besides that machine has an m-sata slot, and choose a WD Black instead than an m-sata SSD + a storage hard disk (such as a WD green or red) is a lost great opportunity.

The CPU is good for gaming, but for other purpose you can make a better choice.

It is a great gaming machine, but not much suitable for user's needs.

The turbo might be a 3,4ghz, but it's better to not use it too much in a laptop, as it will produce more heat.

The "turbo" is nothing you can decide to use or manage (you can disable it, obviously, but it is done for benchmarking purpose).

Simply the CPU increase his frequency according to the kind of task and the heat/consumption monitoring.

So for example if the task uses only two cores and it is not too intensive, frequency can easily lift up over 3GHz. The 2,4 GHz is only indicative, the real frequency is determined instant by instant according to the present situation.

Obviously, with a multi threaded and intensive task, the frequency can drop until 2,4 GHz to avoid the CPU exceed the TDP or become too hot.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Calabar

[grum64]

Now, now children, play nicely! ;-)

I'm pretty sure I'll go for the Core i7 4810 @ 2.80GHz so that just leaves the screen size and whether the 13" Utopia Sabre would be too small. 14" would be ideal but I can't have what they ain't got!

Decisions, decisions...

Thank you all for taking the time to share your thoughts on this. You've certainly given me plenty to think about.

[Calabar]

Are you sure about the CPU? The i7-4700MQ is widely oversized for your needs, you don't need to add money for the CPU (unless you need advanced virtualization instructions).

The screen size depends on how mach you have to move the laptop. If you don't move it too much 15" is good, if you move it often I think that 14" is too much, but it could be a good compromise if you need a screen that is not too small (but it is a compromise!). What's the resolution of the 13", 14" and 15"?

The SSD is good (even if in the same segment I would prefer the hight end plextor solution), but you can save some money taking something less "extreme" such as a mid-range like Crucial M500, Samsung 840 EVO or Plextor M5S. Remember you are buying a laptop, not an hight performance desktop PC.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Calabar

[legolijntje]

[...]

The SSD is good (even if in the same segment I would prefer the hight end plextor solution), but you can save some money taking something less "extreme" such as a mid-range like Crucial M500, Samsung 840 EVO or Plextor M5S. Remember you are buying a laptop, not an hight performance desktop PC.

Samsung EVO is certainly not mid-range. It's one of the top-ssd at the moment. Although it has tlc cells (=slower writing and less write cycles) it has a slc cache (so it becomes super fast at writing. And, on top of that it's also one of the cheapest per gb at the moment. It's a win-win.

Note: The magician software with the ssd (which is a must to install I would say) has a turbo option, which uses the ram as a cache, which makes it over 1gb/s, but it's cheating

[grum64]

The screen on the Utopia Sabre is a 13.3" IPS Full HD 1920 x 1080.

I think I'll be going for this one with the Core i7 2.40GHz CPU & 16GB RAM. It seems to be the best in terms of portability/power/price.

[Calabar]

FullHD for a 13,3" is very hight definition, maybe you could have some problem with windows desktop (I hope the situation will be improved with the upcoming update one for Windows 8.1). What's the technology of the display's panel?

Samsung EVO is certainly not mid-range.

The 840 EVO has not the performance, the warranty and the endurance of a high-range SSD. If an 840 EVO is high-range, what 840 Pro or Plextor M6S are? Uber hight?

In my opinion it is one of the worst mid-range SSD due to the TLC cells. But it has a good performance/price ratio.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Calabar

[legolijntje]

The 840 EVO has not the performance, the warranty and the endurance of a high-range SSD. If an 840 EVO is high-range, what 840 Pro or Plextor M6S are? Uber hight?

In my opinion it is one of the worst mid-range SSD due to the TLC cells. But it has a good performance/price ratio.

Well, there's nothing wrong with TLC cells. They are a bit slower yes, but Samsung solved this problem by adding a slc cache. The 840 pro has almost the same speeds as the 840 evo or even faster, take for example a look at these test results.

The Plextor, well, that doesn't count, that's a PCI-E ssd

But seriously, PCI-E ssd are still very new. It doesn't mean that when a faster ssd is in existence the slower ssd are not high-range anymore.

But in the end, you won't notice a 100mb/s extra on top of ~500mb/s in everyday use.

Let's close this discussion now, it's getting a bit off-topic

[grum64]

Evenin' Everyone

I have to agree that this is now heading 'off topic' so I'll say a huge thank you to all who took the time to write with views on my question and bring the topic to a close. The information you've been kind enough to provide has been of great help, if at times waaaay over my head! ;-), and has helped me make my decision.

If it's not too much of an indulgence, I'll let you know what I get & how it performs when I've had it a few weeks.

Thanks again.