Best computer spec?

[Palathadric]

To get the last word in edge-wise.

Win 7 > Win 8.

[grum64]

There's always one...

[Lego Otaku]

Some laptops can sport 2 hard drives. I don't know if 13' model can but I've seen some 15" that has a space for second drive. You could have the SSD for OS and apps and install a regular hard drive for video and other data storage. Also most laptops have external video hookup (HDMI and VGA these day) so you won't be limited to small screen if you have some space to work with.

My laptop is a bit older at 2 years old, an HP 6135DX with 256GB SSD (migrated Windows to it) and moved the original hard drive to second space. It does LDD pretty decently and all but battery life sucks. 17" LCD, Wifi on, no sound, I get around 3-4 hours on HP 9-cells battery and a bit over 1 hour on smaller 6-cells batter. (There's 12 cells but never needed to buy)

[weavil]

Forgot about http://www.eurocom.com/.

[grum64]

Thanks for the link Weavel, very interesting but as I'm in the UK I'd rather buy from a UK retailer.

I've now decided on a MacBook Pro, specifically the 13-inch with Retina display with the following spec:

2.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5

8GB 1600MHz memory

512GB PCIe-based SSD

Intel Iris Graphics

It has a claimed battery life of 9 hours but even at half that I'd be happy.

The only concern I have is the graphics. The Lego say in the minimum specs for LDD running on OSX it needs NVIDIA GeForce 5200/ATI Radeon 7500 or better with 1GB RAM.

Any ideas how this works out on the MacBook Pro?

Can I respectfully request that Apple vs Windows comments are kept constructive please otherwise this is going to get 'off topic' very quickly.

Thank you.

Edited April 14, 2014 by grum64

[legolijntje]

Apple

Their products are not bad in terms of hardware, but their software and the company itself are just.... Well, I don't like them...

I will never buy an Apple product.

But, if you are satisfied with it,that's nice

[Palathadric]

Just a question, where do those of you in Europe usually buy RAM? Is it through online retailers usually or what? A friend will be going to the States so I wasn't sure if should ask him to buy it off of Newegg and bring it down or if it's better for me to get it when I'm in Europe.

[legolijntje]

Well, except for food and clothes, I buy almost everything online. I'm quite lazy...

Here in the Netherlands, there are 2 great hardware related sites (tweakers.net and hardware.info) which have a database of products (and the product information) and webshops and it shows the prices of the products for a lot of webshops. Especially the Tweakers one is very good. It's worth taking a look, although it's Dutch. Go the the webpage and click on "Pricewatch" at the top, the rest isn't that difficult. There you can search (for example) your RAM, sort on price, amount of GB, filter on speed, sort on review score etc. etc. I use it a lot.

Hmm, sorry, it looks like a messy post. I always write messy posts in the morning...

[dvsntt]

The Intel Iris Graphics comes in 2 flavors; standard (5100) and pro (5200). The pro version is comparable to an Nvidia GeForce 645m or an AMD Radeon 6850m, far surpassing the minimum specs of equivalent to a Nvidia 5200 or AMD 7500. I am not entirely certain on the standard specs of the Iris Graphics, but I would suspect it is also capable of running Sr3d or LDD without issue.

Also, you have 14 days to return it to an apple store, no questions asked, if you are unsatisfied with it.

[grum64]

Thank you for the information.

I ordered the MacBook Pro earlier today & collect it tomorrow. I'm looking forward what to seeing what makes Apple devotees so passionate about their devices.

I hope I'll soon be sharing that passion.

Edited April 16, 2014 by grum64

[dvsntt]

I work with Linux, Unix, Windows and Macs. All of them have their benefits and their drawbacks. The mac does have a really nice experience to it, that is much more polished and pleasing than the others, and a great user community that comes with it. I think you will love it.

[Lyichir]

Thank you for the information.

I ordered the MacBook Pro earlier today & collect it tomorrow. I'm looking forward what to seeing what makes Apple devotees so passionate about their devices.

I hope I'll soon be sharing that passion.

I've been working with LDD on my MacBook, and have generally been satisfied. It easily runs LDD on the highest graphics settings, although I haven't made any models large enough to push the polygon limit so no idea how big I can build on it. It does sometimes run a little hot when I'm running LDD alongside another CPU heavy task like watching internet videos (such as looking at upcoming set videos from Toy Fair and trying to build on LDD), and I have had LDD crash on occasion when I try to use a complex tool like the flex tool or hinge-align tool on a larger model, or when I don't allow the brick palettes time to load before trying to move a part. The biggest drawback, as someone else stated, is the inability to extend the use of LDD with programs such as LDD2PovRAY. Very few fan-created Lego programs are developed for Mac, unfortunately.

[grum64]

Thank you Lyichir for your input which made very interesting reading.

I'm not too worried about possible problems with high part count models as I don't envisage building anything much over the 1600 or so pieces of ones I've build so far.

As for LDD2PovRAY, again, I'm not too bothered. It was just something I'd have tried if I had the 'tools' (and time!) to do so.

Anyway, thanks again.

Edited April 16, 2014 by grum64

[M2m]

29 minutes ago, Savageaus said:

 

Thanks spambot