A guy i know is wanting to get a stupidly fast laptop. He has been looking at a $4000 machine in the U.S and then shipping it over. The spec on that is: Core i7 - 975 Quad core @3.33Ghz 12Gb DDR3 RAM @ 1333Mhz 3x 320Gb HDD's @ 7200rpm nVidia GeForce GTX 280M 1Gb 17''. He does alot of 3d Modelling, assuming he can't be pursuaded to go Desktop, do you think the 12GB is necessary, or would 6GB be sufficient? If 6GB is the consensus then i've seen a UK based place where i'd say him money.
For a start he doesn't need the i7 975, and I doubt he needs all three hard drives (especially at that speed) He'd be better suited with a 120Gb Vertex for his programs, and 2x500Gb drives, then get an i7 720QM (or an 820QM if hes being fussy), he'll still save a small fortune I'm not sure if 12Gb would be needed, in that case have a look at Kobalt's G870: GTX280M i7 820 (which is a little slower, but the battery life is a LOT better) 8Gb DDR3 1333MHz 250Gb Vertex 500Gb files drive Windows 7 pro 3 year collect and return warranty (If nothing else, this is worth it, returns to the US will be a nightmare) £2,906 swap the Vertex out for a 120Gb and the processor for an i7 720QM and it comes down to (a much nicer) £2,505 ($4,200), which is about the same price if you take shipping into it, and he will get a much better performance out of the SSD than the 7.2k rpm drives (Then there's returns shipping to add to it)... Lose 2Gb of the RAM and you save another £193 (making it £2,278) If you can get an i7 975 laptop for cheaper I'd love to know where
This is a desktop replacement, not a real laptop. I'd stick with the 975 over the 820 for the 3D modelling, and get the 12Gb of RAM. It's not like he's going to be able to use either without it being plugged in; the battery life will be like 20 minutes. Try Alienware, BTW. Their laptops are pretty monstrous.
And pretty overpriced as well. Well that's just my opinion. But a Laptop for 3d modeling seems pretty odd to me, because of the screen size... And if he's going to use a external monitor, where's the point in having a laptop? Still, go for the 720QM and the 8Gig, and if rendering some minutes faster is worth like 1500 to you, go for the 975 and the 12gig. But the difference won't be big, because the screen will not have a higher resolution than 1920x1200 to start with. Also, +1 for the SSD, in any case.
This. A hundred times this. 3k will easily get you a dual-CPU, RAID0 SSD's for scratch, at least 12GB of RAM and still save you some change for a 30" monitor and some nice peripherals.
Idd - if he _really_ wanted to check out his renders on the move you'd probs be able to squeeze a netbook into the budget for some Remote working while away from his monster....
Nevermind a netbook, you'd easily get a normal 15" laptop in there too. £3k is a lot of money to spend on any computer, even a monster render machine.
