Forums >> Workflow & Implementation >> Hardware >> Student laptop powerful enough to render

Nadieliz

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Joined: Sun, Oct 31, 2010
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Hello all! I am a 3rd year interior architecture student. I'd like to get a laptop powerful enough to model and render. I already have a pretty powerful desktop but I will be studying abroad next year and even tho the university abroad has computers, I would still prefer to work on my own computer. It doesn't necessarily need to render fast it just needs to be able to actually do it. I have been reading and asking around and the consensus on my options are Asus, Lenovo, Dell M6500 or an xps) and MacbookPRO. I am a mac person but if in this case its a better idea to go for one of the others then I will. I tried going to the ASUS site and immediately got lost and overwhelmed. There are SO many options I have no idea what would be my best bet. Also can you give me the cheapest option along with the best option?  Just in case I can't afford the best option I'd like to know how much I can take out. Help? 1. What is your budget? $1, 000-$2, 000 although the less the better of course 2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 15" and up 3. What screen resolution do you want? don't really care 4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? .........huh? sorry, again, not very great with computers other than architecture stuff. 5. How much battery life do you need? a bit more than 2 hours for sure 6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? nop. 7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.) Adobe products. Modelling on Revit, Rhino, 3dsmax and sketchup. Rendering on Revit, V-Ray and 3ds 10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? As long as possible? This is another reason why I like Macs, I've had my Macbook PRO for 5 1/2 years and have had NO problems with it and still runs perfect. So yeah, I'd like my new laptop to be around for quite awhile. 11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? Don't really have a preference. 12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. Mac Lenovo ASUS Dell (I don't LOVE dells but I have to admit it has a lot to do with how they look physically and that is not really as important as how good it works, so again, very open to options.) 13. What country do you live in? Kansas, USA (Puerto Rico is home so I live there during holidays so I might get it sent there since Summer is almost here) Thanks!

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tomdeplater

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Joined: Sun, Dec 19, 2010
19 Posts

Hi there,

I am a final year architecture student in Australia and this year I bought an ASUS G73JW [Expensive Option].  I got this laptop for $2500, and I know this is expensive for a student buget, but it will blow your mind.  Especially since the performance of Revit keeps getting better, in the last week I have actually been rendering a 6km strip of the gold coast in revit with no problems [albeit the renders did not have any materials], but the fact that I could actually rotate the model without any lag.

I might add that the model was actually a DWG made up of 9 different tiles [which is even more of a resource hog] instead of a native Revit model.

If you are serious about modelling and rendering, you need to spend a bit of cash, but Revit 2011 has really improved upon 2010 and 2010 on 2009 etc as far as performance is concerned.

On a side note, my old laptop, which was a dual core 2.0gig with 3gig of ram and a 256 video card [Cheap Option], rendered the below image without any troubles.. it did take 100 hours though. haha.. good times..

Remember also, that rendering uses your CPU [so aim for a quad core i7 or SandyBridge] and modelling/ spinning model will use your video card [mine has a 1.5gig GTX 460m at the mo]

I'm sure you could find a suitable option in between, but at the end of the day if you are pumping out hardcore renders then you want a desktop or you are going to have to spend money on a laptop that performs like a desktop.  Here are links to the two laptops i've mentioned

[Expensive]

http://rog.asus.com/Product.aspx?PId=39

[PaperWeight]

http://www.cnet.com.au/dell-inspiron-1520-339279176.htm

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_tom

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