New Laptop specs....sorry

[Paul in Ottawa]

Hello all,

Yeah it's me, you know......non-contributing guy who never comes here unless he needs help. Honestly I never think about computers until it's time to buy and by then the computer world has completely changed again since my last purchase. All the specs kind of make my eyes glaze over with a dull background headache. My desktop is 4 yrs old and starting to show signs of it's age. While I'm not a full time designer, I'm a contractor, when I do sit down with Chief I don't want performance issues. This computer also does everything else for me that a daily work computer would but chief is by far the most system draining.

From past purchases I'm still assuming the Nvidea gaming cards are highly worshipped vs the Km2000 type stuff??
Processor specs?? I'm more of a renderer than a raytracer.
Ram amount, Type??
Wouldn't mind plugging in my existing 21" monitor and use them dually if possible.

You know the drill, what would you buy for a good mid/high end box?? Doesn't need to be the latest greatest speed demon gamer (I don't game) but I don't want to throw it at a wall when spinning cursors get the better of me.

Thanks,

Paul X5...got to change that X3 below

[Canuck]

Paul, I went to Future Shop here on V.I. and talked to the guys in the back room. They sent me up with a system, two of them actually, that work perfectly. One is a PC with two 24" monitors, and the other is a Toshiba gaming laptop with a 18" screen. Both for $1800. Both are in my office at the moment or I'd give you the specs. You should be able to take in the specs from the CA main page and have them put together whatever it is you want. Perhaps Doug the admin here could put out a new list of requirements for the X6 version and give you a jump up on the coming update.

[Paul in Ottawa]

Rich,

That seems like a smoking price. I'd be happy paying that just for a suitable laptop. Chief always seems a little vague on specs for computers and certainly its a good idea for future proof against X16. Maybe Doug will chime in. Did a lot of reading and searching today and seem to be developing a few common specs for some laptops. Hopefully others will add their thoughts. Send me you specs this week if you have a chance.

[HumbleChief]

Computers are very value sensitive items. If you're paying $1800 for two computers you are not getting much performance from either. But if you can really get 2 computers for that price and you will not RayTrace much then just make sure you get the best video card those prices will buy you. And wait - $1800 with 2 monitors too? But they work perfectly? If that's true then run, do not walk, and buy a similar system. Personally I'd be suspect at those low prices but the proof is you know where.

[Canuck]

Larry, I already had the second monitor and the video card. So the PC with one monitor and the laptop for $1800. But I would insist on dual monitors regardless. Laptop was on sale for $1100 and the PC/monitor was $600. I find the best time of year to buy laptops is after Christmas. I think Future Shop is on Bank street in Ottawa Paul. Or go online and shop there. I am a Toshiba fan. Look at the gaming line. They usually run around $1800 but go on sale for around a $1000 to $1400.

[Doug Park]

X6 requirements are pretty much the same as X5. Although you can add Mac as one of the options.

We have worked hard to keep performance in X6 on par with X5. It has improved in a few cases and in a few cases X6 is slightly slower.

Basic information:

1) Fast CPU. As many cores as you can afford. Dual Xeons is a good but expensive option. If you do a lot of ray tracing put some money in the CPU.
2) Fast Video. Most vendors are OK. NVIDIA tends to still lead the pack but it seems like every vendor has a few issues with OpenGL compatibility. ATI is a good option. Gaming cards are a better value.
3) 64 bit, of course.
4) A fair amount of memory. 8+ GB is kind of the entry point now for a decent system. I wouldn't go less than that. More is in theory better, but likely not necessary.
5) If you can do it SSD or hybrid drives are a good choice as they can speed up some operations significantly.

Generally speaking pretty most hardware you buy today will run Chief and handle small to medium sized models well. But faster hardware can really pay off, especially if you are doing a lot of ray tracing or working on big or highly detailed models.

[McQueen3D]

For a low/moderate cost machine, here are the abbreviated specs for mine. I got mine for $1500. If I were to do it again I'd pass on the solid state drive and go for a faster CPU because I do raytrace. However, this spec is quite adequate for standard rendering. I spec'd my components by looking at Digital Storm's website and ordering a similar rig from Max Force PC. Either vendor provides a high quality build.

Processor - Intel Quad Core i5 3570K 3.4GHz
Motherboard - Intel Z77 Chipset
Graphics Card - GeForce GTX 660 2GB or better
Hard Drive - 1TB HDD + 120GB SSD
Memory - 8GB

[Allen Brown]

I built my own, for under $1,500. I7 quad core, nVidea 680 GTX Video card, (1) 286 GB SSD drive, for the OS, (2) 1TB SATA drives for everything else, 16GB ram.

It's a pretty smoking fast machine. I'm not a computer guy, but I searched on the net for how to build one. Not that hard.