[greengreen]

I'm looking for some recommendations for a new computer. I purchased a Dell Precision M4500 "mobile workstation" in 2010, and it's starting to have a hard time rendering. Specs on my current laptop are 8.00 GB ram, Windows 7 64-bit, Intel Core i7 CPU Q820 @ 1.73GHz

I use Rhino (sometimes Sketchup) with Maxwell, mostly for really heavy architectural models.

I'm not sure I'll go with Dell again, but maybe a "gaming" laptop.

I started looking at Boxx (http://www.boxxtech.com/products/mobile-workstations) ibuypower (http://www.ibuypower.com/) and Maingear (https://www.maingear.com/custom/compute ... aptops.php)

If you have any good recommendations I would really appreciate it or what to look for when comparing. I use a maingear desktop at work and it seems really good. I also hear making sure it uses a solid state drive might be a good idea.

[jojojoj]

Look for a vendor who does custom builds and get an i7 4770k or i7 4930k based system. You could even ask for a good cooler and slight overclock, or even do this later, when you feel it's becoming slower.... I have a 3930k running at 4 GHz and it works like a charm. You might also want to have a look at the hardware section on cgtalk.com. they have multiple threads on the right build.

[Lynchon]

So you are saying XEON chips wont make a big difference over the i7's??? Does ecc memory affect on maxwells performance??

cheers!

[numerobis]

ECC RAM should theoretically be a bit slower than non ECC, but not really noticable i think.
And i don't think it is neccessary for rendering and at RAM sizes of 32GB or 64GB today.

Xeon does make a difference, but only if you buy two of them for dual CPU systems...
They are basically the same silicon like the i7 with additional features like ECC or the second QPI link for 2 CPU usage - and maybe selected chips for low voltage. Xeons are available with more cores and they are not overclockable.

And yes, SSD makes a big difference - especially in laptops compared to 2,5" HDDs. Get a good one, like a Samsung 840 PRO or EVO. 512GB or even 1TB is quite affordable today.

[dmeyer]

Unless you must have the portability, get a desktop. More cores, more memory, probably cheaper.