budget 3D rendering/light gaming laptop

[BradHP]

It's been a while since I needed a laptop (2009) so I have no idea what's out there anymore. I tried searching but most of the results I got were outdated and not available. I have no idea if what I want even exists, but I'll give it a try.

1. What is your budget? $500-600

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? anything 13" and bigger

3. What screen resolution do you want? highest possible

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? portable

5. How much battery life do you need? any. Needs to last a few hours of travel time, then will be plugged in.

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)? Yes, but I won't be trying to run Crysis 3 at max or anything like that. Mostly some MMO's and MOBA's like SW: The Old Republic, The Secret World, Smite, League of Legends, and maybe Diablo 3

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) This is the hard part--I want to run Cinema 4D and After Effects. I don't plan on using it to animate a full length feature, but I do have a few projects I want to be able to work on while I'm away.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? no less than 500GB

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. Amazon would be preferred, also like Newegg

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? until it dies

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? basic DVD just to install software

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. no preference

13. What country do you live in? US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

 

[whyso]

Get an i7 quad on sale. Will chew through rendering like butter. GPU performance will be okay. AMD will have better GPU performance (approximately 20-30%) but only 1/3 the rendering power. 8GB ram is good.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314205

Something like this would be okay. Probably be good to upgrade the RAM.

Your budget is limiting. A good laptop for your purposes will be a couple hundred dollars more.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312833

Part decent.

 

[BradHP]

How about this? http/www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V5-552G-X414-15-6-inch-Laptop/dp/B00DKFFLMY/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1QS9U7KHNWE1G&coliid=IEYRG4279HGDK#productDetails
Better graphics and more memory, but how does the A10 compare to the i7? I'm sure the i7 is better, but is it a huge difference? Is it enough where I would really notice?

 

[whyso]

How about this? http/www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V5-552G-X414-15-6-inch-Laptop/dp/B00DKFFLMY/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=1QS9U7KHNWE1G&coliid=IEYRG4279HGDK#productDetails
Better graphics and more memory, but how does the A10 compare to the i7? I'm sure the i7 is better, but is it a huge difference? Is it enough where I would really notice?

graphics will be significantly better than any igp but you are looking at around 1/3 the rendering performance of an i7 quad (approximately 2-2.2 points vs 6-6.4 points in cinebench r11.5) or about 2/3 that of an i5 dual. If you are going to be doing serious work the i7 will be a lot better. If you want to play games on the side the notebook you have listed will be good.

 

[BradHP]

Thanks for the answers, whyso.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that I can wait until Black Friday/Cyber Monday to buy and find good deals. I'm just trying to get ahead on my research so I know what to look for when the time comes.

 

[BradHP]

I gave up looking a while ago, and now I'm back with a bigger budget. Here are the 3 options I have it narrowed down to and I'd love some opinions to help me make a final decision.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834313741
Good GPU and 16GB memory, but I'm worried that the 5400rpm HD is going to hold the rest back.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231495

and

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152405

The Asus and MSI are nearly identical. Both have less memory than the Lenovo, lower end GPU's and smaller but faster hard drive's (7200rpm). The MSI has blu-ray, Asus just a standard DVD. The Asus has and i7 4700HQ and the MSI has an i7 4700MQ. Am I going to see a real difference between those?

So this is where I'm stuck. I'm worried about the hard drive speed on the Lenovo, but it takes the top spot on everything else. But then I don't really need the dual gpu's either.

I like getting more screen space on the Asus and MSI, but is there anything that should really influence me to pick one of those over the other? Blu-ray would be nice, but I can already play them on my PS3. I've seen good and bad reviews for both. What's the general opinion on quality?

All 3 are the same price on newegg right now. Any opinions to help me figure this out would be greatly appreciated.