Engineering Student Laptop Suggestions

[zsusag]

Hello,

I am in the market for a new laptop as I am going to be going into a material engineering program next fall, but I need a new computer now.

It needs to be able to run various 2D and 3D modeling programs, gaming here and there, and also be somewhat portable. Battery life isn't a HUGE thing but obviously the longer the better.

I'm not averse at all to upgrading components myself if it would save me money. For example, if I can upgrade the ram myself instead of having it prebuild, same hard drives, GPU, CPU, etc. I'm decently in touch with computer hardware construction.

Any suggestions are very much welcome, I would like to keep the price to have an upper bound of 1.5K if possible.

Thank you!

 

[Warukyure]

What kinda games? Have any specific type of engineering programs?

 

[Killmeplsok]

With a budget of 1.5k (USD I assume?) you should be able to get a decent laptop that fulfills your requirement (if its not some heavy gaming) no matter what brand it is.

Are you concern about the weight of appearance of the laptop? And what exactly the the games you're going to play? Would you need a lot of power for your modeling programs that you might want to sacrifice some of your rig's gaming performance for it? Although getting a Quadro of FirePro card is probably still not worth it for you.

 

[zsusag]

Yeah, I wasn't thinking that a Quadro or FirePro card would be worth it. If I need to use incredibly graphic modeling programs the school will most likely have computers I can use, event though that in my price range I will probably be okay anyway.

Yes, the budget is $1500> USD

The games I would be playing would be Skyrim, Bioshock, etc. Generally first person RPGs. It doesn't have to be awesome for gaming, I would care more about its ability to use engineering programs. I don't have any specific programs in mind, no.

I've heard about Sager laptops but I have never used them. Otherwise, is there a certain brand of laptop I should be looking into, or a specific laptop itself?

 

[Warukyure]

Here's a few options at different price points. They're 15" so at least its somewhat manageable moving them from home <-> school

$1000 http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y50/
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232122

$1250 http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152554

$1500 http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834233066

Now these are just some options, but my personal opinion is the one around $1200. The MSI one. Best combination of specs and fairly decent price.

 

[zsusag]

The one I'm debating going with is the MSI GT70 Dominator-895. (http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152554)

Does anyone know if I could open it up and install another 8gb of RAM so I can get a total of 16gb? If there is even room for it? I have been looking but can't seem to find that information.

 

[Killmeplsok]

I had the exact model, yes you can, and its an amazing laptop (for as long as I got to use it, which was 3 months until my smart brother decided that using it on the edge of a balcony was a good idea and drop it from about 4 meter high) for its price upgrading the SSDs are recommended,