Laptop for Graphic/3D design student

LastBlues

Honorable
Oct 28, 2013
3
0
10,510
Hello!

Recently my HP Pavilion D3 with it's fantastic intel family chipset 4 died and I was on the fence to buy a new laptop. I know these types of questions are common, but I would really appreciate the help because I can't make up my mind.

Here's a breakdown:

features I would like to have::
Discrete graphics if possible
good screen (1920 x 1080 preferable.)
Hashwell cpu or equivalent (unless ivy bridge still stands head to head with hashwell).
more than 8GB of RAM.

Laptop use:
Adobe Creative suites (photoshop, illustrator, after effects, etc),
NewTek Lightwave 3D, Autodesk Maya/3dsMax, and Unity3D.
Pro tools or Reaper.

so basically graphic and 3D design work.

Budget: hopefully around $1500 ~2000

Do you need to run demanding games: No, I already have a desktop tower at home that's capable of running high end games. It would be nice to run league of legends on a decent setting!

Are you going to carry it around a lot?: Yes, this laptop is strictly for working at school on group design projects. I am in my 3rd year right now so I expect plenty of group projects in the future.

Some laptops I was looking at:

MSI GS70
http://ncix.ca/products/?sku=87206&vpn=GS70%202OD-001US&manufacture=MSI

Macbook Pro (October 2013)
http://store.apple.com/ca/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=ME293LL/A&step=config

ASUS G46VW-DS51-CA
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=80958&vpn=G46VW-DS51-CA&manufacture=ASUS&promoid=1145

Lenovo y510p
http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y510p/#techspecs

Razer Blade
http://www.razerzone.com/ca-en/store/razer-blade

I am also open to other suggestions! Thank you for your time!





 
Heya, check out some of the clevos like the ones we sell. Haha, not to plug the company or anything but you could get a nice computer for around the same price with a lot of configuration options (I noticed a pretty big swing in price between a couple of the ones you were looking at: one is like $900 and one about $1699). Maybe look at something simple like the Prostar/Clevo W650SH or ASUS N550JV-DB71 or something a little more advanced (which really it doesn't sound like you need) like the P151SM. www.pro-star.com under "Prostar/Clevo Laptops." If you're really into the MSI idea, there are some less expensive ones that might fit your bill too like GP60-2OD-052US. Depends on how much firepower you want in your mobile unit.
 

lightsong

Honorable
Jan 27, 2013
49
0
10,610
I was looking at about the same situation... I ended up buying the new Dell XPS 15. Its pretty spendy ... was $2067 for the best model with student discounts, but the specs are beast.

lightweight (4.4 lbs), high resolution (1920x1080 OR 3200x1800), SSD, lots of ram
 

LastBlues

Honorable
Oct 28, 2013
3
0
10,510


Yeah, I was looking at the new xps 15 too, but I have this old stereotype of Dell having terrible CS and what not keeps nagging at me. Have they improved at all over the years?