Hardware

Hi, could not find a hardware section on the fourm so stuck this here.

I am going to be getting a new laptop but my knowlage of hardware is not as good as it could be so I have a few specs below tell me what you think of them.
(I am looking for a laptop all round good in blender nothing too overpowered but good enough)

I have not found a laptop yet but this is what im thinking:

Intel Core i7
2GB Nvidia Graphics Card
8 GB Ram
Hard Drive (Size wont matter I have an unused external)
Windows 7

Im possibly missing a few things im not a hardware person. :confused:
Looking for a laptop somewhere around the £500’s give or take a few 100.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: also please direct me to any old posts for hardware that are still up to date. ty

Would an i5 do for a laptop or is that being a little too skimpish?

Moved from “General Forums > Blender and CG Discussions” to “Support > Technical Support”

I would go with an internal hard drive quite a bit better transfer rates but that’s just me.

That would make quite a nice machine. Not sure if you could get it for that price range maybe close to it though. An i5 wouldn’t be bad at all, that can handle most anything but an i7 would simply be faster.

All in all that would definitely work and if you can find it that price range go for it, but you could do with less. I would recommend building your own desktop though you get a hell of a lot more power for a hell of a lot less cash.

Hi Trasher

what would you render with Blender Internal or Cycles?

If you want to use Cycles you should use a Laptop with an NVIDIA card.

Most laptops in that price range would use the NVIDIA GTX 660M version.
It is a gaming card not great for CUDA but ok with it.

Heat production would something you might consider as well. But fortunately
online render farm rendering with GPU is possible now as well.

£500 and an i7 + NVIDIA GPU I think will be hard to find.

an i5 is fine as well compared to the i7 it does not to hyper threading.

Here are some ideas:

I got an HP Envy DV7 with i7, 8GB RAM, and NVidia GT630M a couple of months ago for around US $900. It seems that most of the other i7 laptops in that price range or lower just have Intel integrated HD4000 graphics. Of course, I imagine that prices and availability may differ significantly on the other side of the pond. While it is nice to be able to use CUDA, I’ve found that the GT630M is more or less the speed of my 2.4 GHz i7. If you go for an i5, you should try to find a true quad core version. Hyperthreading on the i7 does give it a speed boost, though. Just look around the net for info on the differences between i5 and i7. I’m quite satisfied with my purchase.

I have a laptop here let me know what you lot think.
Acer Aspire V3 Laptop

    • Intel Core i7-3632QM 2.2GHz
    • 8GB RAM + 1TB HDD
    • 15.6" HD + NVIDIA 710M
    • Webcam + Bluetooth
    • Windows 8 64bit

For £665.50