Loading...
> >

Laptop Advice

Jason GalterioJason Galterio Posts: 2,562
edited December 1969 in The Commons

I am looking for a bit of hardware advice and figured this was the best place to ask.

My current laptop is slowly reaching its end of life. When I got it 5 years ago, it was pretty close to state of the art. I would say just under the curve of the unreasonably expensive but still close to the edge.

The only major problems I had / have with it is that its a little too ambitious. Works perfectly fine setting up scenes and such, but rendering can cause it to overheat.

With that in mind, I was considering investing in one of the Alienware laptops. My thought process being that a gaming rig will be tailored to the same sort of requirements I need. More expensive, yes, but the air circulation and cooling issues might already have been considered.

I know if I really want a workhorse, I should be looking at a desktop. But I have found that I have the most time to work on projects when I am mobile, i.e. down time on trips, etc.

So the basic question is... Anyone have any experience with an Alienware laptop?

Comments

  • XoechZXoechZ Posts: 1,102
    edited December 1969

    I am in the same boat - thinking about upgrading my desktop PC or buying a Laptop.

    As you said, with a Laptop you are mobile and you can work on projects anwhere. But one thing that holds me off is the price. I have looked around a bit and a Laptop that has similar power to a modern desktop PC is simply too expensive. So I will stay with the desktop solution.

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,739
    edited December 1969

    You might want to take a look at what MSI has to offer. I do most of my work on a laptop because it is so much more convenient. I have an MSI GT70 that is about a year and a half old now, and have been vary happy with it. The feature I really like is the "Cooler Boost", a one button switch that turns on a high speed fan that keeps the CPU and/or GPU cool under heavy load conditions (rendering). It makes the lapptop quite a bit louder, but you don't have to worry about overheating your hardware. I've run renders using LuxRender (CPU) for as long as 70 hours, and renders with Octane (GPU) for 18 hours, and the cpu and gpu only get about 5 degrees warmer than they get while browsing the web.

    Here is an article comparing offerings from both, like the article, my research when I bought my current laptop showed a lot more bang for the buck with MSI. Plus the Cooler Boost feature is awesome for anyone using a laptop for rendering.

    Article link: http://www.gizmag.com/alienware-17-vs-msi-gt70-2od/31147/

Sign In or Register to comment.