Engineering student, need advice on laptop

[slapshot30]

These are the minimum GPUs that my university requires just to give you an estimate of what you might need.
ATI Radeon HD 550
NVidia GeForce 8800/9600/9800
ATI Radeon HD 560
NVidia GeForce GTX 260/280/295
ATI Radeon HD 6750M
NVidia GeForce 470M/550M
ATI FireGL series
NVidia Quadro Series

[Jarhead]

These are the minimum GPUs that my university requires just to give you an estimate of what you might need.
ATI Radeon HD 550
NVidia GeForce 8800/9600/9800
ATI Radeon HD 560
NVidia GeForce GTX 260/280/295
ATI Radeon HD 6750M
NVidia GeForce 470M/550M
ATI FireGL series
NVidia Quadro Series

You really can't find any relatively new-ish laptops with anything below a GTX 260 anymore. Most laptops with an okayish GPU have at least a GeForce 540M.

[slapshot30]

You really can't find any relatively new-ish laptops with anything below a GTX 260 anymore. Most laptops with an okayish GPU have at least a GeForce 540M.

Yea I thought it seemed a little outdated. Although some of the ones I was looking at didn't even have a dGPU. I'm really eyeing the Lenovo Y580 right now. OP you might want to look into that one too. Pretty slim design, i7, 660m GPU, back-lit keyboard, 1080p screen. All at a pretty good price. Won't be out until June though.

[rupintart]

So how does that AMD 5560 compare to those? It's a 1gb dGPU, is that not sufficient?

Yeah, no gaming and only necessary for when I need to do projects, so yeah, the solidworks and cad will probably be sparingly. It's what's making this purchase so crappy is cause I don't need the power but once in a while.

I kinda figured a workstation pc would be overkill. I've decided before the end of the night I'll be pulling the trigger. It's down to the aforementioned craigslist laptop, an HP envy, the W520, or the Sony Z series. That's limited me to one of each , cheap, workstation, powerful consumer, and niche. Doesn't seem like I've narrowed down much, but it is compared to all the crap I was considering before.

[Jarhead]

VRAM on a GPU doesn't matter, you shouldn't really concern yourself with it. Anything with 1GB will be enough VRAM. Number of cores, bus width (256-bit, etc.) and core speed are what matter in GPUs. I'd consult notebookcheck.net for ranking on which GPUs are better than other GPUs.

Just note that the GPU that comes with the Sony Z is an external GPU, which may or may not be something you'd like.

[baiii]

Any mainstream will work fine for undergraduate work, unless you are really competitive in research work. Understand that you are going to learn stuff , not to work, the time you spend to get thing right probably take longer then "rendering time".
Get a huge monitor or 2 monitor setup for multitask set up will probably save you more time.

Edit: I just read one of the link, imo buying a m4600 w/o dGPU is just asking for LOL.... , and WiMAX is serious!?

[Blah.Blah.BlackSheep]

A lightweight PC with a high-end GPU doesn't really happen too often considering the power consumption. Most of the weight comes from the larger batteries which are required on laptops with good dGPU's.

I'm entering college as well for Fall of 2012 (although for comp sci and not for engineering), however I have done/currently doing CAD work in high school.
For mechanical engineering, which will probably require work in SolidWorks or other 3D-rendering software applications, a decent GPU is a must if you plan on using your laptop to run these applications. I have no idea how often you'll be doing this in reality, however, but if you want good performance all four years (or even six if grad school), a new dGPU is going to be a must-have.

I'm currently taking a class using Archi-CAD, and simply put the school's CPU graphics on their computers can't keep up. It only takes a handful of intricate objects (notably flowerboxes in 3D rendering mode) to completely crash the computer. Making anything besides cut-and-dry single houses on one project is far beyond what it can handle.

Despite MBP's being shiny and sleek, you're better off with a windows machine for compatibility's sake. I'd much rather carry a few extra pounds around than carry something light that didn't work or had reliability issues with software you planned on using which influenced your choice for a computer.

The Lenovo Y580 is a nice machine at a pretty nice cost. It's also fairly lightweight at a bit less than 6 pounds (come on, that's really light), and will probably be priced around $1200.00. With the $800+ unspent you could get yourself a nice backpack and a bicycle and even a netbook for notes if transporting anything over three pounds becomes an issue. :P

From what I've noticed, most people write notes down in spiral-bound notebooks. There are some universities/courses out there, most of which are general classes which don't pertain to your major that all students must take, that do not even allow you to bring computers into their classes. If you haven't AP'ed out of a lot of your intro courses, then expect to need some notebooks and pens anyways.

Being a bit of a PC gamer, I've devised my setup like this:

-Leaving an ASUS G75 in my room; bringing it it LAN parties (Yes, I'm that kind of nerd) or for when I will need a high clock speed computer for scripting/running large programs outside of the classroom labs (anything can just be saved to an external drive).

-Using a lightweight netbook which I purchased about a year ago for light programming/note-taking/media for mobility

The G75 is a gaming PC and I wouldn't suggest it if mobility is an issue for you. Went with it due to higher-end graphics performance and because of low noise due to ASUS's good cooling systems and reliability.

My end suggestion is still the Lenovo Y580 with a soft/cushy case in a drawstring backpack or similar backpack. Over-the-shoulder bags make laptops feel excessively heavy since the weight gets distributed so awkwardly, and are fairly clumsy while you're walking.

[rupintart]

I just pulled the trigger on this from the Lenovo outlet store for $1080:

Intel® Core™ i7-2760QM (2.40GHz, 8MB L3, 1333MHz FSB)

8GB (2 X 4GB) PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz SDRAM SODIMM Memory

500GB, 7200RPM Serial ATA 2.5" Hard Drive

15.6” FHD (1920 X 1080) LED, W/ 720p HD Camera

NVIDIA® Quadro® 1000M


I decided that if I should just save my coin and lug around the little bit of extra weight. Also, the fact that teh GPU is 2gb kinda sold me since everything else in that price range was only 1gb.

*edit* Dammit, I just noticed they charged me tax and shipping! So yeah $1189 and has an estimated ship date of 5/4. Saved about $800 of brands new from Lenovo for the same machine; not bad. Don't think I could have found a comparably spec'd machine for less nor with as good a warranty since it came direct from the manufacturer.

This will be the most powerful pc I've ever owned, so I'm pretty stoked. As you can see, I'm kind of a sucker for power, lol.

[rupintart]

I'm entering college as well for Fall of 2012 (although for comp sci and not for engineering), however I have done/currently doing CAD work in high school.
For mechanical engineering, which will probably require work in SolidWorks or other 3D-rendering software applications, a decent GPU is a must if you plan on using your laptop to run these applications. I have no idea how often you'll be doing this in reality, however, but if you want good performance all four years (or even six if grad school), a new dGPU is going to be a must-have.

I'm currently taking a class using Archi-CAD, and simply put the school's CPU graphics on their computers can't keep up. It only takes a handful of intricate objects (notably flowerboxes in 3D rendering mode) to completely crash the computer. Making anything besides cut-and-dry single houses on one project is far beyond what it can handle.

Despite MBP's being shiny and sleek, you're better off with a windows machine for compatibility's sake. I'd much rather carry a few extra pounds around than carry something light that didn't work or had reliability issues with software you planned on using which influenced your choice for a computer.

The Lenovo Y580 is a nice machine at a pretty nice cost. It's also fairly lightweight at a bit less than 6 pounds (come on, that's really light), and will probably be priced around $1200.00. With the $800+ unspent you could get yourself a nice backpack and a bicycle and even a netbook for notes if transporting anything over three pounds becomes an issue. :P

From what I've noticed, most people write notes down in spiral-bound notebooks. There are some universities/courses out there, most of which are general classes which don't pertain to your major that all students must take, that do not even allow you to bring computers into their classes. If you haven't AP'ed out of a lot of your intro courses, then expect to need some notebooks and pens anyways.
....Over-the-shoulder bags make laptops feel excessively heavy since the weight gets distributed so awkwardly, and are fairly clumsy while you're walking.

This post (not to discredit any of the others whatsoever) was the straw that broke the camels back to make me choose. Couple that with Private's comments about the W520 and I was sold. I'm just barely over 5lbs, so that's not bad. I realized I could only put up with being slow for so long before I regretted the portability aspect. Yeah, I'm an extreme minimalist, but I also hate inefficiency more than anything. So I figured even I decide to upgrade this PC later, at least it's expandable to 4 times the ram capacity and is already 1080p which would pretty much be like getting a new laptop but for a hell of alot less. I don't think I will outgrow a 2gb video card anytime soon either. While the 500gb is a bit much (again, minimalist here, I don't keep anything stored except what's required, otherwise it gets put on my back up drive at home), I can COMPLETELY install all my programs and have room to spare.

Look at me, I'm rationalizing buying this much of a PC

[rupintart]

Ok...I'm gonna stop now. I just bought this:

Amazon.com: Crucial 8GB Kit (4GBx2), 204-pin SODIMM, DDR3 PC3-10600 Memory Module (CT2CP51264BC1339): Computers & Accessories

and this:

Amazon.com: Msata, 80GB, Mlc, Oem: Computers & Accessories

Gonna replace that useless antenna with the 80gb drive and load Windows 7 Pro on it. Judging by some of the comments on here of people who have this mod, they're booting windows in under 20 seconds. This thing should have me set through my remaining 2 years of undergrad as well as through grad for quite some time. Gonna load my engineering programs on the msata and call it good. I shouldn't need to upgrade for quite some time.

Funny thing is, I can't believe I was being such an idiot and even THINKING about buying something else. A buddy on FB just told me he bought a W510 a little over a year ago and upgraded it with a 128gb ssd and 16gb ram and it can take anything he throws at it in the engineering field without it even FLINCHING. Awesome. Thanks you guys so much for steering me in the right direction!