I have selected a few potential laptops for graduate school and since there are too few reviews on them I would like to hear some of your expert opinions about them. I will be studying aerodynamics and propulsion in grad school so my machine will need to chew through Computational Fluid Dynamics, various other MATLAB/C++ simulations and CAD. Therefore, I will need a decent processor and plenty of RAM This laptop will be my only machine for a while so it should run occasional MS Flight Sim X, Company of Heroes and Operation Flash Point 2 games. I will probably use an external 22in LCD when I'm in my room so this laptop should not only be able to handle demanding games but it should also be able to also handle them at large resolutions. The battery endurance time is not very important since the laptop will usually be connected to a power source in my room, my office or my lab but should be reasonable. If I start running out of battery power I could purchase a secondary battery or build a home-made lipo battery pack into my book bag. I have some RC airplane experience and can build an 8000mAh battery pack for about $60. I have always been a high performance desktop user and custom built all of my computers for the past 10 years but I am still a novice in the mobile/non-customizable world your held would be greatly appriciated. Here are my candidates thus far in order from most to least liked:
1) Asus G51VX-X2A -> T9600 (2.8GHZ) with 4GB of RAM, 260M Video, 320Gb @7200RPM HDD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16834220577) -> $1500
2) Asus G51Vx-A1 -> Q9000 (2.0GHZ Quadcore), everything else same as above + free bag and mouse. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...34220578&Tpk=G51VX-A1) -> $1600
3) Asus G51VX-X2A -> P8700 (2.53GHZ) , everything else same as above (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...oks-_-ASUS-_-34220576) -> $1300
4)HP dv7-2185dx -> Q9000, 16.2in 1600x900 screen, 6GB ram, 500gb @5400 HDDm ATI 4650 Vid (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ol...duct&id=1218094582785) -> $1300
Laptop one seems to have a decently fast processor, acceptable amount of memory, good video card and an acceptable hard drive. A 17 in laptop doesn?t fit into my backpack very easily so this 15.6in screen should do fine. It is a bit on the pricy side but for its performance it provides I think it is reasonable.
Laptop 2 seems like a smart upgrade from choice one since for $100 more I would get a quad core. However, very few applications available today are quad threaded and even though I multitask a lot (I have 8 IE windows, WMP, 2 Word docs and a calculator running right now) I expect to get better performance from a faster dual core than a slower quad core. I will probably have to use my lab's CFD code or write my own and therefore probably won?t take too much advantage of additional cores. I think the Unigraphics NX6 CAD will be bottlenecked by the RAM and not the CPU anyway.
Choice 3 is identical to choice 1 but has a P8700 CPU and a lower price tag. This leads me to question how much performance I would lose if I downgrade from T9600 CPU. How much performance difference is there between 6mb and 3mb of L2 cache Core 2 Duo? There is only a300mhz frequency difference but a $200 price tag difference between the two processors so could this choice be a smarter buy?
Laptop 4 is least appealing to me because the video card it uses is supposedly half as good as the 260M but it offered a quad core for just $1300 so I kept it at the back of my mind. I have also looked at Alienware, DELL, cyberpower, xoticpc.com but equivalent systems there cost $300 - $1000 more.
Again I would appreciate any and all comments you make. Also, if you know of a better value high performance laptops then please share it here. Thank you in advance!
1) Asus G51VX-X2A -> T9600 (2.8GHZ) with 4GB of RAM, 260M Video, 320Gb @7200RPM HDD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16834220577) -> $1500
2) Asus G51Vx-A1 -> Q9000 (2.0GHZ Quadcore), everything else same as above + free bag and mouse. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...34220578&Tpk=G51VX-A1) -> $1600
3) Asus G51VX-X2A -> P8700 (2.53GHZ) , everything else same as above (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...oks-_-ASUS-_-34220576) -> $1300
4)HP dv7-2185dx -> Q9000, 16.2in 1600x900 screen, 6GB ram, 500gb @5400 HDDm ATI 4650 Vid (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ol...duct&id=1218094582785) -> $1300
Laptop one seems to have a decently fast processor, acceptable amount of memory, good video card and an acceptable hard drive. A 17 in laptop doesn?t fit into my backpack very easily so this 15.6in screen should do fine. It is a bit on the pricy side but for its performance it provides I think it is reasonable.
Laptop 2 seems like a smart upgrade from choice one since for $100 more I would get a quad core. However, very few applications available today are quad threaded and even though I multitask a lot (I have 8 IE windows, WMP, 2 Word docs and a calculator running right now) I expect to get better performance from a faster dual core than a slower quad core. I will probably have to use my lab's CFD code or write my own and therefore probably won?t take too much advantage of additional cores. I think the Unigraphics NX6 CAD will be bottlenecked by the RAM and not the CPU anyway.
Choice 3 is identical to choice 1 but has a P8700 CPU and a lower price tag. This leads me to question how much performance I would lose if I downgrade from T9600 CPU. How much performance difference is there between 6mb and 3mb of L2 cache Core 2 Duo? There is only a300mhz frequency difference but a $200 price tag difference between the two processors so could this choice be a smarter buy?
Laptop 4 is least appealing to me because the video card it uses is supposedly half as good as the 260M but it offered a quad core for just $1300 so I kept it at the back of my mind. I have also looked at Alienware, DELL, cyberpower, xoticpc.com but equivalent systems there cost $300 - $1000 more.
Again I would appreciate any and all comments you make. Also, if you know of a better value high performance laptops then please share it here. Thank you in advance!