Saved 2,700 for a new laptop. Need suggestions!


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Hello Neowinians! So my laptops pretty old and the screens held together with duct tape :) I have focused on a select few contest on 99designs.com and saved up enough money to replace my laptop before this one goes poof (Yay for me) lol

Anyways I will be doing graphic design, animation, video editing/rendering and playing a few games now and again. I really don't know alot about the hardware side of computers. I just want it to run like melted butter with everything I do. I tend to run multiple programs at once. I want to stay away from windows 8 but i like windows 7. I want an excessive amount of memory and atleast a T hard drive. 17" screen or bigger

Any suggestions in the $2,700 range?

Help and links much appreciated!




(My next goal is to save for a cintiq design tablet) xD

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I bought two 15" Retina MacBook Pro's earlier this year and I've never been so happy with a computer as now. Granted, I play games on my PC or consoles, but I work with design and development and for that they're perfect. It's well within your budget too.

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hmmm, I'm not really a mac person. We dont get along. Also looking for 17.3 inch or bigger. Just an all around machine for me and everything i use a computer for xD

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Want. Nao. The zenbooks have, in my opinion, the best balance between price, performance, build quality, and beauty, compared to anything else out there. I have always wanted one, but my older ASUS laptop still refuses to die and I couldn't justify getting one "just because" :p

Unfortunately for the OP, they're more about portability and don't come in 17"

 

Looks like a tank. And if my experience with ASUS says anything, it's probably built like one too. My laptop has survived (ab)use for much longer than I had hoped it would when I bought it. The wife also still has an ASUS netbook (from, you know, when netbooks were popular) that just won't die.

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I disagree. Portability to me just means easily moving it from one desk to another... Not going to be walking around all day with it on my back. 

 

Yeah i think im going with the 32gb ram Asus xD Sucks you can only buy it with 24 gb ram already in it though :(

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I disagree. Portability to me just means easily moving it from one desk to another... Not going to be walking around all day with it on my back. 

 

Yeah i think im going with the 32gb ram Asus xD Sucks you can only buy it with 24 gb ram already in it though :(

 

Believe me 24GB of RAM is more than enough, I use Resource hungry applications on my PC with only 16GB of RAM and it fly's without any problem, with a SSD you'll have no issues at all with 24GB, you'll find it nearly impossible to use that much RAM unless there's something wrong with the PC/Laptop.

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Believe me 24GB of RAM is more than enough, I use Resource hungry applications on my PC with only 16GB of RAM and it fly's without any problem, with a SSD you'll have no issues at all with 24GB, you'll find it nearly impossible to use that much RAM unless there's something wrong with the PC/Laptop.

it depends on what you are doing, ever move a detailed 3d model around in solid works or try to stress test designs? You want a ton of ram and a really good gpu.
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Sager NP9570 $2,214.00

 

9570_170x170.jpg

Display 17.3" 120Hz Full HD Display (1920 x 1080)

Video & Graphics Card Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M

CPU Processor 2nd Generation Intel? Core? i7-3820 Processor

Operating System Genuine MS Windows? 8 64-Bit Edition

Memory 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 8GB

Hard Disk Drive 1 1TB 7200rpm SATA2 Hard Drive

6X Blu-ray Reader/8X DVD?R/2.4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software

Wireless Network Card Internal 802.11 B+G+N Wireless LAN + Bluetooth Combo Module

Integrated Security Device Fingerprint Reader

Warranty Sager 1 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty

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Hmmmm - to be honest I would prob go with 2 systems. Do you really need to do your video editing and such on a portable system? You could have a beast of a desktop to actually perform the work. While having a lighter laptop with less horse power to be your mobile device.

Its much easier and cheaper to get more horsepower into a desktop platform than mobile. You could have say a 23 or even larger monitor, or even multiple monitors at your desktop for less than $2700 I would think. And then get a cheaper lighter easier to move around mobile device to handle your mobile requirements.

That's just my take on it, without knowing the details of why you need to move from desk to desk to perform horsepower intense work.

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dell m6800 :-)

 

i have a m6700,

17.3 "

24 gb ram

i7 quad 

win 8

dual nvidia  and intel graphics 

dual 256 GB ssd's

and spare battery slice.

 

gets me 11 hours with both batterys 

 

only cost ?1469

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Hello,

If you are looking to purchase right now, I think the ThinkPad W530 that Emon suggested would be a good choice, since it is certified for many different graphics and modeling packages. On the other hand, if you can wait until next month, you'll have a wider variety of options from Lenovo, such as the T440p, T540p and the W540.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

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Wow there are some really amazing options.. I think im going to save a couple hundred more dollars and get a custom PC through Puget Systems *In my area* I would be happy with the Asus but kinda just wana go all out at this point. xD And iv never had anything customized for my individual use in my life xD

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I also think the Lenovo Thinkpad is a good choice. After years of working on Dell and HP laptops for people I've decided most of them are garbage and only built to last a few years before they stop working.

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Why not build a custom mini-itx desktop?

 

These bad boys are 14.7 x 9.8 x 8.3", which makes them a very small/portable desktop (good for going back and forth between college, without having to make the sacrifices you would for a laptop). You can fit just about any hardware you want in them, including brand new Haswell 'top of the line' CPUs, even GTX Titans. With room for 4 HDDs (6 if not using a 6"+ dedicated graphics card), the only thing you really sacrifice from a typical mid tower ATX case is an optical drive (you can use an external, but how often do you really use optical discs anymore?), and a little expandability due to lack of extra PCI slots; again, not much sacrifice as most people don't use more than one PCIE 16x slot for graphics!

 

I haven't even mentioned the money you'd save. You can build a very substantial rig in one of these for $1000-1500 ($340 for an i7-4770K cpu, $150 for mobo, $150 for 16GB of ram, $100 for PSU, $250-400 for GPU (which will be a lot better than anything you can get in a laptop), ~$80 case, and an SSD + HDD ($200-250 at the most).

 

My configuration comes to a total of around ~1300 or so, which means you have $1400 left to buy a nice monitor (or two), keyboard+mouse.. and even a laptop for mobility ($1k can generally buy a laptop capable of your needs).

 

My question is, do you really need portability? $2500+ is a pretty big risk/investment to just carry around with you daily. 

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Dell Precisions. And because they're part of Dell's professional / premium line of products you get the vastly superior US based support (Dell's regular consumer support is terrible).

To compare the two I had a Dell XPS laptop (standard XPS support, no extras) that I dropped down the stairs by mistake (tons of things broken after that) and I gave them a call, they overnighted all the parts, I had them the next day and replaced them all by myself (you can use a tech if you want to, but Dell doesn't mind you doing it yourself). Regular support on the other hand is usually you mail it to Dell, they mail it back a week later.

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