I'm also an architecture student and the reason for me not to buy a MBP is that I got a windows PC at home and would have to get all my software twice (for win and mac).
Also QuakeLive runs like shit on mac.

When I was undergrad I was also doing same, in EU, but now I live in USA, and I cannot buy desktop, because I travel a lot

No wonder you like making maps for Quake, you're an architecture student :D

EDIT: or was it the other way around? You got into architecture because of your love of making maps??

It all makes sense now, he is Ted Mosby!

yes when I was a child it was my ambition to make quake maps, then I asked myself, what should I be in the future, and I decided that I should be architect! and I can design more and better maps!!
yeyyyy!! You found my ambition of life!

Dude, aeol replied to cityy, who is a mapmaker. Not to you. Ego much?

check out this link http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/gaming-lapt...lete-list/
You'll find laptops with the same specs at a considerably cheaper price.

https://alienware.moontoast.com/estore/embed/...c9caf5cd74

http://www.neowin.net/news/alienware-teases-j...ct-reveals

Ah! didnt see this one, also new mac will be anoounced this week, so I need to wait at least few days to see whats coming :)

If you're gonna install Windows on it anyway then go for a Mac. Windows runs great in Boot Camp, and you could also get a program like VMWare or Parallels to run the Boot Camp partition in.

The QL Mac client is alright, it does work but is quite slow. Although, I'd guess that you would be having no trouble at all reaching 125 FPS with an i7 and the 650M card.

the question was not about ql actually, ill of course us it on windows and getting 125fps shouldnt be problem in 2013 with 1700dolarrs laptops right? :)

You are overestimating quite a bit what today's hardwares can do. My laptop can run Planetside 2/BF3/NS2... well the last games, yet on some maps (whether settings are maxed out or not) I still see the framerate dropping, not a big deal, but still, it's sad ='D.

(I have a MSI, cost me about 1500ish€ on sale)

Edit: I just read my post, and don't get me wrong specs from these 2 models are amazing, but it's just QL that is messed up I believe xD.

imo if you use windows anyway then go with the one that has a changeable battery

What kind of school suggests its students buy tiny screened laptops for gfx work?

A) you will need a MUCH bigger screen for those programs. 19 at least, ideally 22.

B) aside from Vray, all of those programs will run just as fine on lower spec hardware, something around an i5 and a decent gfx card.

The i7's will only be of noteable use if you plan on using Vray for rendering a lot of frames/animation and only then with high end lighting.

If you're smart with layers and your 3D scenes are not too heavy, you can get away with lower spec gfx card, the rendering in vray is mostly done on the CPU.

A semi decent gfx card on an i5 should be able to handle several hundred thousand polygon scenes fine, so if your 3D needs are humble, its worth saving yourself some money.

Just make sure you buy a laptop cooler and use it at all times when using any of that software or it'll overheat and break quickly.

they need to to it, also we have huge screen at school, but also we need to carry out work with laptops. they suggest mostly 17inch ones, but they are more expensive as you know.

My idea is getting the best computer around 1700-2000 range, then getting a good 120hz monitor to mly dorm.

my old computer was actually i7, "dell studio 1558"
but even when we are using Maya, or modeling in 3dmax, I suffer like no one else.

and you said hundred thoused polygons, the last project wihch i did renders where 3.9millon pollygons, and I couldnt even open it on my laptop, thats why I am reallly scared. I hope u got me :)

btw,
http://www.pratt.edu/academics/technology_res...op/arch_m/
here is the suggestions

Sounds like you defo need the top spec one then, but like i said, if you add the polys to layers and turn them off, and only turn on the sections you need to work on it will help hugely. If you try and load it all in at once it will run crap even with a new highspec laptop IMO.

I usually do that, turn them all off just before I save the scene, so when i load the file it loads with 'nothing' on screen, then I just uncheck the layers I need to work on so you're only displaying the sections you need to edit.

Also make sure when it loads, its not loading with textures etc, bring it in slowly, start wireframe, then solid, then textured. Do that in conjunction with all layers being turned off upon initial loading and you'll probably notice a big difference..

I see, but at the end you do not suggest macbook pro in any case right?

Because my budget is around 1800dollars, for mac I need to borrow from dad :) also people always say that mac is really worth that money (I cannot really understand how)

I don't use macs, I always found them over priced and under specced, for the money, if you hit render on both those machines at the same time above on the same 3D file, you would get near identical render times as its all on the CPU.

The mac would offer some better real time perfromance in the viewport as is has more memory for textures. But like I keep saying, if you're smart with layers, you can get the performance gains of better hardware and given you only need to work on sections at any one time, it seems the obvious thing to do for me.

Alienware is no doubt adding money on for its brand, so you can probably get that level of performance for less, though it might sell for more when you want rid of it.

For me, I could not work on such a small screen, I guess if you link it up to monitor then that's different, I would rather buy a desktop and lug it around, you can get some small cases now, and you'll get better performance for less money and you can render for days on end on it without it overheating.

Those high spec laptops tend to get so hot overtime, they suffer problems unless you treat them really well with an external cooller.

I reckon with intelligent 3D scene setup you could save a fortune and get by on an i5 for under a 1000.

MacBook Pro, everytime. Think about it, the MacBook Pro has 1000x more time, effort and money put into designing it to be as usable as possible. That's why it's the leader in its product category.

I can see your point, but will it worth extra 800dollars?

it will last longer and have a higher resale value.

mmm last longer? top lines (e.g. hp envy) will last a lot of time as well.
also, depending on sys specs, you may have some troubles at selling an old mac.

why would it last longer? apple has huge problems with QA. my experiences have been the polar opposite

buy a laptop which is hackintosh-compatible & dual boot win/osx?

He's an architect not a computer scientist lol

you don't need rocket science for doing that, believe me.

I've done a hackintosh on my Thinkpad and it is far from simple. Especially for people who have never even delved in something like dual booting.

Ya theres lots of tools to make it a lot easier than even a few years ago but it's far from foolproof.

puhahah! omg what do you think architecture students do?
ah btw I am front end designer, I know coding more then most of the computer science students :D

no doubt you can make it, maybe you want to address this comment.
however, i did some lectures for architects in italy: 90% of them attend classes just to warm their seat.

Just reinstalled OSX a couple days ago. Still a nightmare. My install is far from vanilla but almost fully functional with the exception of working sleep.

Tell me making a DSDT and dealing with obscure problems like random freezing if you don't have your own ssdts etc. etc. is easy lol.

The end result though is awesome. Nice OSX/Linux dual boot laptop

http://www.osx86.es/Archivos/DSDTSE.zip

The specs on these are good, the fact these can run al at a decent framerate, and Mac should still let you install windows on a mac should be an okay thing

Now if you want a good os, stick with windows 7 for the m14x and DON'T install windows 8, if you see it anywhere tell it to go fuck itself once you can

in the first days, I was stupid to buy a windows 8(it was cheap) but one week later I just setup my custom made win7 again. I know the truth :)

but still, paying extra 800dollars to mac, will it worth? :(

If its for Quake no, or anything else you want to use it for it really depends, Quake Live according to a few people I know on mac, crashes for them so you swill be having those types of problems if playing on a mac

of course this is not for quake ^^ if it was the idea, i would have bought 700dollars any laptop. I wrote my purpose in the first post.
I already need to install windows, and most of my renderin stuff will be on windows (the hard part) so I was asking that, which will give me more performance, beucase there is no becnhmarking scores about this thing.

Ah also, i will install mac on alienware too :) I need both OS in any case

Get the mac because the new models have retina display. If you're into graphics, surely the best / highest resolution display is the top of your priorities? :d

quake on osx is pure crap. osx is a great os, but it is terrible for gaming.
bootcamp it and you will be just fine.
just make sure to pickup the upcoming retina model instead of last years.
youre going to get a more powerful gpu and much improved battery life. there might also be a few other upgrades(wifi ac, bigger default ssd size, etc)
the retina is the best general purpose laptop on the market. congrats, you lucky sob.

Pros of M14x r2
cheaper!!

Questions
Will it run MacOS, smoothly? or even will it run it?

Pros of Macbook Pro Retina
Retina display quality
better built quality
lighter
thinner
bigger screen

Questions
Will it worth extra 800dollars
will it run windows as smooth as allienware for 3d softwares
will I need to buy extra stuff?

os x
the design
the trackpad
the ecosystem

i'm not even a professional and it was worth the extra money to me.
you're not going to want to use windows unless you have too after you get your mac. gaming pc and macbook is the ideal setup, imo. although macbook+bootcamp will work just fine for your needs.

You won't need that stuffed laptop for all that soft (except vray ofc). Listen to Jamerio, save money, probably get larger screen model if at school they don't provide external monitors. Don't get too used to fancy stuff, prepare for miserable architect's life ;)

haha :):) nice one, actually the thing which gives me headache right now is Maya, we make looooots of analysis in it.
And today a lot of new notebooks realised,
new alienware's
new razer blade 14"
but not macs
so now actually I have around 1800dollars for this, and I was already architect for 2years so I know how miserable it is :D but I see this one as a long term investment, because the computer I bought before this one is now 6 years old, and you can easily predict that its almost dead, but still working :)
I think i wll buy razer blade, because its 1.8kg, lighter than mac, no fancy things,(just the name but still), its cooling is awesome(alienware's have really huge problem with it - still, and also when you use windows in mac, it has cooling problem), and really thin. Almost like windows version of mac and also of course cheaper than a mac.

So this might be my choice. Only thing this has 8gb of ram. I am not sure if this will give me problem or not.. I think it will be ok :)

What problems with Maya?

We try to make some gigantic organic structures, which will be affected by wind the gravity or a lot of things. then we take lots of sections then study on them. After that we change everything accordingly and put some tests again. The problem is at start we have like 5000vertexes, but even in 2000 its reaaaally slow :)

What analysis you can do in Maya? Never even heard about it's serious analytical capabilities.

The razer blade is a good choice. The build quality/performance/cooling/price is better than the alienware and it's a lot cheaper than the mac. Tho the 8GB ram can come short in rare cases, but if I where you, I would go for the razer from those 3.

YES :) I was thinking same. I think the case is solved! :) thanks

Damn I want one too :).

As a mac user I can say this much I don't do graphics intensive work if you are and don't need the retina display a 15" Macbook Pro with a SSD is worth the investment take the savings and get 2 thunderbolt to VGA or DVI adapters and 2 external LCD displays 24" if needed for a docking station just make sure you have an external mouse and keyboard, adapter plugged in then you can use it with the clamshell closed.

I use my 11" 2012 Air model very much in this way I do play quake on it although it crashes and sucks when it does. Plays smoother on my air than my 2011 Macbook Pro lololol and if you think OSX sucks for gaming thats objective to what games you're playing because CS:GO. Starcraft II, LoL, and Diablo 3 all work great on my air :)

I use my macbook for music production, djing, general stuff so I needed portability and still have modular expansions be an option.

If you go the docking station out check out the twelve south bookarc thing is amazing for using it in that fashion or just general storage with a small amount of space :)

Either way if you have a bunch of stuff to connect invest in a powered usb 3.0 adapter for any of these laptops.

just one little tip if you end up going for a macbook: buying them is a huge clusterfuck. you need to make sure you get one with a samsung display panel. usually there's no way for you to know whether you get a samsung or lg panel. you might end up sending it in over and over until you get a samsung one.

waouw thats and interesting thing to hear. I think i wont end up with macbook pro, because they didnt upgrade anything, not even the processor. So I will have better performance even with 1000dollars less :)

True.. dissapointing from apple. The razer blade actually got faster cpu and gpu and 8GB ram should be enough for most of the tasks.

I have macbook at home that i dont own. I appreciate build quality, slickness, design, keys, trackpad, screen, etc. I'd rather pick it up to stream a movie or browse web, but as IT professional i'd stop there. You always seem to run into weird things you can't control, bump into restrictions and useless roadblocks. Besides, , i'm absolutely anti-apple and everything they stand for. If you buy a cheap PC , your 1 vote goes to standardization and fair pricing. If you overpay $800 for mac, you cast 10 votes to Apple because you chose to pay high premium for marketing and apple-shit they do to this world. Fuck them on so many counts.

Buy best and most current windows laptop, and put away $800 for next upgrade if you're really into throwing money around.

You are sooooo right sir. I have been searching really long time, and I travel rellly so much so i need something portable, and my bugdet seems ok to but a razer blade 14", also it has 4th intel, 8gb ram, ssd, and geforce 765M, aaaand 1.8kg, even lighter than mac. Also they copied design from mac, and its so much ok :) this will be like 1700dollars to me, and great :)

No one said you should shell out money for gimmicks. If you want a mac, buy a mac, why attention whoring around the forums then...

stupid

I was looking for opinions, I decided this 2 days ago, after these replies.

not stupid, I am just trying to get as much information as possible.

Uh, what exactly is going on here?

First of all, you're an architect and you run 3d stuff like Maya and CAD. The first thing that should be on your mind is that you need a GPU for calculations, and not straight up gaming so you should be getting a quadro if nvidia or a fire-whatevertheyusenow if AMD.

Secondly, your school suggest Dell. Dell is know for overcharging their stuff. You suggest Alienware, Alienware is just an subdivision of Dell who sells ricer laptops at even higher prices.

Thirdly, razer. This decision doesn't make any sense to me at all: first of all, why would an architect working with 3D/CAD favor an tiny 14" screen? Secondly, Razer has recently mostly been known for poor product quality(despite high specs) and overcharged fancy ricer/brand stuff that doesn't really accomplish anything.

Lastly, there's the macbook. I fully support the macbook if these 2 criterias apply:
1. They still have some super student offer and cuts the price a lot for the purchase.
2. You need to carry the thing around a lot and will be using it when no power supply is available, since the big deal with macbook is their 4hr battery time compared to 2hr of most other laptops.

If it was me I'd buy an Lenovo or something, 2mins on newegg nets me this if you've got the money to burn: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312440

Beats that raizcer shit out of the water when it comes to pretty much everything, still costs $600 less and even comes with a screen big enough that you won't need extra extra thick glasses due to ruined eyesight by the age of 32

Thanks for your kind reply, I need to add some things

- I wouldnt buy a mac, because all of the students in my department has lots of problems with mac. Even the digital media professors say that, dont buy mac, because of.....
- I have huge screen at home and in the studio, also in the labs, so I need really light computer, so size should not be that much (biggest mac is 15 so..)
- that lenovo is 6.4lbs, 15.6" with really slow hdd. I may work really good, but it is tooo heavy for me.
- And our process does not require high end graphic card, its just my personal choise (I like playing games), we need really good processor(4th i7, 2.2 is like 2.6of 3rd i7 and its cooler) and at least 8gbs or ram(8gb of 1600 is enough for me I guess). we made some benchmark testes with the best possible macbook pro, and 17"alienware and dell 4700, and some investigation on the net about razer and the other options.

so at the end, razer seem like price is just a little much (150dollars difference with its performance, if we compare with mac, it is cheaper, because apple only gives us 200dollars student discount in US) and it is way much lighter. and also I loved its design (this is personal choice).

So I end up with that razer product. For the high-end and final products, we also have render farms in the school, so I dont need like 5000dollars laptops(One of my friend has it, and I cannot see that much of a difference).

Thanks for your informative answer, but I already bought the computer, and these were the things in my mind. If I did a mistake, I wont be that much sad, because It looks so cool and really light. Believe me these are reaaally important for me.

I see. I think that people would have responded in a different tone if you already mentioned that you already had a big screen and hardware at the first post. The OP sounded more like you needed a computer to do work with.

May I suggest something by either Origin or Xi?

http://originpc.com
http://www.xicomputer.com/

For work in my field, digital media, Apple OS is only a necessity should I be in a situation where I must use FinalCut or Logic only, so I tend to go with a machine running a Win OS.

My honest advice to you, try those two sites and see if there's something you would like, and leave a Mac till absolute last.

Why would you get a AW? It's more or less a Dell with an AW logo on it. Go to www.xoticpc.com and ask for Roland. He will probably recommend you a MSI or SAGER. MSI have a SteelSeries keyboard and the best speakers out of any computer. SAGER is an awesome bang for the buck brand but lacks the speakers and chassis looks that the MSI provides.

ok, you did not read the comments, the problem solved, I bought Razer Blade 14"
and yes it was the point I wanted steelseries keyboard and really good speakers...

One can always install Mac on a windows pc.. lol

http://techsnix.com/best-gaming-laptops-under-1000-dollars/