Laptop for Bioengineering

[pAstrY5]

I am a beginning bioengineering student and need to purchase a capable laptop for the next 4 years. The one i'm looking at has the following specs: intel i5 2450M-2.50-GHz-is dual core, standard memory is 6 GB DDR3, screen resolution 1366 x 768, has a dedicated Ge Force 610M 2GB graphics memory. Will this work? Please help.

Thank you

[Cad64]

What type of software will you be running on this laptop?

[pAstrY5]

I will be using CAD/AutoCAD, Solidworks Student Edition, Matlab, Scilab, Autocad, LabView, Cosmol, and MSC Software.

[ReMark]

Four years is a long time to make a laptop last through college. What is your budget? I'd recommend an Intel i7 quad-core with a minimum of 8GB RAM and a dedicated graphics card not a graphics chip. I'd also recommend a 64-bit machine running Win7 Professional 64-bit.

[pAstrY5]

So should I be looking to purchase a workstation? I would like to stay under $1300, but I don't know if that's possible. How powerful does the discrete graphics card need to be? Is 1 GB of dedicated memory enough for the graphics card or should it be higher?

[ReMark]

You'll get more bang for the buck with a workstation but they aren't as cool looking when you're out in the field. LoL

The trouble with an onboard graphics chip is that once it gets maxed out system resources start to take a hit and the system starts to get sluggish as physical memory is tapped. That's why I prefer dedicated graphics cards.

$1300 budget for a laptop that you expect to last four years? I think you'll tire of it by the end of your second year and buy a new one at another $1300. 4 years = $2600.

[pAstrY5]

Thank you for helping me with this I really appreciate it.

[irneb]

If you're dead-set on a laptop, then look at compromising some stuff to get the price down. Rather than huge hard-drive & Blue Ray go for more RAM. Also search the programs you're going to use for Graphics card compatibility - AutoCAD has a site dedicated to compliance of cards (try for one of these at least, if possible go for a Quadro / FireGL instead of GeForce / Radeon - though only if your models are going to be huge & complex). Also get yourself a good reliable mouse (touch-pads are NOT for CAD work) - no need for wireless, unless you really "want" to.

One brand of laptops I've found gives high-end specs for mid-range prices is Sager. Otherwise you could search around for Dell/HP - though usually you'd get them at higher cost or lower performance.

One point from my own experience: Screen resolution is a factor for CAD, the higher the better. If your eyes aren't too great you'd also want larger physical size. To me my 15" 1366x768 is simply too cumbersome for CAD (HP Pavilion DV6 with i7 + 6GB + Radeon 1GB), my older laptop with 17" 1400x900 (Packard Bell W8 ) was more like it (used it since 2005, only replaced last year) - though that might be since I'm used to my 21" 1920x1080 for my desktop.

[pAstrY5]

Thank you for reply, your response was very helpful.