Desktop Replacement Notebooks for 3D

[Horik]

I was in the same boat a couple months ago. I did a lot of research and found a M-Tech Laptop. It is a very powerful Pentium 4 3.4 w/ht, 1 gig of ram, 80 mb hard drive, DVD burner, 15.4 in. screen, 256 mb ATI mobility, for $2,500. It was cheaper than all the other brands, but with more power. Check out their website www.mtechlaptops.com (http://www.mtechlaptops.com)

[SpecialFX]

Hi Zoobar

i will recommend Alienware because i own one. these are total workstation replacement machines. rocksolid performance and brilliant customer service. they r selling Nvidia QuardoFX 1000 now and with that i believe they will be the most powerful laptop manufacturer(for 3D). BUT they cost a lot. preety soon they will release Aurora which will be AMD 64 based. i looked around a lot and then took the pill but i am very happy about my decision. BTW i have the 16.1" model which is not available now.
i hope this helps. bye.

yousuf.

[Zoober]

Thank you for the suggestions guys.

SpecialFX - I was seriously considering an Alienware notebook at first. But when I compared them to pctorque and other Sager dealers, I was looking at $1000 more for the same system specs but without the 17" screen.

they r selling Nvidia QuardoFX 1000 now and with that i believe they will be the most powerful laptop manufacturer(for 3D).
I wasn't able to find a laptop using a Quadro on their site, is that a special offer you received?

[Signal2Noise]

I will recommend a Dell because I own one.


All the apps listed in my sig below are used extensively on my laptop. I won't bore you with details. In fact, there has been many a thread on this very subject posted in these forums. Do a SEARCH and ye shall be enlightened. :thumbsup:

[motoxpress]

In my view, the best compromise for desktop performance and mobile performance (weight, battery, etc.) is the Dell M60. You can get the Quadro FX1000(mobile version) and the Centrino tech package that includes the Pentium M processors which are far superior to sticking a desktop P4 in a laptop.

gl

[Hazdaz]

I am very interested in this topic. I personally NEVER EVER thought I would be looking at a laptop to be doing CAD/3D, BUT the way things might be playing out for me work-wise, a laptop might be the only good solution now. For you guys are are using a laptop for 3D, can you/do you have a 2nd screen to hook up to it when your at home/office? I have come to really enjoy my dual-screen setup at home, and would really be pushing for something similiar from a laptop.

[deanbutton]

I was looking at a laptop/notebook for 3D/2d. The only one i could find with a nVidia chip
suitable for Maya and now XSI. Is the HP zd7255ea. With a GeForce FX go5700 and a 1680*1050 screen. Any opinions on it, anyone tried one or has one...?

I was wondering why a lot of people seem to look at laptops with ati cards in them. I thought they were a bit unstable in most 3d apps, using openGL ? Like i couldn't work out why BoXX has an ati 9700 in it's workstation laptop ? For a pro-machine, shouldn't it have a quadro FX ? Or are ati's generally ok for 3d and most people want to play games...! :)

-Signal to noise, what spec have you in your DeLL. I missed out just after Christmas, when the 8600 came with a nVidia fx 5650. They all have ati 9700's now. If you have one, does it proform well...?

D.

[Signal2Noise]

...
-Signal to noise, what spec have you in your DeLL. I missed out just after Christmas, when the 8600 came with a nVidia fx 5650. They all have ati 9700's now. If you have one, does it proform well...?

D.Well, I did say I wouldn't bore readers with details but since you asked...;)

I have an older Inspiron 8200. It's spec'd with a 1.6 GHz P4, 1.5 GB DDR RAM, and an nVidia GeForce 64MB card. The 15.1" UXGA display runs @ 1600 x 1200 which suits me just fine. The notebook is about 18 months old but runs all the latest apps just fine. Like I previously mentioned, I run LW [8] and XSI on the Dell on an everyday basis. I also use Painter and Photoshop along with some other CAD-related apps. The Dell is my preferred workstation. If I have super heavy scenes or require more rendering resources then I simply load the files onto my 'speedier' desktop PC. The only real drawback with doing CG work on the laptop is working with "true" color representation. LCD screens just don't translate color well. Usually I have to load up single frame render images onto my CRT monitor to get an idea what things really look like. The other minus is battery life. You definitely want to be close to a power source if planning to work long hours on a laptop!

Also, FWIW I also assisted a friend in getting her first laptop. She does mainly photo image editing and wanted something that was powerful enough, affordable, and would last a while as far as tech goes (which is really dependant on what software is used). We ended up getting her a Dell Inspiron 5150 loaded with a 3 GHz P4M, 512MB DDR RAM, 80 GB HD, 8X DVD +RW burner(!!), and an nVidia FX5200 vid card all for about $2300 CDN (about $1800 US). She got the laptop a few days ago and is extremely happy with it. I checked it out and it is quite nice. The only reservation I have about it is the 15" display is XGA and runs at a res of 1400x1050. Some web-based images tend to come in fuzzy at this resolution. Other than that it is a solid notebook for the money.

Hazdaz: Yes you can hook up your notebook to a monitor. You may be able to do a simple cable hook up if the unit has the appropriate connector. You can also consider getting a docking station which would be hooked up to all your normal desktop peripherals (keyboard, mouse, monitor, scanner, etc.) and then the notebook simply slides into place and is ready to go. Expect to pay about $200 for a good docking unit.

[lots]

1.6 GHz P4, 1.5 GHz DDR RAM
You mean Pentium M? and 1.5GB ram?

heh just pokin fun :P

tho, for some reason i do find the whole "desktop replacment" laptops kind of contradictory.. why get a laptop you are not going to move often? *shrug* thats just me tho..

If i wanted portable, i'd go for IWill's Dual Opteron SFF and an LCD monitor..
http://www.iwill.net/zmax/zmaxdp_1.asp

But thats me :)

[SpecialFX]

hi Zoobar. laptop is not something you buy every year that is why i will recommend spending a bit more but buy a good machine with good customer service. buy Nvidia based machine because Ati does not work. and i cannot see how can a Pentium M 1.6 processor out perform a Pentium 3.0 w/HT and 800 mhz fsb. simply cannot. 99 % of the time my machine is conected to a power supply so battery life is not an issue with me. BTW Pentium M processors will cut back on performance when on battery. 15.4" and 17" never attracted me because they are made for watching DVDs. infact when M60 was made available i was disapointed because of the screen size(it is small). and QuadroFx 1000 is available and here is the link. (http://www.alienware.co.uk/Configurator_Pages/ozma-m.aspx?SysCode=PC-EU-LT-OZMA-M&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT)

[deanbutton]

Thanks for the info, signal to noise. :thumbsup: That's why i was upset i didn't go for that dell 8600 at the time. Seemed like a good preformer. I forgot about the difference between Lcd and crt, colour-wise, handy to know. How do you get on with a mouse (usb?), laptop keyboard setup. No problems ? Also, i guess battery use nowdays on laptops, doing 3D etc. Would be a drain. That's why i was looking at that HP laptop. I suppose a good screen is important...

D.

[XenaTrek]

I will recommend a Dell because I own one.


All the apps listed in my sig below are used extensively on my laptop. I won't bore you with details. In fact, there has been many a thread on this very subject posted in these forums. Do a SEARCH and ye shall be enlightened. :thumbsup:
Same here, I have a Dell as well. I've dubbed as my Digital Media/Media Arts machine. I runs the apps I have on the machine quite well even with only 256 MB of RAM and a P4 Intel Processor. Software on hand: Maya, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects and Macromedia Studio MX (Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks).

Question for the board tho... I'm guessing I would need to figure out how to calibrate monitor for colors and lighting otherwise I can't completely distance myself from the desktop. I have noticed that a scene that appears perfect on my laptop is far too dark when I set it up on the desktop. When that happens I do find myself tweeking more when exporting out to still image or a movie clip.

With that being the case, I set up the models on the laptop and use the desktop for color and lighting.

I guess my question would be is it wise and how does one set up the calibration of the monitor so that it appears the same or similar on both the laptop and desktop.

Laptop display is LCD. Desktop display is a CRT (21 in).
Thx.
XenaTrek

[CoolDuck_HRO]

Look for those Intel Centrino processors, which is specially designed for mobile needs, it will offer twice as long battery power and P4 processing power.

I'd recommend an Acer Aspire 2012WLCi, which is a nice laptop with 15'4 screen with 1280x800, Radeon 9700, 512 mb ram, 40 gb hdd, Centrino 1.5 and the usual good stuff like LAN, and Wifi.
It has a good price, not too expensive. Good quality/price ratio.

http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/computing/computers/laptops/203487/details

Yeah, Alienware is great if you have the money.

[Zoober]

I'm not too worried about battery power in a laptop. I don't plan to use it anywhere that doesn't have an available outlet. This is going to allow me to take my work with me when I go between houses, work and school. I won't be using it at the park or on a train/bus.

Also I'm running a desktop at home with an AMD 2500 w/528mb RAM, 80gig 7200 8mb cache HD, Geforce4 128mb AGP 8x. It chugs when I work with some of my large scene files in maya, and can get painfully slow when working with high-res video in after effects. So there is no way that I'm going to drop the money on a laptop with similar features. I need to get something with at least 1.5gigs of ram and a highend processor.

Thanks for the link SpecialFX, I found a similar mobile workstation (http://www.alienware.com/Configurator_Pages/mj-12m.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-MJ12-M&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT) on the Alienware Canada website. I'll definately be considering that unit along with the Sager8790.

Deanbutton: What exactly did you hear about ATI cards not working well with 3D software? I've never used Maya or 3Dsmax with anything other thatn a nVidia card or a workstation card. So I'm stepping into unknown territory if I pick up a Notebook with an ATI gpu.

Can anyone else confirm the concerns about ATI chips and 3D software?

[Janine]

BTW Pentium M processors will cut back on performance when on battery.That's something you can switch off.

But did you know that Pentium4 desktop cpus slow down automatically when they get too hot? Especially in a laptop with hardly any ventilation. And there's nothing you can do about that. Maybe consider that as well.

[Hazdaz]

.. why get a laptop you are not going to move often? *shrug* thats just me tho..

If i wanted portable, i'd go for IWill's Dual Opteron SFF and an LCD monitor..
http://www.iwill.net/zmax/zmaxdp_1.asp
See thats the thing - just like some of the people here, I would need to move around my "workstation" from one location to another... the mini PC in your link there would be great IF you have a monitor and keyboard/mouse already set up for your different locations.

Its an option that I would have to seriously consider, but even a mini-PC won't let you work on the road from in your car or out someplace else.

[lots]

SpecialFX, Just because the Pentium M is only 1.6 GHz does not mean its way way slower than a 3.0GHz P4 with HT, Ghz doesnt matter as much as you think. In fact, the performance you get from the Pentium M at 1.6 Ghz is actually quite good. I'd put it roughly in the equivelent performance of a 2.6Ghz to 2.8Ghz P4 with HyperThreading. Why? It's a more efficient chip. Unlike the Pentium 4, the Pentium M doesnt have hyperthreading, but it doesn't need it. For the P4 with its 31 stage pipeline, HT is most definately a MUST in order to compete with competition. The designers of the P4 realized that the processor could not keep its pipe line full and added HyperThreading in order to help fill the pipe and give the CPU something to do while it waited on other threads. The Pentium M has a shorter pipeline somewhat similar to the Pentium3 and Athlon and so Intel says "it doesnt need HT," though I sure would like to see it. Like the Athlons, it performs more computations per clock cycle than the Pentium 4. This means it does not have to invest in many many Mhz to out pace its competitors. In fact this is beneficial, because in the end with lower Ghz and power requirements, it fits the mold for mobile computing very well. Add the power management on the chip (it lowers its clock speed when not in heavy use) it also makes for a very cool chip. Meaning you can probably use it comfortably on your lap without much excess heat. I have first hand experience with these things, my brother's new laptop runs the latest Pentium M (1.7 Ghz with 2MB L2 cache) and i'd have to say that it out paces some of the much higher clocked P4's with HT at work (2.6Ghz-2.8Ghz) Thats almost a 1Ghz difference.

I would say you want a Pentium M in your laptop (part of the Centrino package). Its cool, fast (granted the top model P4s are indeed faster, but very hot and not at all suited for mobile use), and power efficient. Unlike the Pentium 4 which would run your battery dry within an hour ;)

Then again thats my opinion on the matter ;) I want power and mobility in a laptop, and i think the Pentium M and Centrino systems give me that. If you want Absolute power get the 3.2Ghz P4 with HT, just dont expect too much when it comes to battery life or cooling. Though, I'll give you this, a system based on the Pentium4 will probably be cheaper. Also most likely, a system that had a QuadroFX Go will not be on a Centrino packaged system anyhow...

Here are some Reviews of the Dothan (The most recent Pentium M with 2Mb cache)
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2129
http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20040510/index.html

It shows some pretty respectable numbers, and from my experience with the chip, the numbers match..

[deanbutton]

Hi Zoober. I'm like you, a bit worried buying something unknown too. I've just noticed a lot of people on forums. Having strange experiences with ati gfx-cards in general. Some say it's there drivers, there a bit weak in openGl. You can get funny viewport problems with them. Somtimes it's the anti-aliasing on etc. I think they will cause more problems in Maya/XSI, than in Max. nVidia cards have better drivers.

There's lots of posts about nVidia vs ati for 3d. Just type in, 'ati problems' into the search.
http://www.cgtalk.com/search.php?searchid=368680

Anyone here using a laptop for 3D, like to share there experiences. Especially an ati 9600/9700/9800 mobile card...?

D.

[deanbutton]

Just thought of something else. With the missing keypad on a laptop. Using XSI, when you sud-div geometry with + - . Is that a problem or does anyone using XSI, just remap those keys...?

D.

[CoolDuck_HRO]

Yeah why not, just remap those keys.

[SpecialFX]

LOTS i agree to a great extend with you but at the end of the day alienware A51m with QuadroFX 1000 will out perform topnotch Dell M60. it has better screen, faster hard drive and costs about a £800 less. and it has no heating issues infact it has a very brilliant cooling system. BTW how many times we model/animate with our machine on our lap? my point is that if he is spending money he should get a good machine. and in reality Pentium M is a polished version of Pentium 3.

but i will put my machine to the test and will inform everyone about the performance.

thanks. peace.

yousuf...

[lots]

Oh I agree that a full blown out 3.2Ghz P4 will be cheaper and faster.. And in the end if thats all that matters, go for it. I was just saying for me I perfer to be able to be mobile with a laptop ;) and that I dont need "ultimate power" on one and would perfer mobility and no wires, I have a desktop for "Ultimate power" ;)

But this is really all just my opinion so I guess it doesnt matter much in the main topic of this thread ;)

[Hazdaz]

Looking at that Alienware laptop, I was surprised (and disappointed) to see that it only has a 15.4" screen. Damn thats small. :eek:

[TCLee]

SpecialFX, Just because the Pentium M is only 1.6 GHz does not mean its way way slower than a 3.0GHz P4 with HT, Ghz doesnt matter as much as you think. In fact, the performance you get from the Pentium M at 1.6 Ghz is actually quite good. I'd put it roughly in the equivelent performance of a 2.6Ghz to 2.8Ghz P4 with HyperThreading.
In theory, that's what its supposed to do.

I have Dell Latitude D600 running a 1.6Ghz Centrino, an M50 P4M 1.8Ghz and a desktop Athlon XP 2100+. At work, I use a dual Xeon set-up. The Centrino is superbly slow in comparison to the M50, both with the same amount of RAM, OS (XP Pro) and apps. This doesn't only apply to app usage but overall OS feedback.

Obviously, the Athlon just blows all of them away even though its pretty old, and the Xeon is another kettle of fish altogether.

By the way, I use XSI, AE, Photoshop and Max extensively, and intensively.

cheers.

[lots]

Well just to be sure are you using the New Pentium M (Dothan) or the old (Banias)? Banias is probably not much better than a 1.8 to 2.0Ghz P4 but the Dothan is a pretty respectible chip.. Granted judging by the Mhz on your Pentium M it sounds like Banias ;) Also power saving features may be enabled that dont let it run at its max potential.. *shrug*

[BRUTICUS]

Interesting, im stuck right now between getting a notebook with a QuadroFXgo1000 or one with a ATI Radeon 9800.

Ive heard the ATI Radeon 9800 runs well with XSI, I dont know about with Maya.

Should I even be comparing the two or does the Quadro simply blow the Radeon 9800 out of the water?

[Ithilien]

Definitely recommend the Dell M60. Seems to be the defacto standard for workstation desktop replacement. The other to look at is the GoBoxx from Boxx Technologies (http://www.boxxtech.com). Boxx make great workstations and I've no doubt that the laptop has the same quality philosophy. They're also a much smaller company than Dell so you'll probably get better support if anything does happen.

Emyn

[motoxpress]

Interesting, im stuck right now between getting a notebook with a QuadroFXgo1000 or one with a ATI Radeon 9800.

Ive heard the ATI Radeon 9800 runs well with XSI, I dont know about with Maya.

Should I even be comparing the two or does the Quadro simply blow the Radeon 9800 out of the water?

No question - go for the QuadroFX. The nvidia OpenGL drivers are so much more stable than ATI and the Quadro drivers have many optimizations for 3D packages.

gl

[ambient-whisper]

Looking at that Alienware laptop, I was surprised (and disappointed) to see that it only has a 15.4" screen. Damn thats small. :eek:
youd be surprised how much its not small. as long as it supports a higher resolution its actually very nice. i had the choice to go between a 15.4 and 17" laptop. i chose 15.4 based on 2 reasons:
1.) it fits in my backpack.
2.) its not a freakin surfboard.

it really depends how much you intend to carry the sucker around. if you never intend to, you might as well get a standard pc. if you will be on the move then 17 might be a bit much.

[BRUTICUS]

Is there any 17" monitor notebooks with a Quadro?

[Hazdaz]

youd be surprised how much its not small. as long as it supports a higher resolution its actually very nice. i had the choice to go between a 15.4 and 17" laptop. i chose 15.4 based on 2 reasons:
1.) it fits in my backpack.
2.) its not a freakin surfboard.

it really depends how much you intend to carry the sucker around. if you never intend to, you might as well get a standard pc. if you will be on the move then 17 might be a bit much.
Ya know.. even if the 15.4" had a higher resolution, I honestly couldn't go down to a screen that small. I haven't used a screen that small in probably over 5 (maybe 10 years?) - I don't plan on going back to that just for some more portablity. And yea, I wouldn't be moving it around too much, but it would still be more portable than even one of those mini ATX PCs.

[j9k_80]

Zoobar- good to see someone else has been checking out pctorque. Thats where I'm getting my laptop from. Don't get the 8790 though. They've got the 9860 coming out in a few weeks (as soon as the Nvidia NDA is lifted on 11/4) and it will own. It's going to have the geforce go6800 in an upgradeable mxm module, and it uses the lga775 socket for the cpu. This is also upgradeable and it is the socket that intel is committed to using for the next few years, so you should be able to upgrade to dual cores when they come out.

A german tech site had some benchmarks up before Nvidia caught them (damn NDAs) and it looks like it will handily outperform the m9800, which itself outperforms the m9700 by 60-70%.

It also supports all the cool stuff the 8790 does, like dual hdds in a striped raid 0 array. And it has 4 mem slots, so you can put in 1gig now and then add more later on without discarding any sticks.

check out their preview of it:
http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=41605

[ambient-whisper]

Ya know.. even if the 15.4" had a higher resolution, I honestly couldn't go down to a screen that small. I haven't used a screen that small in probably over 5 (maybe 10 years?) - I don't plan on going back to that just for some more portablity. And yea, I wouldn't be moving it around too much, but it would still be more portable than even one of those mini ATX PCs.i go between a 23" cinema and a 15.4" screen every day. i thought i wouldnt be able to use anything less than dual monitors at one time. its not hard to get used to. not much to get used to anyway. in some ways i like modelling on the 15.4 more than the 23"

both are widescreen format so its awesome

[AidanGibbons]

Hey,

Sorry if im late replying, only saw this now. This is an excellent laptop, its everything anyone can need...

http://www.meshcomputers.com/updated/ultimapro171.htm


Go into configure and add up all your bits and bobs. I have the earlier version of this laptop and i have had no problems. Im upgrading to this bad boy next week :) 17'1 screen too :D

[BRUTICUS]

Wow,.. that notebook does look impressive cybling. The base price rounds off to about 2,500 CAN according to my currency calculator. That is with only 512 MB of ram.

Is that Card the Radeon 9700 or 9800 go? And damn, the thing has a built in Video camera?

[alanmac]

I think the spec sayes a M11 what ever that is but it's got 256 of ram whatever it is !!

Mesh are one of the major players in the UK. The always are near the top or top in any PC shootout in magazines here. The only problem I can see is your location. I'm sure you could get hold of one but what about warranty issues or support. They may not extend it to outside this area, or as far as Canada.

I believe they use to advertise it with a Radeon 9700 card a while back so unless this is older stock I'd assume it's an upgrade on that but I'd check. It's pretty tight margins for manufacturers these days and any tiny cost saving real matters.

With laptops it seems most are brought in by companies in various stages of assembly for the chosen "manufacturer" to finish and brand as their own. You'll no doubt see similiar looking cased machines about, with maybe little or no internal differences.

Some make the differences both real and obvious such as Alienware, Dell, Sony, Apple. With others it's not so easy. They all buy their parts in from some manufacturer.

I like warranties that still count if the company goes down the tubes, part of the purchase but handled by a third party, at least you know if it's a three year warranty you don't worry if the manufacturers going to still be there in another year or so. This only counts with smaller brands really. Seen them as big as Mesh go down though.

I look back over the last five to ten years and well over half the companies reviewed in the magazine I get no longer trade.

Don't beat me up about it folks but for Windows I love the feel, build and look of the Sony Vaio laptops, the latest A range with curving sides etc. In the flesh they feel and look well made. Like Apple you pay for it though.

Good luck.

Alan

[Airflow]

I have been reading up on the quadra dts pro.... sounds very powerfull and a bit heavy at 4.3 kg....
would like to see if anybody has one as Im considering buying it



www.rockdirect.com

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