best laptop for college engineering major image
Carolyn
Okay, so I'm going to college as a chemical engineering major next year and I was wondering what kind of laptop to get, Mac or PC? I'm not planning on doing much gaming, and I like the fact that macs will be faster. Also, Window's Vista isn't supported at my college yet, so I'd have to get XP. What do you think?
Answer
macs are amazing.. but you need to check if the softwares you need for eng are supported by mac. these days macs can run windows xp, since they now have intel core 2 duo processors in them. the performance is amazing but the price is atleast $300 more than windows pcs.
if you are planning to use windows with mac, then i would recommend you to do some research and then buy them because the last time i saw (in dec 2006), the bios to boot in windows mode was in beta testing. but it did work fine when i tried it.
macs are amazing.. but you need to check if the softwares you need for eng are supported by mac. these days macs can run windows xp, since they now have intel core 2 duo processors in them. the performance is amazing but the price is atleast $300 more than windows pcs.
if you are planning to use windows with mac, then i would recommend you to do some research and then buy them because the last time i saw (in dec 2006), the bios to boot in windows mode was in beta testing. but it did work fine when i tried it.
What kind of laptop should I buy?
Tyler
I want a laptop for college, but I don't have the slightest idea what to buy. I don't want biased answers based on the operating system or any of that. I am (hopefully) going to be an engineering major so I need something that can handle all that I have to throw at it. I have a desktop computer that I built a while back that I will use for most of my computing while not in classes. I want something portable with a long battery life.
Answer
Well, lets take the logical route here, now you want long battery life but you want it to handle everything you can throw at it.
That crosses out pretty much any hardcore gaming laptop
That crosses out pretty much any laptop without a good GPU
that crosses out Dual core laptops
That crosses out ultra portable laptops.
Before I cross out Ultra books, ask yourself these questions:
Am I going to do any gaming, Graphics design or otherwise anything Graphics intensive?
If you are not going to do ANY thing graphics intensive, the by all means, you have your answer, the UltraBook is for you!
If you answered no, or most likely Im going to do something graphics intensive, then ultrabook style laptops are not for you.
Lets move on.
Now we are left with
AMD+ATi (Fusion)
Intel + ATi
Intel + Nvidia
Lets start with Intel + Nvidia
Intel + Nvidia will give you the most performance, an acceptable battery life of 4-6 hours and of course these computers, the ones I would consider as laptops, at about 800$ up to about 2500$
They tend to run games very well, and overall very good performance, but there are several downsides,
1.
Nvidia chips are faster, but they generate ALLOT of heat, they are known loved but also disliked mainly because people are usually not happy about 92c right on top of their private parts.
Intel is currently in the process of developing their own GPU, in effect they have barred ATi and Nvidia from integrating their chipsets onto intel compatible motherboards, the computer world thinks this is evil and frowns upon Intel (you should to) very dirty
the current result is an intel chipset, that does not give the appropriate priority to the chips these 2 companies have developed for well over 20 years each, Only to make their own crappy intel graphics look a little bit less crappy (its true)
2.
Intel+ATi
Costs about the same as Intel + Nvidia
ATi tends to run just a drop slower then Nvidia chips, but they use less power, run a LOT cooler and ATi tends to be the ones to have the innovations year after year, although, Nvidia still holds the number 1 spot for speed, no doubt about that.
The same goes for the problem with Intel, they will most likely try to hurt AMD owned ATi, as we have seen in the past (European court rulings against Intel)
AMD+ATi
they are not the fastest laptops, but the cost is about Half that for a comparable Intel+ATi/Nvidia and the speed difference is about 15% in terms of CPU power and 0% for Graphics abilities.
Personal friends of mines have displayed Great pleasure and no problems with their current generation Fusion laptops.
The cost runs from 350-900$.
Battery life is exceptionally high on these laptops, Review after review reports 6+ hours with normal
AMD Laptops offer Quadcore and Dual GPU laptops for as low as 600$ ! compared to Intel counterparts which start at 1600$ Just to match the performance.
usage, even for the highest specked quadcore models.
There are 2 kinds of Fusion
Fusion
Fusion 2GPU
What is Fusion
A processor chip with a Powerful Graphics chip built into it, Not to be confused with evil wannabees
Fusion 2 simply means there are 2 graphics chips built in, for example:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6755G2.57278.0.html
a single will not have a 2 behind the G, Example
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6520G.55734.0.html
Your next question should be, This is my budget I want a laptop to do this and this and that.
Best of luck with collage.
Well, lets take the logical route here, now you want long battery life but you want it to handle everything you can throw at it.
That crosses out pretty much any hardcore gaming laptop
That crosses out pretty much any laptop without a good GPU
that crosses out Dual core laptops
That crosses out ultra portable laptops.
Before I cross out Ultra books, ask yourself these questions:
Am I going to do any gaming, Graphics design or otherwise anything Graphics intensive?
If you are not going to do ANY thing graphics intensive, the by all means, you have your answer, the UltraBook is for you!
If you answered no, or most likely Im going to do something graphics intensive, then ultrabook style laptops are not for you.
Lets move on.
Now we are left with
AMD+ATi (Fusion)
Intel + ATi
Intel + Nvidia
Lets start with Intel + Nvidia
Intel + Nvidia will give you the most performance, an acceptable battery life of 4-6 hours and of course these computers, the ones I would consider as laptops, at about 800$ up to about 2500$
They tend to run games very well, and overall very good performance, but there are several downsides,
1.
Nvidia chips are faster, but they generate ALLOT of heat, they are known loved but also disliked mainly because people are usually not happy about 92c right on top of their private parts.
Intel is currently in the process of developing their own GPU, in effect they have barred ATi and Nvidia from integrating their chipsets onto intel compatible motherboards, the computer world thinks this is evil and frowns upon Intel (you should to) very dirty
the current result is an intel chipset, that does not give the appropriate priority to the chips these 2 companies have developed for well over 20 years each, Only to make their own crappy intel graphics look a little bit less crappy (its true)
2.
Intel+ATi
Costs about the same as Intel + Nvidia
ATi tends to run just a drop slower then Nvidia chips, but they use less power, run a LOT cooler and ATi tends to be the ones to have the innovations year after year, although, Nvidia still holds the number 1 spot for speed, no doubt about that.
The same goes for the problem with Intel, they will most likely try to hurt AMD owned ATi, as we have seen in the past (European court rulings against Intel)
AMD+ATi
they are not the fastest laptops, but the cost is about Half that for a comparable Intel+ATi/Nvidia and the speed difference is about 15% in terms of CPU power and 0% for Graphics abilities.
Personal friends of mines have displayed Great pleasure and no problems with their current generation Fusion laptops.
The cost runs from 350-900$.
Battery life is exceptionally high on these laptops, Review after review reports 6+ hours with normal
AMD Laptops offer Quadcore and Dual GPU laptops for as low as 600$ ! compared to Intel counterparts which start at 1600$ Just to match the performance.
usage, even for the highest specked quadcore models.
There are 2 kinds of Fusion
Fusion
Fusion 2GPU
What is Fusion
A processor chip with a Powerful Graphics chip built into it, Not to be confused with evil wannabees
Fusion 2 simply means there are 2 graphics chips built in, for example:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6755G2.57278.0.html
a single will not have a 2 behind the G, Example
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6520G.55734.0.html
Your next question should be, This is my budget I want a laptop to do this and this and that.
Best of luck with collage.
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Title Post: What kind of laptop sould I get for an engineering major?
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Author: Unknown
Thanks For Coming To My Blog
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