Upgrade or New Laptop?

Well, my second semester at Uni is nearly at an end. And I've been considering getting a new laptop for next year.

I'm doing a Games Design course so heavily rely on compiling games, rendering 3ds max images and videos so I'm looking for a powerful laptop.

Currently I've got a ASUS G2S:

Intel Core2 Duo T7500 @2.2GHz
4GIG Ram, however only 3GIG is recognised
GeForce 8600m GT

The laptops been good this year, however when rendering a 3DS Max video it took me 5 days to render a 60 second video, which was insane, I honestly thought my laptop would die by the end of it lol


I've looked up a few laptops here and there on the net, but I havn't really found anything that could wouldn't be obsolete in a year... The main problem is, if I do upgrade my laptop, I can only upgrade my Processor, I'm stuck with the same GFX Card which isn't really upto scratch for a lot of the things I'm doing...

I multi-task a LOT, sometimes I have Photoshop, Dream Weaver, Steam, Hammer, iTunes, Opera, MSN, RapGet and even DC++ Running at the same time. I do notice some lag, but overall it's okayyyy... But I'm looking for something better as next year we'll be using the Crysis and Unreal Engine A LOT, which is gonna be fun, but my tutors told me I'd need a new GFX Card if I wanted optimal performance...

Price isn't really a problem, I'm willing to go upto £4K for a new laptop or an upgrade.

These are the Laptop's I'm debating on getting:

http://www.rockdirect.com/viewNotebook.php?pName=XTREME SL8

Just not sure what one would exactly be the best choice for me...

Anyone recommend anything? (Also, getting a Desktop isn't an option lol, I've learned to hate them over the years)

 

please fill the FAQ!

 

For 3DS Max, a nVidia Geforce or an ATI Radeon won't do you any good. What you need is a nVidia Quadro or ATI FireGL. Even a low end FireGL has the potential of being able to render in 3DS Max twice as fast as a top range Radeon.

Laptops such as the HP NW8440, which has a FireGL V5200, or Fujitsu Celsius H series, which has nVidia Quadro FX graphics, or a Lenovo Thinkpad T60, or Dell Precision M90 Workstation will be much more suitable for your studies.

Seeing as you're willing to spend up to £4000, you should try to get yourself a Quadro FX 3600M (recommended), or FireGL V5200.

 

Kazuya, do not waste your money on buying a faster notebook, it will not make all of the difference.
You should just buy a desktop with a 2.4Ghz Q6600 and oc it to 3.0Ghz, and get 4Gb of memory, and a decent 8800GT or a Quadro FX570 or FX1700.

You could get similar components in that laptop you listed, but it is going to cost you a tremendous amount of money.
I agree that the quadro line is superior to the firegl line for cad rendering. A desktop processor, especially a quad core, if you get one in either a desktop or that desktop replacement, will be much faster than the core 2 mobile in your asus laptop.

I have a Quadro FX2500M, which is the direct x 9 version of the FX3600M, and the card is great, it helps speed up render times in revitt, autocad, rhino and 3dsmaxx.
Mainly, render times are determined by processor speed, so get a quad core and your system will fly through those renders.

If your laptop has vista, I strongly advise switching to xp. I have used 3dsmax, and rhino, and both have issues with vista. after switching back to xp, the render times took about 15 minutes rather than 6-7 hours. Most cad programs do not fully agree with windows vista.
Your laptop is pretty powerful as it is. Try switching to xp, it is worth the few hours of time, it will most likely save you from buying a new laptop.

K-TRON

 

get a sager it has quad-core cpu and FX1600 in it that will work better then your laptop now it cost about $2874 but you could get a higher res screen and 3gb is the max on RAM for xp, vista 64-bit (which would be a lot better then 32-bit) will give you 4gb.