LAPTOPS & VIDEO CARDS

[STEVE ENGLISH]

I have just received AC11 (yipee) and need to replace my tired old Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop to run this and other key software such as excel, word, adobee photoshop, outlook, etc.

I have narrowed my serach down to 3 laptops;

Toshiba satellite pro P100-465 running Vista business with nvidea geoforce go 7600 card and 512mb dedicated video ram @ £1200

OR

Dell M90 running vista business or XP Pro with nvidea quadro FX2500 card and 512mb dedicated ram @ £1400

OR

Dell XPSM1710 running vista business with nvidea goeforce go 7950 GTX card with 512mb dedicated ram @ £1500

I prefer the look/spec of the toshiba but am anxious about the performance of the video card. Have any of you guys had any experience of any of these machines and particularly would you recommend the extra outlay for the quadro card over the Toshiba?

Any advice would be most welcome.

[Anonymous]

I am in a very similar position.

My wife went into preterm labor, and I am now homebound. With many thanks to the office They are willing to put down 1000 dollars towards a laptop, the rest is on me.

What specifically are the advantages of getting the macbook Pro when it pertains to archicad? does it run better? Faster? My office is okay with whatever I want to get, and our I T guy will support either. I have never had a mac, but am willing to try.

Found a used 2.33 GHTz macbook pro, 2499. can equip a windows machine just like it for 2200. Including full suite of office, and XP. We run 9 in the office, but will be switching to 11 shortly.

Any advise will be appreciated.

[STEVE ENGLISH]

I AM NOT A MAC EXPERT JOSH BUT FROM WHAT I HAVE SEEN/HEARD A/C RUNS BETTER/FASTER/MORE STABLE ON A MAC AND I BELIEVE WAS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED AS A MAC ONLY PROGRAMME. THE LATEST MACS ALLOW YOU TO RUN BOTH MAC AND PC BASED PROGRAMMES VIA BOOTCAMP WHICH ESSENTIALLY GIVES YOU THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS! ALTHOUGH SOME SAY THAT RUNNING PC APPLICATIONS IN A 'VIRTUAL WINDOWS' ENVIRONMENT SUCH AS BOOTCAMP NULLIFIES SOME OF THE EXTRA PROCESSING POWER ON TAP. IN ADDITION TO THE ABOVE I THINK ( AND ITS PERSONAL TASTE) THAT THE MACBOOK PRO IS ONE OF THE CLEANEST, SHARPEST DESIGNED LAPTOPS AROUND WITH A SPEC TO MATCH.

FOR ME THERE ARE TWO ISSUES, UNLIKE YOU OUR IT GUYS IS NOT MAC PROFICCIENT AND THE MACS ARE STILL MORE EXPENSIVE BY SOME WAY.

I HAVE BITTEN THE BULLET AND ORDERED A DELL M90 PRECISION WHICH IS NEARLY £600 CHEAPER THAN THE EQUIVALENT MACBOOK.

[Erich]

Steve,

Just a minor point to add, Boot Camp does not run windows in a virtual environment, rather it just allows you Intel based Mac to run windows directly. As such there is no performance loss at all. In fact my Macbook Pro runs Windows better than my PC workstation that I use at the office.

[Anonymous]

From what I've seen the MacBook Pros are among the fastest Windows laptops made. I haven't been able to run formal tests but my older model (CoreDuo 2.16GHz) seems quite a bit snappier than Pentium D workstations. It makes Pentium M laptops seem quite sluggish. Of course those are older machines now. From what I gather, HP and Dell Core2Duo machines are pretty much as fast as the Macs (though a bit more expensive).

I haven't tested this with AC11 yet, but when the Mactel version of AC10 came out I tested it against the Windows version (both on my MacBook Pro) and it was quite a bit faster on the Mac. In fact the whole of OSX seems faster than XP. I don't know much about Vista yet but it doesn't sound like there are any performance gains (likely the opposite).

[Odd Goderstad]

I agree that the macs now is very good at running windows, it may have something to do with Apple having full control of all drivers, witch can then be more efficient. I just miss the DEL key.....

Else... Here is a link on laptops and GFX cards:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=39568