Laptop Review

[Anonymous]

Hi Folks,

I would like someone to review the following laptop. And tell me if the graphics card (AMD Radeon™ HD 7610M 1GB (3059MB Total: 1GB discrete memory + 1523MB shared memory)) will be good for running Archicad.

http://www.mytoshiba.com.au/products/computers/satellite/c850/pskcca-04g00m/specifications

Any opinion would be good as the laptop is on sale and I need to know if it will work.

I had bought an Asus with an Intel graphics card and now have a spare laptop which I have no use for.

Thanks

Warwick
(Australia)

[Anonymous]

Rambling comments:
- need 64bit windows
- 8GB RAM better than 4 (see you have one slot free so easily fixed)
- i7 would be better than i5 esp with GS ramping up multithreaded support
- slow sata can easily be swapped for fast ssd in future when prices fall
- check video card on archicad wiki

[Laszlo Nagy]

I would not buy this laptop for ArchiCAD, because the screen size is too low, escpecially the 768 vertical pixels.

You may also want to check this thread:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=42462

[Anonymous]

Thanks Las

Thanks for that. At the office I have a 24inch LCD I use and use the portabilty to get out of the office. The weight of the 17inch would be a concern for me.

Following a conversation with the Australian Graphisoft suport I have upgraded my specs. I was wondering if you could give you opinion on this toshiba.

http://www.mytoshiba.com.au/products/computers/satellite/p850/pspkfa-02c001/specifications
CPU Intel® Core™ i7 processor 3630QM (2.4GHz - 3.4GHz, (Turbo ,4 Cores) 1333MHz FSB, 256 KB per cache, 6MB L3 Cache)
Operating System Windows 8 (64bit)
Chipset Intel® HM76
Screen Size 15.6" Widescreen HD LED Backlit Display (1366 x 768)
Resolution 1366 x 768
Screen Aspect Ratio 16:9
Memory 8GB DDR3 (4GB+ 4GB) (1600Mhz)
RAM slot allocation Both slots used. Total memory expandable to 16GB
Storage 1TB (5400rpm) with Toshiba HDD Accelerator
Graphics NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 630M 2GB with Optimus + Intel® HD Graphics 4000

Thanks Again.

Warwick

[Laszlo Nagy]

Looks good if the screen resolution does not bother you.
Its memory is expandable to 16 GB in case you need to in the future.
Otherwise it looks fine.

[henrypootel]

The 5400RPM hard-drive is going to drag down the performance of the rest of the machine - it would be much better to get an SSD in it if possible, or even just upgrade the drive to a 7200RPM model. Get it with less RAM to make up the cost if you need to - that slow drive is a real killer.

also, that screen is a deal-breaker for archicad - it will be essentially un-usable without an external monitor, so if you ever intend to use ArchiCAD without one, you will need to upgrade that screen! You need at least 900 vertical pixels, although 1080p would be ideal.