Which is Better ?? WINDOWS OR MAC

[gokulahd]

Hey Guys . . . I am Civil Engineering Student . I am Thinking of buying a notebook For using AUTOCAD CIVIL 3d
So help me out in selecting  
MAC or WINDOWS
Is MACBOOK AIR 13' has the Enough Specitication  to Run cad ??
Or some better models in macbook like pro ... 

PlEASE HELP ME OUT ! ! !

[neilyj666]

Don't know anything about Macs but a 13' screen and Civil 3D will be painful to use. As you are a student presumably you wouldn't be using civil 8 hours a day so you may be happy enough to use a 13' screen but I certainly wouldn't recommend it...

[gokulahd]

Then suggest me Good LAPTOP for using cad 

[neilyj666]

This is a sample of forum threads relating to this - it really depends what you will use civil 3d for

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-civil-3d-general/advice-on-a-new-laptop-please-autocad-civil-3...

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-civil-3d-general/the-best-specification-for-a-laptop/m-p/51769...

[michael.robertson]

You'll definitely need to run Windows (a Windows machine or BootCamp on Mac). I support a very large amount of both Autodesk & Bentley Civil (Road, Bridge, Survey) applications and there is not one that runs on a Mac OS that I can thing of. (it may b

I would suggest at least a 15" screen (for mobility) with an external monitor(s) for real work. I support about 600 Civil users and screen real estate is premium, not a single one uses only one screen. (FYI, our travelling users had 15" laptops up for replacement with either another 15" or a 17" screen, everyone of them picked 17")

I won't get into the Mac vs. PC debate, just know it needs to run Windows.

[Hammer.john.j]

If you are a OSX person, and prefer Mac then I recommend a refurbished mid-2009 and newer 17" macbook pro (MBP)  They are still $900 to $1,500 dollars but I've been using my 2009 17"MBP since 2009 and they are 64 bit compatible.  I replaced my original HDD with an SSD this fall and doubled the ram.  I use boot camp with windows 7 pro and Civil 3D 2014.

bootcamp comes with the OSX but you'll need to buy windows 7, and I recommend 7pro from amazon, newegg, etc.

I also recommend lubos (spelling) fan control because windows does a poor job of recognizing the temperatures and properly operating the fans for the gpu and cpu (it's a twin fan setup, and the left or right, can't remember cools cpu as well), it'll get excessively hot if you don't control the fans.  Also, make sure you have the graphics set to the highest level to use the GeForce 9600, otherwise it'll revert to the 9400.

http://www.macofalltrades.com/MacBook-Pro-17-inch-HRG-2-66GHz-i7-Mid-2010-p/mbp-17-266-m10hrg.htm

I've thrown away the windows side on the machine 3 times and never rebuilt the OSX side.  All of the operating system upgrades for the OSX side require you to typically.... do nothing except "install".  However, upgrading the windows xp, windows vista, windows 7 i86 (32 bit) to 64 bit required starting over and each time I had to wait 1/2 the day for windows update patches and reinstall all of the software... consider windows disposable and mac side forever.  Also, if you backup to an external, you can't backup windows and osx to the same HDD.... consider cloud or seperate backup devices.

If all of this sounds like too much there are dirt cheap throwaway options as well.

[Joe-Bouza]

Thats been a debate since 1984.

[Hammer.john.j]

I should clarify, it's not that one is better than the other in my opinion it's just that each works well for different purposes and that's why I like having both.