Inexpensive Laptop for 3ds Max?

[StOngeCompany]

Hi Autodesk Forums,

I'm trying to build a laptop that will be able to run 3ds Max and (hopefully) not cost much more than $800.

After speccing on Dell, HP, and Lenovo, I came up with this system from Dell for about $700:

Intel® Core™ i3-2310M processor 2.10 GHz

4GB Shared Single Channel DDR3 Memory

AMD Radeon™ HD 6470M (64-bit) 512MB (Dual)

500GB 5400 RPM SATA Hard Drive

How would this system do running 3ds Max? Is it worth $60 to upgrade to 6GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 Memory?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, and I thank you in advance for your time, advice and insight.

Thank you,

St. Onge

[namssurt · Accepted solution]

This is so low end for what you expect it to do that you really need to start over. 5400 rpm drive? 4 GB memory? i3 chip? These are bottom of the line components. About the only thing on there that makes sense is the video, whichis about 3x as good as the rest of the system.

Of course being Dell, it is overpriced. But the expectation for 3ds  under $700 is way off the mark

[Discussion_Admin]

You might try asking your question in the 3ds Max forums on the Area.

Discussion_Admin

[OMCUSNR · Accepted solution]

Inexpensive for any acad app is +/-$1200.

You need at a minimum a 17" screen - PREIOD.  Don't argue or whine, if you want to do any production, that's a fact of life.  Next, you cannot share ram with a graphics driver.  The new I-series intel processors have an onboard graphics processor built in, but with anything less then 16gigs of system ram, using shared ram will bog the program down so badly you'll never get anything done.

Look at some of the Qosmio systems by Toshiba - they seem to be a good price / performance balance.

Reid

[StOngeCompany]

Thank you for the quick, helpful responses! I will definitely look into the Qosmio series and up my budget for appropriate specs.

Thanks so much,

St. Onge