High Spec Laptops

Hi, so I have to buy a laptop for my Games Art course that has:
- Graphics card (NVIDIA)
- i7 processor
-12GB or higher RAM
-Large storage (e.g. 1TB)

However, the only laptops I can see are for over £600. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for good laptops for my type of course (invoves animation and 3D modelling) or if anyone knows any stores that have cheaper laptops with the same specs

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1

McFish

The resources at Staffordshire would more than suffice your needs with what programs you're going to be running. But I guess you already know that.I mean, I would recommend investing in a PC. It would suit your need better and you can upgrade it through time. It will cost you more in the short term, but aid you so much stronger in the long term. Laptops are like phones most of the time. Every 3 or so years you have to upgrade. Costing you quite a bit.

However, if you want to get a laptop, I've had a quick look around for you. You most likely won't find a laptop with your specs for less than £600, unless it used, which I'll get to in a minute. Just like to also say, before buying any laptop or PC, do your research on it for hours. Think about it for a couple of days. Then do more research, until you are truly happy to buy it. For the love of god do not waste your money.

With Animation and especially 3D Modelling, you might need a bit more than 12MB RAM, otherwise you may find your projects lagging a lot. If you don't know already, wouldn't worry about the Windows 8.1 on the laptops, you'll be able to upgrade to Win 10 for free when you get a Windows 8.1 laptop.

This also means try not to spend a large chunk of money on a waste of space. Invest wisely.

First up,

Lenovo Z70 17.3-Inch FHD Notebook

Amazon was the cheapest I could find after a quick look around. I've never used this laptop, but going by a couple of the reviews its not bad. Seems build quality isn't great. One guy commented on the quality of Wi-Fi but I can almost guarantee he didn't have his network set up on it correctly.

Acer Aspire V3-574G 15.6-Inch Notebook

This is probably your best bet. From what I've seen, it get very good reviews and should do your job nicely.

Now, IF you want lower price, keep an eagle eye out on Ebay and see what comes and goes, what sells for what price, customer reviews and what not. You won't get something new, and maybe not in the greatest of condition, but you'll be saving yourself a whole load of money.

I don't know a GREAT deal about laptops out there, and someone else maybe able to shed some light on this for you a lot better than what I can.

Hope this helps, or at least points you in the right direction.

Staffordshire University

Stoke-on-Trent

Visit website

Reply 2

CAElite

Ditto to the above, Its pretty difficult to find a laptop with an i7 and discrete GPU for less than £600, especiallly in the UK. At a glance the cheapest laptop available would probably be one of the budget PCSPECIALIST.com (Clevo/Sager) units which start at £400, however when you add on a nvidia GTX 850 (a pretty basic last gen GPU), 16gb ram and an I7 your up just touching 800.

Looking at laptops the market REALLY opens up in the 800-900 price range with many different laptops available with the spec you describe so if you can find the extra 200-300 quid then you have a big choice. I would personally recommend the Gigabyte P series as I have a P35X v4 myself and its fantastic spec for the money (£1250 with GTX980m). They do models with a GTX965m (P17F and P15F) for about £800. As do Asus and MSI which also make very good performance laptops.

HOWEVER, The lastest intel iris GPUs are actually pretty good in the new 5000 series mobile processors, Check out some reviews and see if a integrated GPU may be suitable as it will be far easier to get a high quality integrated GPU in your price range.

Also dont get too caught up about RAM and storage on laptop scews, they are very easily changed if the unit has slots available, Many budget laptops will only come equiped with 8gb of ram but can have another card put in for about £60, Some larger units have room for an extra 2.5" HDD and some higher end laptops are now coming with m.2 slots for internal SSD units, although the latter can be slightly more difficult to access and SSD storage can be costly (but imo worth it).

Another recommendation I would make is if your looking for a laptop to lug around to class for your course go with a 15" or smaller. Its more difficult than you would think to try to fit a big 17+inch unit into a backpack xD.

Reply 3

StaffsUniDave

You've got some great advice on laptops from the guys above. I'd also recommend checking out some of the specialist suppliers like OverclockersUK or Novatech. Sometimes you can find some really great deals on High-End machines. It's also worth looking out for deals on last year's models as well. One of my colleagues got a great deal on a 'desktop replacement' laptop simply because it was last year's model.

As McFish pointed out definitely do your research and compare specs and prices. It is worth spending that £100 if its going to buy you that extra year of use.

At Staffordshire we tend to suggest the recommend specs of our main software packages a a guideline; Unreal Engine being the most demanding, but also Autodesk Creative Suite (3ds Max, Maya etc), Pixologic Zbrush.

Personally I would recommend a system with the following as a minimum:

Windows 8.1/10 system
I7 Intel chipset (2.5ghz min)
16gb RAM
Nvidia 900 series gfx card

You'll be using Unreal Engine 4 a lot as part of the course, both for making games, and importing your art and animations. You'll also be working in multiple packages silmultaneously, so the higher end your machine the better.

All the best

Dave Edwards
Award Leader BA(Hons) Games Art
Staffordshire University

High Spec Laptops

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