dpn Posted November 16, 2005 Share Posted November 16, 2005 I am think of purchasing an Alienware Laptop. Anyone have any suggestions, or advice about specing the machine. Does anyone have experience with Alienware or know of a better machine? I will use it for 3D Max, Photoshop, and making presentations. Is it better to go with a P4 with 3gig of ram or AMD 64 bit with 2gig ram? Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks dpn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfa2 Posted November 16, 2005 Share Posted November 16, 2005 I've got the Alienware Area 51 laptop and I love it. P4 3.8Ghz, 2GB ram, 256MB video and 7200rpm RAID 0 hard drives. I do a lot of 3ds max, CAD, video editing and photoshop on it and it's great. It was expensive though, you might take a look at the BOXX laptops too, I'm not sure about the Dell XPS laptops, but they might be worth a look. I stayed away from the Pentium M processor, I wanted a P4, but others might disagree with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Posted November 16, 2005 Share Posted November 16, 2005 Totally agreee w/ going P4 over Pentium M. Just be ready for the heat that it generates and the short battery life! I'm sure the AMD would be a good choice as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpn Posted November 16, 2005 Author Share Posted November 16, 2005 I've heard good things about the Dell. However, it costs more than the Alienware with fewer options. I have not heard of Boxx, I will check them out. Is it worth spending the money on a 64 bit system. I have heard that many programs today can not take advantage of the extra power. Is this true with Max and Photoshop? Thanks dpn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfa2 Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 I don't think much of anything takes advantage of 64-bit (yet). Windows XP is 32-bit...so I think that is the limitation (I don't know much about that). Vray has a stand-alone 64-bit renderer that I think runs on Linix, but it's in beta right now. Yes, the Alienware gets hot and it is very heavy, not much fun to lug through an airport and forget watching a movie on it, the battery lasts about 45 minutes. It's truly a portable desktop and you have to think of it that way. Mine does have a cool feature that lets you listen to music, including mp3 disks, without powering up the laptop. The controls are right on the front and there are speakers on the front too, so you don't even need to open up the screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now