Advice required about best laptop choice for 3D use

[sleipnir]

Hi Guys,

 

I want to update my laptop where I do most of my renders, a Centrino Duo T2400, 1.83 ghz, 2GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce Go 7600, windows XP Pro (it has to be a laptop not a desktop).

 

The idea is to buy something with noticeable better performance when dealing with 3D Max and VRAY but keeping away from the big spending (Ideally less than 2k).

 

I'm considering three models, I'd need someone to help me determine if the better ones worth the bucks to justify the extra spending, these are the options:

 

1)Cheapest ($1.400): Toshiba Satellite X205-S9810, Processor Intel Core2 Duo T5750 [2.00GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 667MHz FSB], 3GB DDR2 SDRAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT 512MB, 17” (WXGA+) TFT LCD Display (1440x900), 320GB HDD (5400rpm, Serial-ATA), Vista home premium

 

2)Medium ($1.900): Toshiba Satellite X205-SLi5, Processor Intel Core2 Duo T8300 [2.40GHz, 3MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB], 3GB PC2-5300 DDR2,

17” (WXGA+) TFT LCD Display (1440x900), SDRAM, NVIDIA SLi Dual GeForce Go 8600M GT 512MB GGDDR3, 320GB HDD (5400rpm, using 2 Serial-ATA), Vista home premium

 

3)Expensive ($2.400): Toshiba Satellite X205-SLi6 Intel Core2 Duo Processor T9300 [2.50GHz, 6MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB], 3GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM, 17” (WSXGA+) TFT LCD Display (1680x1050), NVIDIA Sli Dual GeForce Go 8600M GT 512MB GDDR3,

400GB HDD (7200rpm, using 2 Serial-ATA)

 

Additional questions:

-Will the processor cache size have great impact on the 3D performance?

(I mean it for the one with 6mb cache)

-Same for the hard drive speed from 5400 to 7200.

-Does 3Dmax take advantage of a SLI graphic card? The last two have 256mx2 SLI I understand, and the first one 512mb non-SLI. If the answer is no, I will have less video memory available with the more expensives ones?.

 

Thank you

 

Diego

[AJLynn]

None of those are going to be a blow-you-away improvement over what you've got, but you seem to already understand what's involved so why are you asking? #1 is the best value, #3 is the fastest, it's got the new CPU series which is somewhat faster. SLI gives some improvement but it's not as big for Max as it is for games and it's probably not worth getting a laptop. Then it's just what you want to spend.

[sleipnir]

Thanks Andrew

[Tyorl]

I prefer Dell M6300