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View Full Version : Notebook with decent gpu and battery.



aussiedwarf
November 14th, 2010, 02:40 PM
Hi all, I'm looking for a new laptop to replace my current 4 year old dell inspiron. I'm in 3rd year of uni studying computer science and and am also working as a programmer. Some of the software I'm using and building is quite cpu intensive so I need a decent cpu. Some of them are also gpu intensive and I'm starting to experiment with cuda. I'm also trying to future proof my self so I'm hoping for something that is opengl 4.1/directX 11 compatible.

It also needs to have a decent battery life. I'm hoping for 4+ hours on a light load for taking notes in class and general surfing.

I was thinking of a i5 with nvidia 420-460 but linux does not seem to be compatible with Optimus meaning I need a i7 or to be able to turn off one of the graphics chipsets in the bios.

My price range is $1000 - $3000, and even up to $4000 if need be.

Can anyone recommend a laptop with a decent gpu and good battery?

alababi
November 14th, 2010, 03:47 PM
Hi all, I'm looking for a new laptop to replace my current 4 year old dell inspiron. I'm in 3rd year of uni studying computer science and and am also working as a programmer. Some of the software I'm using and building is quite cpu intensive so I need a decent cpu. Some of them are also gpu intensive and I'm starting to experiment with cuda. I'm also trying to future proof my self so I'm hoping for something that is opengl 4.1/directX 11 compatible.

It also needs to have a decent battery life. I'm hoping for 4+ hours on a light load for taking notes in class and general surfing.

I was thinking of a i5 with nvidia 420-460 but linux does not seem to be compatible with Optimus meaning I need a i7 or to be able to turn off one of the graphics chipsets in the bios.

My price range is $1000 - $3000, and even up to $4000 if need be.

Can anyone recommend a laptop with a decent gpu and good battery?
with this budget, I recommend a vaio Z

aussiedwarf
November 14th, 2010, 06:18 PM
with this budget, I recommend a vaio Z

Unfortunately the Vaio Z comes with a GT 330M which is not OpenGL 4.1 compatible. If it wasn't for the OpenGL requirements I would probably just go with a mac.

kaldor
November 14th, 2010, 06:22 PM
With that price range I'd recommend a MacBook Pro. Dual boot it with Ubuntu/Whatever and you're good to go.

MBP has a really good battery life and nVidia graphics. I use a late 2009 MacBook and the advertised 7 hour battery is about 4 hours with max brightness when web browsing, IMing and such.

Apart from some Audio issues, it's a good Linux machine as well.

kleskjr
November 14th, 2010, 06:32 PM
i would recommend you the Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad, T or W series.

alababi
November 15th, 2010, 01:19 AM
With that price range I'd recommend a MacBook Pro. Dual boot it with Ubuntu/Whatever and you're good to go.

MBP has a really good battery life and nVidia graphics. I use a late 2009 MacBook and the advertised 7 hour battery is about 4 hours with max brightness when web browsing, IMing and such.

Apart from some Audio issues, it's a good Linux machine as well.

The GPU of the MBP is a GT330 like that of the vaio Z but has less memory. And obviously the Z got the more powerful spec.

owoito
November 15th, 2010, 01:31 AM
As someone has already mentioned in the post, go for IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad T or W series. IBM won't fail you and the battery life is decent. I own two of these machines and they're excellent.

pwnst*r
November 15th, 2010, 02:13 PM
Lenovo

aussiedwarf
November 15th, 2010, 06:39 PM
A few people have been suggesting IBM/Lenovo. I have had a look and I cannot see any laptops that are cuda or opengl 4.0 capable. Macbook pro and Sony Vaio Z do look sexy but suffer from the same problems. If I forgo my GPU requirements I will probably get one of them.

Looking around I see that there are a few laptops that could fit the bill. All of the laptops listed below have i5 or i7 processor, Nvidia 420M-460M Graphics chip.

Dell XPS 14, 15
Alienware M15x
Asus N53jq, N53jr and G53jw
MSI GE603, GT663, FX603
Sager NP5135, NP8690
Sony VAIO F

My concern though is that a i7 will eat too much battery and that if I go for something with a i5, it won't be compadible with ubuntu because of optimus. Does anyone have any experience with the laptops listed above?

Does anyone have any more suggestions?

M1ke
November 15th, 2010, 08:06 PM
Does anyone have any more suggestions?

Sounds like it might be a little under the spec you're looking for, but I've had no trouble at all with my Lenovo G550. Intel Core 2 Duo CPU (2.2GHz), 4GB DDR3 RAM and nVidia G210M graphics (512MB). Is that enough grunt for your workload, or are you looking for a heftier graphics card and faster processor? Battery life ain't bad and aside from a little boot splash tweaking, I've had no trouble with Ubuntu 10.04 or 10.10 on it. The "cuda" and OpenGL stuff is a little beyond me though, you'd have to look in to that.

juancarlospaco
November 15th, 2010, 10:21 PM
Battery hate GPU, GPU hate Battery.

Brent0
November 15th, 2010, 10:37 PM
How about this?
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=WzU7IKA6SWdBvaRd

The specs are what you want except for the battery life. I don't think a high-end laptop should be expected to have a long battery life though.

aussiedwarf
November 17th, 2010, 12:04 AM
Sounds like it might be a little under the spec you're looking for, but I've had no trouble at all with my Lenovo G550. Intel Core 2 Duo CPU (2.2GHz), 4GB DDR3 RAM and nVidia G210M graphics (512MB). Is that enough grunt for your workload, or are you looking for a heftier graphics card and faster processor? Battery life ain't bad and aside from a little boot splash tweaking, I've had no trouble with Ubuntu 10.04 or 10.10 on it. The "cuda" and OpenGL stuff is a little beyond me though, you'd have to look in to that.

Yeah, a Nvidia 210M is to underpowered for me.


How about this?
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=WzU7IKA6SWdBvaRd

The specs are what you want except for the battery life. I don't think a high-end laptop should be expected to have a long battery life though.

The G73 is pretty good. I would probably go for the smaller, G53 model. Looking at reviews though, the G53 does not get that much battery life because of the 460M gpu.

Its looking like the XPS 14 pr 15 will have the be the laptop for me as it just gets enough battery life. Unfortunately I may have to life without ubuntu unless the Optimus gets sorted or I can use some hack.

The Sager NP5135, MSI GE603, Asus N53/N43 may do the trick but I cannot find any numbers on their battery life.