27 replies to this topic

[Big Tin Man]

So my work rig is slowly dying off. I'm in with my IT guy and use enough heavy applications to basically ask for anything I want within reason. Normally we stick with dells and get a good corporate discount, but if I can make an argument for more computer for less money, that talks.

Here's my list of must haves:

• Professional appearance (little to no gaming BS colors, logos, lights etc)
  
• i7 processor (autocad, solidworks, and revit)
  
• Windows 7 Pro (must have for work software, may be able to live with formatting win 10 and buying a separate downgrade, if needed add to price)
  
• 17"+ screen
  
• 10 key pad
  
• Solid, dedicated video card
  
• 500 GB HDD (larger, solid state or dual HDD's a bonus)
  
• 1920x1080 or greater
  
• Under $2200, or else I go the Dell route

Preferences

• Less weight, I travel a lot (I do know that 17" screens are inherently heavy)
  
• Decent battery life for presentations
  
• VGA output jack (office projectors are wired for VGA, hdmi isn't hardwired everywhere yet), can live with using adapter pigtails if necessary
  
• Built in ethernet jack (again, can live with adapter pigtail if necessary)
  
• 8GB+ ram

Here's the benchmark rig: http://www.dell.com/...710-workstation

Things I don't like are the small-ish HDD, weight, and excessive price to upgrade HDD's to a SSD or dual.

What can you find out there?

[MovinTarget]

I don't know it will have *all* your fixins but i run mwo at 40-50fps on a 2 yr old Dell Precision m4800. Nice professional appearance. Use it for IT/dev work...

Might be a jumping off point...

[Big Tin Man]

MovinTarget, on 19 April 2016 - 04:41 PM, said:

I don't know it will have *all* your fixins but i run mwo at 40-50fps on a 2 yr old Dell Precision m4800. Nice professional appearance. Use it for IT/dev work...

Might be a jumping off point...

Current rig is a precision m6800, I'm familiar. It lived a hard life traveling a lot, dents scratches and dead pixels on screen. It just burns me that dell wants an additional $500 for the hard drives I want (256 SSD for o/s, 1 TB 7200 for storage).

[MovinTarget]

Don't sweat that, get it w/ 250-500 ssd and an external using usb3

[Catamount]

Why not just get the cheapest storage option available and purchase your own drive? No company is going to give you drives at good prices, so either go external like Movin suggests, or get an M.2 850 Evo - they're not expensive

http://www.newegg.co...7-399-_-Product

[LT. HARDCASE]

Configure one of these.

[Big Tin Man]

Fair point catamount. Don't want to go external, as I travel a lot and don't want to drag a bunch of crap with me everywhere. I guess I just don't want the hassle of switching the OS to the SSD.

[Kshat]

If you downgrade Win10 to Win7 - why do you want this or even, why does your admin support this btw? - you have to install your OS either way. Not much additional hassle to twist some screws and insert a nice SSD.
Built-in VGA-ports are hard to come by nowadays.

Is there any need for a workstation GPU like Quadro or FirePro?
If not, maybe you should take a look at the Gigabyte P37Wv5 or P57Wv5. Available with Intel i7-6700HQ - full fledged Skylake Quadcore with bells and whistles - and a GTX970M with enough budget left to buy a 1TB SSD and additional stuff.

P.S.: as far as I see, main difference is glare vs non glare.

http://www.gigabyte....kw=P37W%20v5#kf

http://www.gigabyte....spx?pid=5733#kf

Edited by Kshat, 20 April 2016 - 07:35 AM.

[HighTest]

http://www.dell.com/...-15-9550-laptop

Here you go. Fast CPU (which MWO likes, even over graphics), good GPU, very professional. Expensive as heck, and probably not the best bang for your buck, but it's not your buck, right?

I think this should check off all your tickboxes, except price-wise. But if you get a decent corporate discount, you should be close.

[Big Tin Man]

HighTest, on 20 April 2016 - 07:38 AM, said:

http://www.dell.com/...-15-9550-laptop

Here you go. Fast CPU (which MWO likes, even over graphics), good GPU, very professional. Expensive as heck, and probably not the best bang for your buck, but it's not your buck, right?

I think this should check off all your tickboxes, except price-wise. But if you get a decent corporate discount, you should be close.

No 10 key, 15" screen, no physical VGA. And the dell precision that I have my IT guy pricing is around $2800, and it's pretty equivalent to the gigabyte's Kshat posted, except they're $2100ish.

@Kshat Win 7 is an absolute requirement for some software required for work. Not negotiable. As for graphics, I do run some heavy CAD from time to time, so a beefy dedicated GPU is a good thing

[Kshat]

Dedicated GPU is one thing. The Gigabytes field a GTX970m, which is roughly equivalent to a GTX960, but without the memory bottleneck.
But some software will do great with specialized drivers for CAD etc, but these drivers are only available for Quadro or FirePro-GPUs. Which are absolutely identical to normal GPUs, besides the specialized drivers. Which aren't that well optimized for some games, so minor differences there.

[HighTest]

Big Tin Man, on 20 April 2016 - 11:23 AM, said:

No 10 key, 15" screen, no physical VGA. And the dell precision that I have my IT guy pricing is around $2800, and it's pretty equivalent to the gigabyte's Kshat posted, except they're $2100ish.

@Kshat Win 7 is an absolute requirement for some software required for work. Not negotiable. As for graphics, I do run some heavy CAD from time to time, so a beefy dedicated GPU is a good thing

Sorry - misread your email. Though you were complaining that 17s were too heavy. I needz to lern how to reeds better.

[Farnsworthiness]

I picked up a Lenovo y510p a few years ago. It looks like it satisfies most of the items on your list. Price was around $1000.

[xWiredx]

The GPU conundrum will be a problem. There can be a drastic difference in gaming performance between the professional cards and the gaming cards because of how the drivers are written. There are some sketchy but usually usable workarounds for this out there, but if this is going to end up being a production rig for work in addition to a gaming rig I would stray from attempting them. This essentially means you will probably end up having to choose one or the other (which here would obviously mean you go the gaming route).

Does this not meet your standards? Obviously customize to taste. Starting at $1300. Even with the upgrades to the 2400MhZ RAM, the 512GB Samsung 850 Pro SSD, the IC Diamond thermal compound, copper cooling upgrade, and Win7 Pro its under $1900.

[Big Tin Man]

I was eyeing the xotic builds, and I think the differences between the full corporate build with a high end dell is a 6920 i7 vs. 6700, and quadro m3000m/m4000m/m5000m vs. GTX 970m vs. GTX 980m.

Games are truly a secondary consideration, my desktop at home is what I use there. I'm just trying to get solid bang for a buck, and if I can get some gaming bonuses for the same money, nobody in the office will care.

[xWiredx]

As long as the drivers cooperate with any given game, the M5000M should perform almost as well as the 980M. Xotic does have a build with an M3000M in the right price range by Sager, but the M5000M is a pricey beast.

The 6920 is truly the top mobile i7 in the Skylake series right now, but the difference between the 6700 and 6920 is going to be somewhat small. That 300MhZ can definitely come in handy with MWO and anything CPU-bound, but the actual difference isn't going to be a major difference unless it's working on something HUGE. If you're using the GPU to accelerate a CAD program, though, the CPU is going to matter a lot less.

Something to note: backlit keyboards are a thing now. They're been considered a 'professional' touch for at least half a decade, maybe longer, since Macbook Pros have come with it for ages now. The fact that its RGB and configurable doesn't make it any less 'professional'. I think if that feature is present, since you can configure it or just turn it off completely, it shouldn't be a dealbreaker.

[Zirakss]

All three applications are demanding a professional graphic card. Those are pricy things. You can say, they are a kind of hardware dongle for the professional drivers. They are close to high end gamer cards, but have some improvments like double precison etc. which make them so performant in CAD applications. Or otherwise you could say, high end gamer cards are artifical crippeld around those features.

If money is no problem I would choose something like this monster:
Lenovo ThinkPad P70 20ER

Those thinkpad are great and durable machines. Otherwise go for your dell.

[Big Tin Man]

Ok, so can someone explain from a CAD based application perspective: which gpu is better quadro m3000m vs. GTX980m. I'm sure both will run games fine from a hotel room, and I'm not giving up my desktop machine any time soon.

I'm now heads up between two rigs and this is the deciding factor.

[xWiredx]

Because of the double-precision and other non-gimped things (like drivers) for Quadro cards, CAD programs benefit a lot more. Gaming cards are typically noticeably slower (sometimes as little as 10% slower, sometimes as much as 90% slower) even with higher clock speeds.

[Catamount]

It's a pity AMD doesn't have a single serious mobile chip out since their cards have good double-precision floating point performance even in the gaming segment parts (even Tahiti is still a power house there).