Right, so before I get into my recent order with PCS, i'd just like to point out that I was one of the more recent casualties from Kobalt. However, during the time between i placed my order and they went bust, they were actually very helpful. With some much appreciated help from my credit card providers, I ended up getting my monies back, and just the other day ordered a Vortex II 15 from PCS.
So the key specs I went for were:
The main reason I went for all that is mainly because I'm a student of architecture, and I do a lot of 3d modelling, hence the massive ram. If my budget was a bit more, I probably would have opted for a faster hard drive, followed by the next up graphics card to help with rendering. However, the 16 rams will definitely speed up my rendering! At the moment, my current laptop, at more than 4 years old, is running just 4 rams and a 512mb graphics card. A decent render (limited reflections, limited raycasting etc, no hdri background) takes in excess of 2-3 hours (that's running VRay for SU8), so if i can half that time with this, I'll be delighted, although I suspect it'll be even quicker again. As far as i know, the number of threads VRay will process at one time is governed by the spec, so if it'll run more than 2 threads, it's going to be much quicker.
Other than that, I'm a big music head, and I've started getting into using Ableton. I've an AKAI MPK Mini to go with it, and when using the controller, there's a noticible latency issue. This doesn't happen on my friend's laptop, and he's only running 8Gb, so I'm guessing that the new system, and i'm presuming usb 3.0, will help with that. In any case, I've my sound system for the laptop already set up. It's a 100W amp head with two pro-spec pioneer speaker cabs. Each cab has an 8" and two 4" speakers in it. The neighbours dont like them, but i dont like their choice in music at 4am, so I win that one.
In anycase, its only in day 2 of pre-production, so I'll keep you guys posted on the progress of it. I'm VERY excited about it right now!
So the key specs I went for were:
- Vortex II: 15.6" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
- Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2760QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
- 16GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (4 x 4GB)
- 1.5GB nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M - DirectX® 11 (15.6" Vortex II)
- 500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
The main reason I went for all that is mainly because I'm a student of architecture, and I do a lot of 3d modelling, hence the massive ram. If my budget was a bit more, I probably would have opted for a faster hard drive, followed by the next up graphics card to help with rendering. However, the 16 rams will definitely speed up my rendering! At the moment, my current laptop, at more than 4 years old, is running just 4 rams and a 512mb graphics card. A decent render (limited reflections, limited raycasting etc, no hdri background) takes in excess of 2-3 hours (that's running VRay for SU8), so if i can half that time with this, I'll be delighted, although I suspect it'll be even quicker again. As far as i know, the number of threads VRay will process at one time is governed by the spec, so if it'll run more than 2 threads, it's going to be much quicker.
Other than that, I'm a big music head, and I've started getting into using Ableton. I've an AKAI MPK Mini to go with it, and when using the controller, there's a noticible latency issue. This doesn't happen on my friend's laptop, and he's only running 8Gb, so I'm guessing that the new system, and i'm presuming usb 3.0, will help with that. In any case, I've my sound system for the laptop already set up. It's a 100W amp head with two pro-spec pioneer speaker cabs. Each cab has an 8" and two 4" speakers in it. The neighbours dont like them, but i dont like their choice in music at 4am, so I win that one.
In anycase, its only in day 2 of pre-production, so I'll keep you guys posted on the progress of it. I'm VERY excited about it right now!