College laptop

[Jerome Manzano]

So yesterday my dad bought my brother a new laptop for college. We recently bought a hp envy before this but it kept crashing and we had to return it to the store. We didn't have much time and the shop assistant showed us the Hp pavilion 15-au077sa. It costs 630 euros and I have no idea if it's good or not. My brother spent a day with it and it seems to handle normal internet browsing well. My brother is taking an engineering course and it involves the use of solidworks. Would this be an adequate laptop for his course?I feel like this is such an impulse buy. I'll show the specs below.

 

6th gen intel core i5-6200U (2.3 GHz, up to 2.8 GHz, 3 MB cache, 2 cores)

256GB SSD

8GB DDR4 Ram

windows 10

Integrated: Intel® HD Graphics 520

Battery type: 2-cell, 41 Wh Li-ion
Supports battery fast charge: 90% in 90 minutes

Battery life Up to 9 hours and 30 minutes

Display: 39.6 cm (15.6") diagonal HD SVA BrightView WLED-backlit (1366 x 768)

[ZetZet]

768p. KILL IT WITH FIRE

 

 

also HP.

[vorticalbox]

never used that software but i found this which shows that it likes cores but doesn't scale after 10 cores and therefore suggests fast 4 - 6 core CPUs. that i5 is a dual core hyper threaded. you will really want an i5 ending in HQ so you can have 4 physical cores.

[Jerome Manzano]

I'm a noob at computers in general , so I don't really understand what that means. Sorry vorticalbox.

[MrKat]

5 minutes ago, Jerome Manzano said:

I'm a noob at computers in general , so I don't really understand what that means. Sorry vorticalbox.

Get a laptop which has the processor name ending with HQ, for example: i5 6300HQ (http://ark.intel.com/products/88959/Intel-Core-i5-6300HQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_20-GHz). As it seems your brother will be using Processor intensive programs, 4-6 cores in the processor will be better.

[Jerome Manzano]

Ahhh okay thank you

[Jerome Manzano]

Would I need a better gpu or is this one fine?

[Ningols]

7 minutes ago, Jerome Manzano said:

Would I need a better gpu or is this one fine?

Depends if you want to game on it

 

[Jerome Manzano]

Don't you need a good gpu to render on solid works though?

[vorticalbox]

1 minute ago, Jerome Manzano said:

Don't you need a good gpu to render on solid works though?

from what google is saying and the article I linked too that it renders on the CPU not GPU. Having fast 4 - 6 cores give the best price to performance. That article was done in Dec 2015 is pretty recent. Quite interesting how it doesn't scale in some things well after 10 cores.

[Jerome Manzano]

2 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

from what google is saying and the article I linked too that it renders on the CPU not GPU. Having fast 4 - 6 cores give the best price to performance. That article was done in Dec 2015 is pretty recent. Quite interesting how it doesn't scale in some things well after 10 cores.

Getting my dad to go to the pc world for the third time and returning the laptop will definitely a challenge, but any suggestions as to which laptop to get?

[vorticalbox]

1 minute ago, Jerome Manzano said:

Getting my dad to go to the pc world for the third time and returning the laptop will definitely a challenge, but any suggestions as to which laptop to get?

when you get there tell them you want a laptop with an i5 ending in HQ. They will probally tell you to get this laptop because it has more ram so you can do more, or then one for better GPU. 

 

Remember PC helpers are there for one thing only, to get you to spend above your budget. travel agents do exactly the same thing.

 

Quote

Here is what you can get but if you pay just X more you will get all this.

seeing as you said PC world i assume you're in the UK? have you considdered using a website like http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ so you can configure the laptop as you see fit? pick a base model that change what you want.

[Jerome Manzano]

15 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

when you get there tell them you want a laptop with an i5 ending in HQ. They will probally tell you to get this laptop because it has more ram so you can do more, or then one for better GPU. 

 

Remember PC helpers are there for one thing only, to get you to spend above your budget. travel agents do exactly the same thing.

 

seeing as you said PC world i assume you're in the UK? have you considdered using a website like http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ so you can configure the laptop as you see fit? pick a base model that change what you want.

Thank you!!!!!!!!