Engineering Laptop for College

[MrMiniBeast]

I am going to college this fall to study engineering, and would like a laptop.

I like the idea of a yoga style laptop because I want to be super portable. However, I want as much power as possible to do 3d modeling, autocad, programming, and some light games.

I was thinking about possibly going with the Lenovo p40, but haven't seen many reviews, so if any one has any opinions I'd love to hear em!

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/p40-yoga/

[Bigheart]

hrmmmm, i have a suggestion, but you might not like it. im an architecture major so i have a pretty good idea of the programs you will be running. if you are just going into school, you will not have need for a super powerful piece of hardware right off the bat, so maybe get something like a razerblade stealth. it has a great screen, a skylake i7, enough ram to get by, and its ultra portable. the only downside to this is when you get into using higher need programs like rhino or solidworks or maybe even vray, you could experience some performance issues, but that is where the upgrade-ability comes into play. you can buy a razer core and a graphics card down the line and have nearly true desktop performance. if you sprung for it now, it would run you 1000 dollars for the laptop itself, and another 300 for the core modual, not to mention the graphics card, which would be at least 200. just a suggestion. 

[PooPipeBoy]

I study engineering myself and can testify that 3D modelling and AutoCAD are nowhere near resource-intensive as you'd think at first glance.

Yes it's true that 3D modelling CAN use a lot of resources, but only if you're handling very intricate 3D models with hundreds of parts, but as a student you'll just be playing around with models that have a maximum of 10-20 parts.

Do yourself a favour and save money by just getting a basic Core i5 laptop with discrete graphics, and it'd be more than enough.

[HamsterBurglar]

I too am going to college in the fall for engineering, and have been looking at similar choices, so I'll share what I've found with you. The first option I found was getting a Blade Stealth. It has an i7, long battery life, and is ultra portable. Along with that I have considered getting a Razer Core so that I could do things like game do 3D modeling with no problem whatsoever(the i7 will handle most 3D modeling applications with no problems at all). There are other options, like an XPS 15 with the 960m, which is a great laptop, although it runs a little hot. The P40 is a good laptop, but is pretty expensive for the hardware included.

[Bigheart]

2 hours ago, PooPipeBoy said:

I study engineering myself and can testify that 3D modelling and AutoCAD are nowhere near resource-intensive as you'd think at first glance.

Yes it's true that 3D modelling CAN use a lot of resources, but only if you're handling very intricate 3D models with hundreds of parts, but as a student you'll just be playing around with models that have a maximum of 10-20 parts.

Do yourself a favour and save money by just getting a basic Core i5 laptop with discrete graphics, and it'd be more than enough.

 

2 hours ago, HamsterBurglar said:

I too am going to college in the fall for engineering, and have been looking at similar choices, so I'll share what I've found with you. The first option I found was getting a Blade Stealth. It has an i7, long battery life, and is ultra portable. Along with that I have considered getting a Razer Core so that I could do things like game do 3D modeling with no problem whatsoever(the i7 will handle most 3D modeling applications with no problems at all). There are other options, like an XPS 15 with the 960m, which is a great laptop, although it runs a little hot. The P40 is a good laptop, but is pretty expensive for the hardware included.

both of these people are correct from my experience. 

[Bigheart]

2 hours ago, PooPipeBoy said:

I study engineering myself and can testify that 3D modelling and AutoCAD are nowhere near resource-intensive as you'd think at first glance.

Yes it's true that 3D modelling CAN use a lot of resources, but only if you're handling very intricate 3D models with hundreds of parts, but as a student you'll just be playing around with models that have a maximum of 10-20 parts.

Do yourself a favour and save money by just getting a basic Core i5 laptop with discrete graphics, and it'd be more than enough.

the only thing i have a problem with is that, at least in my experience, is that i only played with models that had that few pieces for maybe a semester, and now i am constantly swamped by projects consuming most of my time and consisting of 150-250 pieces, and my potato i5 laptop really doesnt like it that much. 

[CJPowell27]

In my experience, I have seen solidworks only really being RAM intensive and

occasionally CPU intensive. To be honest I would go for an XPS 13 or that one

Dell gaming laptop that Linus reviewed recently.

[TopDollar]

Just going to go ahead and quote my recommendation from the other thread as it holds true here too:

 

Quote

My degree is in Aeronautical Engineering. I recommend a laptop sub $1000. Most intensive program you'll ever run on it is MATLAB. For anything else, you'll be running off school computers. Hell, my last two years at school I didn't even own a laptop. It's really only useful because for some reason everyone will want to work together in groups in places that don't have computers.

 

[MrMiniBeast]

The Razer blade stealth seems like an awesome option! Thanks for the help!

Any suggestions on how much memory I should get, or an UHD vs QHD?

[Bigheart]

5 hours ago, MrMiniBeast said:

The Razer blade stealth seems like an awesome option! Thanks for the help!

Any suggestions on how much memory I should get, or an UHD vs QHD?

well, 8 gigs should be fine, and 1440 p is a good sweet spot

[Dackzy]

6 hours ago, Bigheart said:

well, 8 gigs should be fine, and 1440 p is a good sweet spot

Depends on the programs he is using. If he uses autocad then he should have 16gb ram and a i7.

 

OP the T460p is also very good since it has a quad core i5 or i7 and has a 14 inch screen + the higher end models lenovo is going to launch soon of the t460p will have a 940mx and you can put up to 32gb ram in it. I have the same problem as you OP where I have to replace my t420s with i7 2640m and nvs 4200m and The p40 and T460p are the only laptops I even want to look at since they are some of the very few that has a better cpu than the one in my laptop and a better combo for 3D work.

[jab136]

I am just starting my graduate studies in aerospace engineering, and I can say from experience that in the first two years at least you won't be needing much horsepower from any of your components, the heavy programs don't really start until the last two years, and it really depends on the software, CAD can get RAM intensive relatively quickly, and programming CAN be relatively intensive depending on what you are doing, however numerical programs (like FEA or CFD) are gonna be your real issues.  I got through all four years with a macbook that was dual booted to run windows 7, and just used the campus computers, but there were definitely times when having a laptop that could have done the stuff would have come in handy, so you may not want to skimp now, because when you really start needing the horsepower in 2-3 years the hardware will also be 2-3 years old, alternatively, you could get something cheap now, and then when you need the extra horsepower, upgrade.