Looking for a laptop for engineering

[hambobolubia]

I am starting school in September for electronic engineering and the school im going to wants a fairly beefy laptop here are their minimum specs  

on top of that i would like it to have the ability to be upgraded with an ssd and possibly more ram..pp preferably multiple nvme slots and a 2.5" sata drive bay

also looking for something that wont break that bank thanks

[hambobolubia]

1 minute ago, valdyrgramr said:

Any specific budget?

id say around 1000-1500(canadian) possibly more i guess it really depends on the laptop if it has something that i really like i wouldn't mind paying more

[Christophe Corazza]

From personal experience, I suggest ditching the HDD completely for an SSD.

[hambobolubia]

Just now, Christophe Corazza said:

From personal experience, I suggest ditching the HDD completely for an SSD.

i have a very large steam library at the moment i belive it take about 800GB and i dont think that is feesable for an ssd aswell as id like to experiment with VMs 

[Christophe Corazza]

1 minute ago, hambobolubia said:

i have a very large steam library at the moment i belive it take about 800GB and i dont think that is feesable for an ssd aswell as id like to experiment with VMs 

 

800 GB... yeah... than it won't be reasonably "in budget" anymore 

[Christophe Corazza]

You definitely want to have a CPU with decent single core performance (and turbo boost for that matter). Some of the software that you will be using during the first year(s) of engineering - MATLAB is an excellent example - is horribly single threaded.

 

28 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Then get one with an ssd as a boot drive and an ssd or sshd as a storage drive.

 

@hambobolubia's university mentions the HDD as a minimum requirement, but using an HDD for such applicaitons is simply shocking 

So an SSHD would indeed be a nice compromise.

[Christophe Corazza]

11 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

True, and part of the reason I suggested the 8750h is because it's a 6 core beast of a mobile CPU.  Especially when you start factoring in multicore performance too.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-8750H-vs-Intel-Core-i7-7700HQ/m470418vsm211019

 

That indeed looks like a perfect CPU to me. The MSI laptop that you’ve suggested would be able to get OP through engineering for sure. The HDD is also easily swappable for an SSHD, so no problems there. He might even swap them later on when his budget has recovered a little bit. Although... the laptop hasn’t got an optical drive ;-)

[Christophe Corazza]

3 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

You can always get a USB one, but it did say the optical drive was optional.

 

True :-D

[hambobolubia]

i know this is kind of a stupid questio but how would it compare to my current desktop 

intel core 2 quad Q6600 2.4G

8GB ram

and just a generic 7200RPM hdd

[genexis_x]

3 hours ago, hambobolubia said:

id say around 1000-1500(canadian) possibly more i guess it really depends on the laptop if it has something that i really like i wouldn't mind paying more

Do you have any special requirements like display size/quality, weight, battery life etc?

[engineernerd]

I would look at the Lenovo p series, p52s if you want portability over power or the p51 if you want power over portability. Also look at the hp zbook, and dell precision line. The hp and dell will be a bit more expensive. They all have mid tear quado graphics that will be able to handle any of your cad needs or simulation needs. Do you know any of the software you need to use?

[hambobolubia]

37 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

Do you have any special requirements like display size/quality, weight, battery life etc?

at this point no i really do like the look of the ThinkPads but as of now they are a little out of my budget

27 minutes ago, engineernerd said:

I would look at the Lenovo p series, p52s if you want portability over power or the p51 if you want power over portability. Also look at the hp zbook, and dell precision line. The hp and dell will be a bit more expensive. They all have mid tear quado graphics that will be able to handle any of your cad needs or simulation needs. Do you know any of the software you need to use?

for the software as far as i know autocad is mostly what they use.... im my own time i would like to run solidworks and cura for my 3d printer as well as eagle (with autorouter)for electronic projects 

[genexis_x]

7 minutes ago, hambobolubia said:

at this point no

MSI GP63 (8750H, 16GB, 1TB+128GB, 1050TI)