The only caveats I have is that it must be lightish (<2.5 kg) and powerful.

Any suggestions?


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Stephen escreveu:

> The only caveats I have is that it must be lightish (<2.5 kg) and powerful.

> Any suggestions?

I believe any laptop these days is more powerful than my desktop. :p

certainly far more powerful than what you had when you first went poving...

In any case, I think having multicore is a must...

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I believe any laptop these days is more powerful than my desktop. :p

  But probably not as powerful as an equivalent desktop PC.

  I haven't really followed CPU design all that much, but I have the notion
that laptops use special versions of desktop CPUs which consume less power
and need less ventilation (because that's kind of mandatory in a laptop)
at the cost of being less efficient than the desktop counterpart of the
same CPU.

  Of course that doesn't mean that the fastest laptop CPU today isn't faster
than the fastest desktop CPU of 5 years ago.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 05/11/2010 07:11 PM, Warp wrote:

>    I haven't really followed CPU design all that much, but I have the notion
> that laptops use special versions of desktop CPUs which consume less power
> and need less ventilation (because that's kind of mandatory in a laptop)
> at the cost of being less efficient than the desktop counterpart of the
> same CPU.

Yeah, laptops have several conflicting design constraints. Users want 
the fastest, most powerful CPU and the biggest baddest GPU and stacks of 
RAM and the fastest HD and the biggest, brightest LCD. But they also 
want the batteries to last for 8 hours straight without recharging. And 
they want it to be small, and light. And not get hot. And be quiet.

Obviously, more CPU power = shorter battery life. And more heat. You can 
have more fans and make it louder, or you can have fewer fans and roast 
somebody's lap. Craming stuff into small spaces is also hard, especially 
if it gets hot.

Jesus, I'm glad I don't design laptops! >_<

So yeah, the best desktop will out-perform the best laptop, and if you 
have a desktop and a laptop of the same performance, the laptop will be 
far, far more expensive. (But not as expensive as a Mac, obviously.)

>    Of course that doesn't mean that the fastest laptop CPU today isn't faster
> than the fastest desktop CPU of 5 years ago.

Sure.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:57:55 +0200, Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote
:

> I’m looking for advice on buying a laptop that I can use for P
ovRay-ing.  

> The only caveats I have is that it must be lightish (<2.5 kg) and  

> powerful.
> I won’t mention money as I’m working ATM.
> Any suggestions?
>
>

http://www.alienware.com/Landings/laptops.aspx

You can customize it any way you like.

-Nekar Xenos-

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I've been looking at fast multi-core laptops too, trying to decide what to buy,
specifically which fast processor. Intel's core i7-980x Extreme Edition would
appear to be *the* processor to get--with 6 cores and 12 threads!--but there are
only a few such laptops out there at present (not to mention *expensive*); and
in any case, they wouldn't be as fast as an equivalent desktop model AFAIK, for
the reasons already mentioned.

I was wondering something: With Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, would the
core i7-980x be able to run Pov-Ray on *12* simultaneous, parallel threads, or
only 6 (because it has only six cores)? Sorry if that's a naive question; I'm
still trying to understand the difference between 'cores' and 'threads' and how
they impact Pov-Ray performance.

Ken

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Kenneth wrote:
> still trying to understand the difference between 'cores' and 'threads' and how
> they impact Pov-Ray performance.

A "hyperthread" is basically an ALU, registers, etc, but not the logic to do 
memory access.  So three cores with two "hyperthreads" each has three ways 
to get to memory but six ALUs.  The advantage is that while one of the ALUs 
is waiting for data to come in from memory, the other can be doing 
computation.  Obviously having more cores is better than having more 
hyperthreads, but two hyperthreads are cheaper than two complete cores.

A 'thread" in POV-ray is a software construct that basically consumes one 
ALU, so one POV-ray thread would match one "hyperthread" core in your CPU.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:

> A 'thread" in POV-ray is a software construct that basically consumes one
> ALU, so one POV-ray thread would match one "hyperthread" core in your CPU.
>

Thanks; some good info. Lots to learn! ;-)

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On 08/11/2010 4:42 PM, Nekar Xenos wrote:
> On Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:57:55 +0200, Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>
>> I’m looking for advice on buying a laptop that I can use for
>> PovRay-ing. The only caveats I have is that it must be lightish (<2.5
>> kg) and powerful.
>> I won’t mention money as I’m working ATM.
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>>
>
> http://www.alienware.com/Landings/laptops.aspx
>
> You can customize it any way you like.
>

Arrg! Dell! LOL ;-)

A good idea but I want to walk into the store, hand over my bit of 
plastic and walk out carrying my new purchase.

Besides that Dell have a very poor reputation for customer service in 
the UK.

But thanks for posting the link.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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On 09/11/2010 12:05 AM, Kenneth wrote:
> I've been looking at fast multi-core laptops too, trying to decide what to buy

I'm thinking of buying a Toshiba Satellite A660-1F4.



-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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