Reply With QuoteW44NNE is the resident IT guy on here. Might be worth throwing him a PM?
Evening all,
My faithful MSI laptop just won't render any hi res designs for me. It just cuts off all power. Like it for some reason is overloading.
I use a program called Articad. Its a kitchen design tool and I use it on a daily basis. So I'm in a bit of a rush to find a suitable replacement. Requirements are i7. Ideally 16gb ram. Solid state drive would be a bonus. I don't want to spend the earth though. I'd say £600 really.
I'm not loyal to any brand. I do want something that will at least last 3/5 years.
Thanks in advance folks.
Mark
W44NNE is the resident IT guy on here. Might be worth throwing him a PM?
i7, 16GB RAM and a SSD is pushing it for just 600 pounds...
You'd find one of those Asus ROG laptops for example pre-owned for that kind of mine and with such specifications. They're made for gaming but also work just as well for what you need. Should find last year's generation available at that price I believe...
You might be able to get a new one as well but probably at a bit of a discount as well. Those with SSD, 16GB RAM and a solid CPU are pretty up there in terms of price... Then again, the RAM and SSD can be installed later on. RAM shouldn't be expensive and as for SSD you could just get a smaller one for the OS and installing/running software...
A quick look on PC World found this to be the lowest price matching your criteria, but ordo is right - you'll be lucky to buy brand new and/or current with that spec at £600
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/comput...53659-pdt.html
Some of the newer ROG laptops with GTX 10xx series GPU:s seem to suffer from overheating. Some of the 15" models have some trouble with the power supply. I've read complaints that the computer will use battery power under heavy use even when the charger is connected. Can't be a good thing in the long run. I advise to peruse possible problems of the specific model before purchase.Originally Posted by ordo
Sounds like your current laptop is overheating, maybe worth getting it looked at?
Do not buy a HP mine was knackered after 18 months
Apple?
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You may just about get an ipad at the OPs budget....
I would recommend giving https://www.chillblast.com/ a visit to see if anything takes your fancy, they are more for desktop PCs, mind.
Thanks for the help people. Much appreciated. It will be bought through the business and as time is a factor I don't want to be waiting for repairs that may not cure the issue. Maybe the budget needs revising....
Mark
http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer...ore+i5&456=8GB
These are the closest things I could find to match your specs in the ~£600 price range, perhaps you will have to indeed increase the budget.
You can always get better specs for less money if you opt for a desktop :)
If you're happy with a refurbished laptop, try Dell Outlet: http://www.dell.com/uk/dfh/p/laptops You still get a 1 year guarantee and can save a fair bit. I've bought 3 from there over the years and never had a problem. Stock changes every day so keep checking the site regularly.
There's currently an i7 with 16Gb for about £520 inc. VAT or with a SSD for £720. Both have dedicated graphics cards too which would probably be useful with Articad.
i7 here http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/comput...868&awid=47868
No ssd but plenty of storage.
Or this with SSD http://www.ebuyer.com/760636-hp-250-...es-x0q77es-abu
I have one of those with 8GB RAM since I don't need any more. Decent quality. Lappies with HD screens bottom out at around £600.
Not sure how valid that advice is, to be honest........
Regardless of what brand or type of laptop you buy, given the technical requirements that you have for it, overheating will be an issue as that is what powerful laptops do.
We're still a few years away from having laptops that are both powerful and reliant/safe. Sadly. Many of today's laptops can suffer from all sorts of issues but it's more of a 4 good ones 1 bad one type of situation. It's not the brand or model itself that is necessarily prone to issues.
Some of the Asus ROG laptops have dual fan cooling but I'm guessing those are either newer models or more expensive ones.
Refurbished seems like an interesting idea to me, as well. Good luck! :)
AMD ryzen was released yesterday i think. Seems to be smashing intels top of the range CPU for a half the money. Not sure if they have any laptops with them in yet though.
This doesn't seem a bad deal for £350 not perfect but cheap for quick buy and then bang in another 8gb of memory
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/comput...868&awid=47868
A little update. I stripped the laptop down yesterday as a few people have said it may have been an overheating issue. There are 3 big copper heat sinks inside that run to the fan. There wasn't really any dust inside the laptop. I pulled out every component I could and just gave it a good blow out, more so in desperation than anything else. All back together and hey presto. So far so good. I've been putting it back through its paces and so far so good.
The laptop is a MSI CX61. As I said before it has Intel i7-3630 16gb ram and a 1tb hard disk. It's probably 4 years old and I'm surprised how when I was looking at a new laptop, things don't appear on paper to have moved on as much as I would have thought. It has a nvidia GeForce card in. I did pay around £800 I think when I bought it, so it wasn't cheap.
I just wrongly assumed that the prices for a similar spec machine would have fallen, some what like LCD LED TVs.
If you could replace the HD with a SSD should speed it up and run cooler.
Yep switching in a SSD will make a big improvement. But a like for like size with the existing HD will be pricey. So you need to strip out any rubbish and maybe factor in a portable HD to hold files you are not currently working on.
I'm far from a PC expert. I did remove the hard drive tho, will an ssd just straight swap out then? I've got a nas drive at home and drop box so storage isn't a major issue.
Where would I be best buying an ssd from??
Changing to SSD will blow your mind with the speed. Pop in a shop and see how fast they boot up :-o
If you want to fit one, the Samsung 850 evo is the best I believe.
You might also look at getting a Intel Compute Stick, Goolge to find out more.
If you buy a laptop, I'd recommend Lenovo for quality. And John Lewis offer a 2yr free warranty.
850 pro is better but probably not worth extra cost. Both are excellent drives.
Thanks both, I will have a look into it.
The SSD should be a straight replacement. If you have a Samsung drive they offer a free version of Acronis True Image to do the copy and resize. You also need a USB to sata cable to external attach the SSD for the copy. It is all pretty simple.
Something related pc/laptop http://pc4u.org/
We've just ordered a refurb Dell from the outlet and with student discount (NUS card) it was below £600.
Inspiron 15 - 7560
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-7500U (2 Core, 4MB Cache, up to 3.5 GHz,15W)
Windows 10 Home (64bit)
16GB (1x16GB) 2400MHz SDRAM DDR4 Non-ECC
256 GB SATA III Solid State Hard Drive
2GB Nvidia GeForce 940MX
15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS Truelife LED-Backlit Display
http://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/S...Tg2ccz9cKrg%3d
The SSD is a straight swap but you would need the to reinstall everything, ie your operating system, all your programs, etc. If you have a PC as well you can use drive ghosting software (sorry I do not know of a free one to hand but I am sure someone will be able to mention one) to basically take a direct copy of your existing drive and copy it on to the SSD, thus you do not need to worry about reinstalling anything.
As others have said the performance increase for the outlay is totally worth it.
The Samsung SSD prices seem a bit steep but they are good drives. If you can live without the full 1TB then the 500GB is a bit more affordable.
Look at Macrium Reflect to do the transfer (it's free): https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
Make sure you copy all of the partitions including the Recovery one if present. Take the opportunity to create a rescue disk as well - all this is covered in the help files on the Macrium website.
Macrium can also make scheduled backup images of your drive & it's a good idea to do this if it's your business PC as SSDs can fail without warning. I bought a 2TB Samsung external drive & Macrium runs once a week & stores a backup image onto it. It really doesn't take long & it could save you from disaster.
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