maxs

hi, am going to travel in spring for 3 mounths, and need a notebook where i can do (practice) archviz. i know i should look for high performing notebboks like the dell precisions with open gl cards etc, but my budged is 1200 euro maximum.
another limit, nothing bigger than 17"(because mobility)
i have an eye on the dell vostro 1500:

core 2 duo t7250
4 gig ram
200 gig hdd 7200rpm
nvidia gf 8600m gt
wxga 1280/800 non glare
3 years support
win xp pro-32bit(no 64-bit shipped)
price: 1200 euro inkl. taxes

questions:
who has experience with a 1280/800 solution? wount take the 1440/900 as it is only shipped with a "true life" panel, wich glares.

nvidia gf 8600m gt and 3dsmax has someone experiences?

do 4 gig ram make sense with a 32 bit os? never used it, but will try the 3 gig switch.

thanks

Wayne Harney

I'm using a vostro 1700 with no complaints. Good price/performance IMO. The gf 8600m works fine with 3dsmax. I have the true life which does glare badly but I've learned to live with it (usually just tilting it down a little solves the glare). I use it a ton with photoshop and the color performance is worth it but if that's not a priority I'd get the non glare. The extra hi res also results in tiny icons and text that can only be fixed to a certain point by increasing windows text size. I have my text size set to the biggest possible (anything bigger screws up my toolbars) and it's still hard to read. I wouldn't bother with more than 2GB of ram without a 64bit OS. I'm using XP32 with 2gb.

__________________
Pssssst... a Mac IS a PC!

Mazinger

Hi there,
I was doubting between the vostro 1500 and asus V1, and going more towards the asus I think. Reviews of this one are really good.
I heard the WXGA screen of the vostro is not fantastic (go for WSXGA, price difference is not to big, and that gives you 1680x1050 resolution)
3G of Ram on 32 bit is the maximum, no?
3 years of warranty are interesting though...
Btw, I go for 2.2 processor, that way I can hook it up to my desktop as part of a renderfarm ;-)

CookiE

I got a vostro 1500 and sometimes model on that and works perfectly fine for me

mikedeerf

I have a Vostro 1500, with the bottom of the line 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo chip, and the Intel graphics.

It works fine, within expectations. That is, it does fine with rendering. Not nearly as fast as my quad-core at home, obviously, but it beats the P4 3.4GHz workstation at the office.

For graphics, I stick to wireframe or hidden line mode more than shaded, and I try to minimize my viewport refreshes. You'll probably do much better with the GeForce, though.

I like the glossy screen, although I do have to be careful about controlling the light. No outdoor work, for sure!

tecton3d

i respectfully disagree.

just because a single 32bit applicaton can't use more than 2gb's (or whatever the specific amount per software is)... that doesn't mean several of them used at once can't. Get the 4gb's and appreciate the ability to multitask.

i currently have 4gb's installed in xp32 with the 3gb switch and would never go back to less ram

prost!

Mazinger

...
So on XP 32bit, in a certain way 4GB can be used? You mean that, in a way of speaking, one application can use 2G, and another the other 2G?
What's that 3gb switch?

shaneis

From the Microsoft support site,

"Operating systems based on Microsoft Windows NT technologies have always provided applications with a flat 32-bit virtual address space that describes 4 gigabytes (GB) of virtual memory. The address space is usually split so that 2 GB of address space is directly accessible to the application and the other 2 GB is only accessible to the Windows executive software.The 32-bit versions of the Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows NT Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition, operating systems were the first versions of Windows to provide applications with a 3-GB flat virtual address space, with the kernel and executive components using only 1 GB. In response to customer requests, Microsoft has expanded the availability of this support to the 32-bit version of Windows XP Professional and all 32-bit versions of Windows Server 2003.
Windows 2000 Memory Support. With Windows 2000 Professional and Server, the maximum amount of memory that can be supported is 4 GB (identical to Windows NT 4.0, as described later in this section). However, Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports 8 GB of physical RAM and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server supports 32 GB of physical RAM using the PAE feature of the IA-32 processor family, beginning with Intel Pentium Pro and later.
Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 Memory Support. The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB. However, Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition supports 32 GB of physical RAM and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition supports 64 GB of physical RAM using the PAE feature.
The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file. When the physical RAM in the system exceeds 16 GB and the /3GB switch is used, the operating system will ignore the additional RAM until the /3GB switch is removed. This is because of the increased size of the kernel required to support more Page Table Entries. The assumption is made that the administrator would rather not lose the /3GB functionality silently and automatically; therefore, this requires the administrator to explicitly change this setting.
The /3GB switch allocates 3 GB of virtual address space to an application that uses IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE in the process header. This switch allows applications to address 1 GB of additional virtual address space above 2 GB.
The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB, unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file. The following example shows how to add the /3GB parameter in the Boot.ini file to enable application memory tuning:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="????" /3GB
Note: "????" in the previous example can be the programmatic name of any of the following operating system versions:
Windows XP Professional...:

Mazinger

Still didn't purchase my laptop, and switching on the vostro 1700 now, since Dell dropped his prices on this machine...

People that are using it (Wayne...); is the 8600GT (256MB) perfectly capable of running that WUXGA resolution? And was there trouble installing XP?...

Hazdaz

I have no issues with my Vostro 1500 which has a 8400M videochip (with a 1280x800 screen), so if you have the money, the 8600 should be even faster.