Thread: Time for a new 'puter

Originally Posted by deighaingeal

I won't go mac. Windows is necessary. Why an i3 rather than i5 or i7? I will be using the standard education tools, but add in a little autocad and some mechanical testing platforms including reactionary and theoretical testing. I am not against a custom, but unsure of cost or where to go. As of right now i have been avoiding sony for a lack of consistency in their quality control and longevity. I currently have one less than a year old that was given to me and it is unable to unplug during use even across the room to another receptacle.

What are you studying and how much CAD work and mechanical testing are you thinking about doing? That right there might dictate the type of machine you should get, as CAD is quite graphics-intensive.

I order the Dell Precision workstations (M6400) for the engineers where I work -- they all use our CAD system and some run finite element analysis software in addition. They're 17" notebooks and quite heavy, as I tend to get the high end CPU and video cards. We spec them out just under $3k and that includes the port replicator and external monitor.

I can't recommend anything but laser for printer but understand that good ones are still comparatively pricey. Inkjet uses the same business model as Gillette; cheap hardware with ridiculously marked-up components.

You can get a 1TB external drive powered through USB, and I usually go with Western Digital. Backups always matter.