Lost - Too much options - I would like a laptop for...

[NJK]

I currently have a Macbook Air 2014 model, but I would like a 17" laptop. I use

• MatLAB
• SolidWorks
• LabView

and one game

• Galactic Civilisation 3, which has minimum specs
  • Processor: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / AMD K10 Dual-Core
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: 512 MB DirectX 10.1 Video Card (AMD Radeon HD5x00 Series / Nvidia GeForce 500 Series / Intel HD 4000 or later)
  • DirectX: Version 10
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Hard Drive: 3 GB available space
  • Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card

Please can someone advise me at bottom dollar? I was looking at the Genesis V 17" but it doesn't have a graphics card and I thought I would need one.

Also if I get a 4k TV, would the laptop you recommend be able to stream to a 4k TV okay?

 

[Oussebon]

"bottom dollar" "laptop" and "graphics card" don't all go together I'm afraid.
Bottom dollar and laptop, yes, but no dGPU
Laptop and graphics card, yes, butnot quite bottom dollar.
Bottom dollar and graphics card yes - but only in a desktop.

That said, if all Galactic Civilisation 3 needs is Intel 4000HD graphics you can probably run it on any modern Intel CPU.

Note that the tasks you've listed are quite CPU intensive (Matlab, Solidworks, etc) and I believe are quite single threaded. So your MacBook might well be better than the genesis. The CPU in the genesis is very weak indeed.

The Ultranote if you spec an i5 (dual core) https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/ultraNoteIV-15/ would be a lot more powerful than the genesis.

For a laptop with a quad core i5 and a dGPU of some kind you're looking more at £750-850 territory.

 

[NJK]

"bottom dollar" "laptop" and "graphics card" don't all go together I'm afraid.
Bottom dollar and laptop, yes, but no dGPU
Laptop and graphics card, yes, butnot quite bottom dollar.
Bottom dollar and graphics card yes - but only in a desktop.

That said, if all Galactic Civilisation 3 needs is Intel 4000HD graphics you can probably run it on any modern Intel CPU.

Note that the tasks you've listed are quite CPU intensive (Matlab, Solidworks, etc) and I believe are quite single threaded. So your MacBook might well be better than the genesis. The CPU in the genesis is very weak indeed.

The Ultranote if you spec an i5 (dual core) https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/ultraNoteIV-15/ would be a lot more powerful than the genesis.

For a laptop with a quad core i5 and a dGPU of some kind you're looking more at £750-850 territory.

Ultra note i3 dual more powerful than macbook air? Also 17" option?

 

[Oussebon]

There isn't a 17" one.

The i5 is significantly better than the i3 as it can boost itself to 3.1GHz, making it a lot faster for things where the load is placed mostly on one thread.
In fact, the i3 7100U has almost exactly the same performance as the i5 4260U, which I am guessing is what's in your MacBook: http://tinyurl.com/gr5csvx

To be honest you're probably best off sticking with the mac book until you can get something a fair bit better, or if you really want to buy something now then look at off-the shelf laptop with the best CPU you can find. But it would probably be a waste of your cash.

Do note that things like the Genesis have CPUs that are probably closer to what you find in phones than what you find in regular computers, while cheaper laptops tend to have -ULV CPUs (with -U at the end), which are dual cores that prioritise lower power consumption over performance. The more powerful laptop CPUs will have -HQ at the end.

If all you want is a bigger screen, you could get a monitor to plug your laptop into and use it as an external display, at least at home.