Does adobe creative suite and/or autocad work better on a macbook pro or on a high-end PC laptop?
Hi everyone, I'm having a bit of a debate with my dad in regards to my future laptop. Long story short, he's a hardcore PC fan while I've had so much bad luck with PCs that I can't wait to switch to Mac... however, he's the one doing the purchase so I have to convince him.
Since I'll be a freshman in college for Architecture next year, I'm going to need a laptop that can run adobe creative suite and autocad (University's recommendation) without constantly crashing and quickly... Basically the options are: 17-inch Macbook pro with Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz processor and 9600 Nvidia GT Lenovo ThinkPad W700 with Intel Core Extreme 2.53GHz processor and Nvidia Quadro 3700M or an HP...
The University recommends a basic 15.4 inch macbook pro... but well my dad obviously wants to go all or nothing.
HELP!
Thanks in advance.. a lot lot lot of thanks in advance :)
2009-03-10T15:10:53Z
I'm going to get parallels or bootcamp if I do end up with a Mac... so I'm more worried about the performance of the computer itself, not of the OS.
Anonymous2009-03-10T16:17:29Z
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The Quadro 3700 will give much better performance than the Nvidia 9600, especially for autocad, so definitely go with the Lenovo ThinkPad.
I think Macs are fine, I think PCs are fine. In terms of operating systems, Windows is certainly not that great, but if you maintain it properly it should not crash constantly or quickly. I have a PC running Windows and it has never crashed. I have had it for about 3 years. I have also never gotten a BSOD.
Thinkpads are good. Lenovo also has great customer service. The specs of the one you listed are pretty good as well. I would not recommend an HP, however.
You will be fine with either (they will both perform well), but I think you're better of getting the Thinkpad since you need to run AutoCad. Also, Macs are very expensive so I can understand your dad on that front too since he's paying for it.
The guy above me is completly off when he is talking about the hardware parts.
The quadro3700 is a workstation Graphic Card. It is MEANT to to autocad and stuff like these. The 9600 is a good powerful graphic card, but not optimized for workstation work. Trust me when I tell you that the quadro is in a whole different place when it comes to 3d modeling. The 9600 will show it's limit really really early in your work.
Even the architecture is not the same... it is no way comparable.
The hardware is exactly the same, performance is going to be the same. You are going to be able to get equal or better hardware for the same price in a PC than a Mac.
The windows version of most software that has a "mac version" often has more features than the mac version and is often released earlier, because the software manufacturer's are writing for 10X as many windows users as they are mac users. It only makes sense that they spend more time adding features and polishing up the windows version more than the Mac.