<p>I am going to be a entering my freshman year in college this fall and I am majoring in computer engineering. I already have a laptop (going to list the specs below) with an integrated graphic card, which prevent me from running any game/programs that has graphic and consume a lot of resources. For all the computer engineers out there, would you recommend me buying a new computer? and what programs you use/run as a computer engineer student? </p>
<p>OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel Core Duo 2 GHz
Memory: 1.5 GB RAM
Video: Mobile Intel 965 Express (358 MB total memory)</p>
<p>The laptop is a compaq 610 (business laptop) just in case anyone wants to know.
And thanks in advance for all your responses.</p>
<p>That’s a decent laptop and would work for computer engineering. Do you plan to do any graphics-intensive work? If so, then you might want to go for something with more graphics power. Otherwise, your laptop should serve you just fine.</p>
<p>If the laptop is old or getting old (e.g. out of warranty), then it might be nice to get a new laptop - esp. since that’s the “standard” thing to do for starting college - but as long as it’s functioning, your laptop will be sufficient.</p>
<p>Are you commuting or are you staying in the dorm? Furthermore, please look through the most recent ten pages, you will find plenty of these questions asked already if you need to choose a laptop.</p>
<p>Any 400 - 600 is enough for anyone. A Mac is fine just get a laptop you really want.</p>
<p>I don’t see any reason why what you have isn’t fine. Although it would behoove you to have a second OS on your hard drive, either Linux or a BSD. (I personally recommend Mandriva Linux and the use of the KDE, I really like the system tools they come with) Programming is easier in a UNIX environment. Start programming with emacs and gcc and you’ll find IDEs are clunky for a lot of what you’re going to do. Then again, I’m only a 2nd-year student.</p>
<p>Are you buying it? Or do you already have it. Can you please state the detail at once?</p>
<p>Any laptop is fine. As long as you like it. Since you are dorming, you want something at least 15 inch large as a laptop. Sometime that can stands heat very well (in this case I don’t think Mac laptops are good…). Just me because I hate to touch hot things.</p>
<p>Anything.
As far as Linux. That you can play around later. I think it’s good to dual boot with Windows and linux, or Mac and Linux…</p>
<p>Like I said if you go through the next ten pages in this forum you will see similar advices.
You are not going to run supercomputer apps. I ran tough programs on very old computer…</p>
<p>@jwxie
That is the laptop I already have. I was wondering will I need to get a new one since this one has an integrated graphic card and won’t be able to run intensive programs. And if you are a computer engineer, what programs did you use when you were in college.</p>
<p>@xSlacker
I couldn’t find any computer specification for the college. I am going to attend UT Austin.</p>
It will be fine. These days you have both hardware and software doing encode-decode with graphics. The problem is weak integrated card cannot run high resolution smoothly even if your CPU is powerful enough. That drawback will only affect your media and gaming experience. </p>
<p>I used MATLAB and that’s just a monster at the startup. I did other programming assignments which took a few hours to generate results because of the enormous computations involved. But that cannot be resolved with a better CPU because the improvement is pretty minimal IMO. </p>
<p>Anyway. My point is why don’t you stick with this old laptop if you have no problem, and get a new one over Christmas or next summer? My point is you haven’t attended your first semester yet, and you don’t know what to choose. </p>
<p>IMO You really don’t need anything more fancy than i3, if not, i5. i7 is mostly a ripped off but if the price difference is minimal get it. AMD cpus are good but they are quite power eater. But as far as laptop, it doesn’t really matter because most of the time you would be carrying a charger with you.</p>
<p>Get a laptop that you like. We say 400 -600 because that kind of laptop will fit most people’s requirement. Most of us probably still prefer desktop at all time, if possible (my home dekstop with big screen!!! haha)</p>
<p>Don’t forget that since you are dorming you want at least 15" or above. 13, 14 would too small. Keyboard too. Some keyboard designs are very bad, so if you have a chance to visit local markets like Bestbuy or coscto, take a look and try the keyboard.
Warranty is important, but they are quite expensive to get extra years. </p>
<p>Anyway. The whole idea of getting better performance is not all about RAMs and CPU power. Your HDD reading/writing performance, your cooling performance all counts.</p>
<p>Bottom line is: get what you really like. If you want to game, just google whether those laptops are okay with certain games. Most 400-600 can’t play the modern games smoothly…</p>
<p>Even if you should take a computer graphics course (kind of outside the scope of your major as a hardware guy) you’re going to be doing non-real-time stuff, MAYBE some basic real-time 3D graphics, but since you are doing programming and not 3D modeling and animation, you don’t need the horsepower.</p>
<p>This may be a shock, but the basics of 3D graphics principles haven’t changed much since the 80s. To do some simple ray-tracing programs or whatever, your system should be just fine. Heck, a laptop from the 90s (running Linux) is probably enough power for most of what CompSci and CompEng majors do.</p>