Computer for engineering

LonelyYou're unique then. Most engineering degrees at any school are going to have a lot of computer based work.

Whats your budget?

You can't get a mac if you're in engineering.

Ram and cpu are important. A good graphics card would also not be a bad idea for 3d modeling programs.

LonelyYou're unique then. Most engineering degrees at any school are going to have a lot of computer based work.

Whats your budget?

You can't get a mac if you're in engineering.

Ram and cpu are important. A good graphics card would also not be a bad idea for 3d modeling programs.

Young_IPMCI disagree with this. The overwhelming majority I’ve met in CS, engineering, and robotics don’t know shit about computers. As long as you can double click icons, manage files, and pay attention in class, you’ll learn whatever you need to succeed. Also, a mac is fine so long as you’re willing to install bootcamp and windows on top of that if certain courses require windows programs. Alternatively, the computer lab will guaranteed have everything you need, so a mac will still be fine.

Op, if you want to to do everything without using the department’s labs, get a computer that matches the minimum system requirements for Solidworks as it’s more computationally intensive than any other FEA or 3D modelling software you’re going to use. Otherwise, just use whatever comp you have now.

PxolarisI currently don't have a computer, do you think a mac is worth everything you said or would I be better off without one. I always figured I'd need something windows related because of things like autocad

LonelyYes- You can get a mac like mentioned above. Save yourself some trouble and don't. You can get a better spec windows PC for much cheaper and will save yourself trouble and time.

Sure you could make a mac wok but I don't like to spend money on things to spend half my time making them work. If your going into engineering, get a pc. Easy as that. It's not just the programs but also the ecosystem.

PxolarisI currently don't have a computer, do you think a mac is worth everything you said or would I be better off without one. I always figured I'd need something windows related because of things like autocad

Young_IPMCI never owned one, but you can if you like it more. I’d just choose something economical but not crappy. Autocad isn’t super resource intensive, so it doesn’t need to be really beefy.

Bitcoinhttps://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAD8C8W17537&Description=thinkpad&cm_re=thinkpad-_-1TS-000E-0CPV2-_-Product

This will be good to you, it has a solid GPU (You may even be able to game on this)

CalumSKIfor gaming you would want a better gpu than this being a laptop gpu, not a full sized gpu
get a razer blade stealth if you have the budget
great battery for a gaming laptop
( also the new ones have rtx cards in them :) )

BitcoinThe kid is trying to go to school, not beat off and play video games until he's 40

BitcoinWell the fuck do I know. I'm just typing this on a custom build and spent 6 years as a PC tech.

CalumSKI/claim
also not very hard to build one my guy

BitcoinYouve never soldered anything in your life cocksucker

Young_IPMCI disagree with this. The overwhelming majority I’ve met in CS, engineering, and robotics don’t know shit about computers. As long as you can double click icons, manage files, and pay attention in class, you’ll learn whatever you need to succeed. Also, a mac is fine so long as you’re willing to install bootcamp and windows on top of that if certain courses require windows programs. Alternatively, the computer lab will guaranteed have everything you need, so a mac will still be fine.

Op, if you want to to do everything without using the department’s labs, get a computer that matches the minimum system requirements for Solidworks as it’s more computationally intensive than any other FEA or 3D modelling software you’re going to use. Otherwise, just use whatever comp you have now.

BitcoinThinkpad brother. Also - if you don't know anything about computers and you are studying engineering you are probably going to be in for a rude awakening :P

Not to discourage you, but I'd maybe explore something else.

TRVP_ANGELI doubt majority in CS don't know anything about computers after they've graduated. A lot of the basics you need to do require a fundamental knowledge in how software works. I'm talking about software only, not hardware, that's CE

apyrMy sister is in engineering, she's got something with pretty much the same specs as this and it's been able to do everything she needs it to do. Anything with similar specs (i7 7700HQ, 16Gb ram, GTX 1050) would probably work just fine for you.

https://www.amazon.com/N580VD-DB74T-VivoBook-Touchscreen-GeForce-keyboard/dp/B0747S3V8D

LonelyYou're unique then. Most engineering degrees at any school are going to have a lot of computer based work.

Whats your budget?

You can't get a mac if you're in engineering.

Ram and cpu are important. A good graphics card would also not be a bad idea for 3d modeling programs.

LonelyYes- You can get a mac like mentioned above. Save yourself some trouble and don't. You can get a better spec windows PC for much cheaper and will save yourself trouble and time.

Sure you could make a mac wok but I don't like to spend money on things to spend half my time making them work. If your going into engineering, get a pc. Easy as that. It's not just the programs but also the ecosystem. You can bet that any time a professor is explaining how to install or run a program it's going to be for windows not mac. Some programs and applications are different between mac and windows. You're gonna be taught how to use it on windows. When you ask how to do it on a mac your professors answer will most likely be " figure it out yourself".

Young_IPMCYou would be surprised how many CS grads don’t understand the basics of file management, installing anything outside of what their professors walk them through step-by-step, and preventing viruses and bloatware.
CS teaches you how to program and get/use tools for that, and a class like computer organization will actually get you close to an in-depth understanding of how hardware works. Pretty much anything beyond that is up to you, and most people just do what they need to pass.

nutz.Are you serious? It totally depends on what kind of engineering you're getting into. I'm a software engineer and I'd say a good 70-80% of my colleagues use macs for development. If the track you're taking involves a lot of C# or Labview or something like that (autocad/solidworks too) then yeah you probably need a PC (or partition your drive and run bootcamp or something) but for a software engineering track a mac will be solid and almost preferable I'd say.

**This post was edited on Apr 17th 2019 at 10:48:54pm

LonelyI'll admit it, I'm not familiar with CS and what is involved in it. When I was in biomedical engineering undergrad classes my peers with macs (mostly ME or CE) were told to return their macs. Having a mac at my engineering school led to licensing issues for most students that owned one. It led to projects being done improperly because the instruction was for windows. It led to issues running programs that where poorly optimized for mac. I've already said it in this thread but I don't understand why you would risk putting yourself through any of that for a pricey computer with worse hardware.

I'm a GIS/ Forestry major now and one of my close friends has to spend most of their day in the computer lab because the GIS software license doesn't work with mac, and her computer has a difficult time even running the viewer.

You can make a mac work, but why would you spend that time making your mac "work" when you can get a better spec windows pc for less money?

bibs_skibumI'm graduating in a couple of weeks with a chem e degree and you should absolutely get a PC instead of a mac. There were a few things that were a pain in the ass to run as far as numerical solvers go on a mac (polymath, matlab, python, etc.). Luckily, my school had a ton of PCs with that stuff on it, but going to campus to do homework was a pain when you are already home and chillin. Also, you'll probably end up doing a ton of stuff in Excel, and it works a ton easier on PC. Plus mac excel 2011 doesn't even have the statistics add-in, which is total horseshit. I think the newest mac excel does though?

blah blah blah, get a beefy PC (and a laptop instead of a desktop)

ArabianThis guy right here is -the- dev computer. Don't listen to those Apple cucks. I have one of both and this one is superior (professional dev here): https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-6th-Gen/p/22TP2TXX16G

BitcoinThis is a women's computer if I ever saw one

LazylightningWhat does that even mean

vinny0Find out what programs you will be expected to run on your personal computer. Some schools don't purchase licenses for each student. For example UVM does not give each student a copy of Solidworks for their personal computers. Student's access programs on their personal computers through a Virtual Desktop and do not need as much computing power. This is becoming more and more popular as it makes licensing cheaper. I found this out after paying a lot of money for a solid workstation and rarely actually run anything besides MATLAB.

DolanReloadedGet a microsoft surface pro. Its a fast, reliable tablet that runs full windows and can do anything a laptop can do.
Go check it out at best buy. They are fucking fantastic

BitcoinGo shoot some more dope dolan, the surface blows unless you're an MBA who just wants to sit and look like a douche