Recommended Laptop Specs

[gophermuncher]

Hi,

I'm trying to buy my cousin a laptop for his architect school, although I don't know exactly what the priority specifications are.

From what I've read on the forums, RAM would be a high priority (4 gigs for 32 bit systems?).

What about processors and video cards? Would he need a powerful dedicated graphics card or would an onboard VGA card work?

Is a dual core worth the price over a single core computer?

Realistically, what price range should I be looking at for a low to mid-end (I dont' love him that much ) computer suitable for an architecture student.

Thanks in advance

Gopher

[svenglezz-ASMEIL]

I would suggest the 4 gig's of ram for XP.

Dual processor is the way to go, but for most 1 processor is fine.

The video depends on the user, for more advance cad (rendering etc.) I would suggest a 256 video card or more, plus you get the flexibilitie for adding additional "monitors" to the laptop for multi-tasking etc.

Hope it helps,
Sven

[starkca3]

dont go onboard graphics, thats pretty much asking to get owned in my opinion. otherwise yea 4 gigs shouuuld be fine but if he wants to get into goo d stuff the more the better. ram is relatively cheap at new egg or crucial.

hmm what else. i would say a big screen, actually makes a difference. maybe 15.4 inch is pretttty good 17 is better.

yea and 256mb is a must, well i suppose you could survive on less but thats that.

or you could just a macbook pro, all your problems would be solved

but at least 15 inch because the 13 " have intergrated graphics that suck

hope this helps!