I have a pretty powerful workstation (desktop) but my wife doesn’t appreciate me sitting in the office all night. So I thought I’d get a laptop to do some fiddling in front of the TV. That way, at least we see each other.
I am thinking about doing some sculpting (no rendering). And since it’s in front of the TV I don’t want the fan to be too loud. What are the minimum requirements for smooth sculpting? Is is RAM, CPU or GPU I should focus on?
I’m not a pro (at all) but I’d like to achieve some models with fairly high detail, like wrinkles etc. But if this is a showstopper I can consider to do the last detailed work at my work station.
BTW, I have a Wacom Cintiq 13HD that I’ve planned to hook up to the laptop as the primary interface.
Definitely NOT GPU, the graphics card is only needed for rendering.
Concerning RAM, make sure that you have at least 4GB Ram, better 8GB.
The most difficult part is to choose a proper CPU, if you do not want to invest huge sums, keep looking for some quad-core processor (maybe an Intel i5).
I have no clue how to find out how noisy a laptop is - maybe somebody else knows something…
Additionally I suggest you buying a laptop with an SSD drive (at least for your system section), because it is much faster than the good old HDD.
No, it is not. You are right, a SSD is not really needed, but it will speed up your whole operating system noticeably…
Good point. You do not need an high-end GPU, but you should also check that you do not get a laptop with some GeForce FX equivalent
Unfortunately I am more the desktop pc user (I like to have 2 DVD drives and a floppy drive :)), so I am no laptop hardware freak. I quickly researched on the Intel website and wikipedia: you are right, the M cores do not need much power, which means also that they produce less heat. But they are, at least in my opinion, do not look so promising (only middle-class dual cores, often used in tablets).
But remember, as I said, I am not a laptop hardware expert - maybe somebody else has some more know-how about them…
