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Laptop for mastercam 2017

xxstircrazedxx

Plastic
Joined
Jan 19, 2017
Been looking for a laptop to run MasterCam 2017, everyone in the shop keeps saying I7 I7 I7, cant tell me why an AMD FX-9800p 2.7ghz with 16gb ram wouldnt run it.
Yall have any insight?
 
Been looking for a laptop to run MasterCam 2017, everyone in the shop keeps saying I7 I7 I7, cant tell me why an AMD FX-9800p 2.7ghz with 16gb ram wouldnt run it.
Yall have any insight?

AMD single core performance blows compared to Intel. Ryzen 3-7 changed this and is siginaticalty better than previous generations. What kind of budget do you have?
 
I'm running masterCAM x2 on a hp omen...dual hard drives, one standard 1tb the other solid state 250 gig, twin graphics cards, one hp the other Nvidia, Intel i7 and I think like 8 or 10 gigs of ram.
 
The 9800p is a quad core like the i7.
Are you saying single core to single core doesnt compair?

My budget is 6-800. I'll mostly be doing lathe work with it. I normally just use notepad and write Gcode, but boss wants me to learn MasterCam.
 
Honestly.. buy the absolute highest end you can afford, and it will last you the longest. for mastercam only 8gb should do it, but 16 is better. I7 with iris pro graphics is a good start, but I think masteram requires a quadro. It doesnt play well with AMD, not sure about iris pro.

if it was me, Id buy a dell if i was just looking for a off the shelf unit,

id start here

Precision 17 Inch 772 Mobile Workstation Laptop | Dell United States



now that said, im not doing any serious work on a laptop sitting in a customers office, or when im at home. i do my cam at work, where a desktop suffices, and I got a whole lot more machine for my 3500 bucks than youll get out of those laptops.
 
also, fyi.. go for a 4k screen. its gonna hurt the battery power, but wire frame on 4k is SO much better.


it doesnt seem you can get more than 4 cores in a mobile workstation. that unfortunate. 6 is great, and im looking to upgrade to 10 soon. mastercam loves cores.
 
When you have 32 or more in ram, unless you are running huge files (1/2gig and bigger), you can run without a page file. As long as you don't run into a major memory leak (gaping hole sinking ship....stock model... cough...), you will never run out of ram. Running without a page file in general is a decent performance booster.
 
pcie m.2 ssd's essentially negate any performance advantage running without a page file would give you. there is a small bump, but barely noticable and hardly worth the ram price when you can buy 16gbs of 3000ddr4 and spend that extra coin on 512gb m.2 ssd.
 
The 9800p is a quad core like the i7.
Are you saying single core to single core doesnt compair?

My budget is 6-800. I'll mostly be doing lathe work with it. I normally just use notepad and write Gcode, but boss wants me to learn MasterCam.

Correct- Older AMD Single performance compared to the older amds.

$600-$800 you won't find an I7 unless you buy used
 
Time is money when it comes to programming. Anything over the most basic 2.5D work and your going to want something with more grunt. Honestly, if your doing serious CAM work, spending $600-800 on the processor alone isn't unwarranted. If your dropping serious money on your mastercam seat, spend a couple grand on a good workstation computer - desktop seriously preferred. The desktop hardware is significantly stronger as the engineers don't care about power consumption and heat, just raw power.

If your just after something to view your files in front of the machines, those laptops will do. But realistically, those are jokes compared to proper workstations.
 
Thank you Cwalster.
As i said before im a lathe guy, i code with notepad.
The mill guys program ther own stuff on desktops.
Boss would like me to learn MasterCam to help out with some programming when they need it.
So i think ill throw a coin in the air and pick one, use it to learn on and if things get serious ill make the boss fork out for a real desktop and chair.
 



UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM thats a dual core i7, old generation and Ultra low power did you notice the U next to the numbers.


Both of those computers are waste of money both very outdated.

My suggestions increase budget, buy used, or look for an i5

pcie m.2 ssd's essentially negate any performance advantage running without a page file would give you. there is a small bump, but barely noticable and hardly worth the ram price when you can buy 16gbs of 3000ddr4 and spend that extra coin on 512gb m.2 ssd.

PCI M.2 Max out around 3.5gb/s, ram is upwards of 15 gb/s
 
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