Hi, I’m trying to find out if I can buy a laptop for my daughter to use at Uni that will handle 3DS Max, Maya and Adobe (?).  I was looking at the 15” and 17” Dell laptops with the i7 processers.  I’ve been onto the NVIDIA website and haven’t been able to discover if the GT540 or GT555 are suitable.  Can anyone advise me, please?

Thanks,

Mark

see minimum requirement for 3ds max: http://usa.autodesk.com/3ds-max/system-requirements/
Direct3D® 10 technology, Direct3D 9, or OpenGL-capable graphics card† (256 MB or higher video card memory, 1 GB or higher recommended)

Actually any graphics card that >256 mb will be run well including my brother ATI GPU laptop . But some features like iRay needs nVidia CUDA graphics card. Autodesk suggest Quadro for certified graphics card but costly.

More CudaCores in GPU will support iray gpu rendering, but the amount of cuda core mobile gpu is quite small than desktop. So i think any nvidia >1GB will be enough just for modeling. however 555M with 144 Cuda core looks nice with i7 Sandy bridge mobile processor.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-geforce-gt-555m-us.html

I take that she’s just getting into college.  Well, you’re getting her a pro machine and the one you mentioned will do just fine. at first she starts getting accustomed to the workflow and assignments .. as time goes on she will know much better than you what she will need and or like .. until then that machine will do just fine.... I would say your concern should be Mac or PC