Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Advice on buying High Performance Laptop

Sep 6, 2015 1:06PM PDT

Hi,
I'm planning to buy a new high performance laptop with a latest Skylake/Mobile Xeon Quad core processor. Primarily I would be using this for installing and running few software applications for learning and upgrading my knowledge. I would be using trials of below Databases and tools :

1)Database:
a)Oracle (12c),
b)PostgreSQL,
c)SQL server
Would be using for OLTP as well Data Warehouse databases (Though not going to have lot of data)

2) ETL Tools
a)Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB)
b) any other ETL like Informatica, SSIS

3)Reporting Tool
a) Oracle Discoverer
b) Cognos

3)Designer tools
a) CA Erwin data modeler
b) ER studio
3) Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler

4) Other Dev tools
a) PL/SQL developer
b) Toad
c) SQL developer

I could be running few of these at a given time. For instance I might be running all three databases(Oracle, SQL server, Postgres) along with OWB, Discoverer and Toad. I'm kinda in dilemma in choosing the RAM size. I'm thinking whether to get a laptop with RAM sizes of 16 GB, 32 GB or 64 GB. I guess atleast 16 GB is OK, 32 will be better and 64 could be either great or overkill. This is notgoing to be a production system, just would be using to upgrade my skills and knowledge. Could you guys suggest me a optimal RAM size?

I prefer Toshiba, but they are yet to refresh the models with Quadcore Skylake. Current Toshiba Satellite laptops have a max of 16 GB DDR3L memory. They do have a Tecra business laptop with 32 GB DDR3L RAM and Haswell Quadcore processor, which I'm not preferring much.

However I've seen that Lenovo is coming up with P50 & P70 thinkpads withthe new MobileXeon processor from Intel with 64 GB DDR4L RAM. Though pricing is not known now, these should be coming next month.

Many thanks in advance
Shasun

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
So I have to ask why.
Sep 6, 2015 1:17PM PDT

If you develop on that bleeding edge, how will you know how your apps work on the target machines?

No developer I know has more than 16GB and they do great things.

- Collapse -
PS. Forgot this advice.
Sep 6, 2015 1:29PM PDT

If the maker and seller are not answering your question about product details, availability etc. You should go elsewhere. It's that simple.

And yes, I have MySQL apps out there. So while RAM is nice, not once did we see a developer that needed that much.

- Collapse -
may be I've to wait another month
Sep 6, 2015 2:02PM PDT

I will be predominantly doing hands on design and coding for learning new features, new tools etc. I'm not planning to develop any app to deploy at a target system. I might be cresting few VMs to host some database / tool which would consume good amount of RAM. And at times its required to keep all the databases running if my design tool or ETL/reporting tools access these. So was looking for a bigger memory. Apart from that I also looking for SSD + HDD combo for storage for fast boot, typically keeping critical apps and OS in SSD.

- Collapse -
Reg availability
Sep 6, 2015 2:07PM PDT

Regarding your reply about details from manufacturers / sellers, I guess I need to wait for another month. Currently Toshiba has showcased couple of two in ones and laptops with Skylake processors at IFA, Berlin. But they are yet to refresh the models with skylake for customers. Lenovo too unveiled the P50/P70 Xeon based mobile workstations at IFA, but it seems these are available to customers from October 2015 only. I guess both Toshiba and Lenovo might come with 32 GB RAM skylake processors due to DDR4L support now.

- Collapse -
So they are not talking to you?
Sep 6, 2015 2:23PM PDT

That's a bad sign. You are looking at their highest end products and are asking other than the maker/sellers for advice. My advice is to tell them they need to do far better.

I've only been at development since the 70's so maybe I expect too much from makers today.

- Collapse -
Agreeing with you
Sep 7, 2015 10:37AM PDT

I guess you are right about the point on manufacturers should share the details to prospective customers asap.

- Collapse -
Let me share I've been in the dev game a long time
Sep 7, 2015 10:47AM PDT

And once in a while one of our developers will make a request for some hardware that is way out there. Most of the time it's a new developer that we have to sit down one on one to talk about everything.

For SQL work we used backend servers with the usual hardware. But your newer dev person may be looking to have that in a laptop. While we have so much more than we had in just a few years ago, I find the discussion repeats about every year.

I'd strike up this conversion with your team members.