Beating a dead horse/ new laptop recommendations

Rhino Rhino for Mac
1

Hi,

I know this is a horse that has been beaten over and over again, but I figured I would throw it out there to see if recent updates change the equations at all.

I am in the process of purchasing a new laptop. I am only considering MacBooks, because of other software that I have investment in. So please withhold the “better value in PC” comments.

Unfortunately only the highest end Mac laptop currently has the discrete graphics card. For about $2700 including warranty and state tax and I would be happy as pie, but I would like to get the cost down to about $1500.

Does anyone have first hand experience with the new Intel Iris graphics? I know that most Rhino 3D lists specifically don’t recommend that Intel integrated cards, but I am not sure this includes the recent Iris cards. Independent reviews are generally good. They are listed as being fully OpenGL compatible.

I will be using rhino in both the Mac environment and the Windows bootcamped environment (so I can use grasshopper).
I don’t need it to be a massively powered workstation capable of handling urban scale models. But I would like nice smooth rotation and quick feel through models up to about 30MB.

Thanks,

C

2

Hi @carterskemp,

I have the 2013 Macbook Air top of the line with 8gb of ram. To my surprise it works really well. I have worked with files up to 1gb. The only disadvantage that I see is the processor, it’s a bit slow specially with big GH definitions. I did my thesis with it and there was a lot of scripting, grasshopper, Photoshop, illustrator and indesign. It got the job done.

I would definitely recommend it.

  • Miguel
1 Like
3

Thanks for the reply. That is good to hear. That is exactly how I want to use it.

I am looking to be a bump up with the Macbook Pro 13" with 16GB RAM as well.

Thanks,

Carter