I have purchased 2 laptops for architecture school and would like your suggestions of which one to keep. I do not expect my use to be extremely complicated, but I do not want to face performance issues that will hinder my learning Rhino 5 and using the software for basic to mid level architectural and industrial modeling.
I know the Samsung is more powerful, but is that power necessary for Rhino to work decently for my uses? Or will the Lenovo perform without noticeable issues for a student learning masters level architecture and design?
IMHO, you need at least 16GB for anything beyond simple tutorial projects, and based on what I see here from people with big architectural projects, 32GB is very handy and required for some.
Four cores, perhaps with hyper-threading, will probably be fine for Rhino and all the other things you might have running on the computer at the same time, but the CPU speed should be the fastest you can afford, since Rhino is mostly single-threaded.
Not sure about that - I do have at least 16G in my computers and up to 32 in others except for my Mac which tops out at 8 - but I’ve rarely had a project that used more than a GB or two. Using all 8 GB - or let’s say 6 leaving some room for the OS and other stuff to run - is pretty far beyond a “simple tutorial model”. That being said, RAM is extremely cheap these days, so to paint yourself into a corner where there is no possibility of expansion is maybe a poor economy.