Computing Power

[Amogh]

What do you guys recommend, given we are all CS majors?

1) Heavy duty Laptop say a gaming laptop like SAGER

2) Heavy duty gaming Desktop at home + Tablet to lug around

Which combination do you prefer and why?

[jjsakurai]

I personally just have a simple laptop but then I don't play games either. If you're into games, I highly highly recommend a Gaming Desktop + [Ethernet (not wifi) if you're into online gaming] over a gaming laptop.

[j3doucet]

If you're going to be doing any kind of heavy lifting at all (i.e. simulations), then you need a desktop. Laptops do not like the sustained heat output that comes from using 100% of the CPU power for days at a time. I have personally seen 3 laptops die from this sort of use.

[Eigen]

Also, probably institutionally specific, but how much heavy lifting (ie, simulations) are you going to be doing on the computer vs. on a local cluster/supercomputer?

[ktel]

^ I will agree. I would be very surprised if you were going to be doing high-power simulations and they didn't either give you a good computer or give you access to a cluster/supercomputer.

[Eigen]

I'll just note that you might have to dig for it a bit, but at our institution it's really easy (e-mail and request a password) for any graduate student in the physical sciences to get access to both our school resources (computing clusters, supercomputer) and our big, state funded supercomputer via a fiber optic line.

[j3doucet]

All true, but some schools, and some departments, do not have dedicated clusters (or have ancient ones).

[newms]

I went with getting a heavy duty gaming laptop and I have an ipad. My laptop is pretty powerful - more powerful than my office computer, so it helps when I have intense simulations to run. But it's a little hard to lug around since its about 10 lbs - part of me wishes I had a smaller laptop that I could just carry around and program wherever I am.

Edited April 3, 2012 by newms

[anacron]

If those are the only options then go for the Laptop. However, carrying around a 10+ pound laptop gets really old really fast. You would get better performance from the desktop but you have limited mobility. The tablet can do your browsing, note-taking and entertainment but you won't be able to code on-the-go (which I'd say is important nowadays).

Having said that, I would highly recommend getting a 'regular' laptop - especially if you can get access to high performance resources. Its much more portable, can get decent performance and is much cheaper.

[Networc]

What about an Asus PadFone (once released) and remotely connect to a powerful desktop?

[Amogh]

newms which did you pick up? How unbearable is the weight? If

I was thinking about it yesterday and I figured that the tablet would be really pointless considering that I can't program on it only read or watch movies. Might as well buy a (much cheaper) Kindle fire.

Ok so now my question is a laptop vs a desktop. I am currently leaning towards the laptop because it is portable and powerful.

Eigen, I have no idea on how much heavy processing I will be doing on my personal computer. I probably should wait till I arrive at whichever institution I pick and then decide huh? I'm still waiting on replies from 5 universities.

[Pauli]

I recommend a regular laptop and just take it with you to use it for what it should be used best: writing research papers somewhere comfortable at a coffee shop Since anything that requires high-performance or sensor recording will be done on a lab machine.

[DJLamar]

I went with getting a heavy duty gaming laptop and I have an ipad. My laptop is pretty powerful - more powerful than my office computer, so it helps when I have intense simulations to run. But it's a little hard to lug around since its about 10 lbs - part of me wishes I had a smaller laptop that I could just carry around and program wherever I am.

If you have something else which is actually portable, why don't you just leave your laptop at home running and set it and your router up so that you can ssh into it and run jobs? That's what I do with my desktop (though that's different because I work at home 95% of the time anyway). It's not hard to set up:

1) Install an ssh server on your computer (OpenSSH for example)

2) Get a free domain name from dyndns.com and install their daemon on the computer (to automatically update the IP of that domain name with whatever your computer's IP address might change to).

3) Set up your computer to manually specify a fixed IP on the local network (instead of having it dynamically assigned by the router)

4) Set up a port forward on your router from SSH and remote desktop ports to that port on the fixed local IP of your computer from step 3.

Pretty painless. Of course it helps with responsiveness and reliability if you connect the computer to the router with an ethernet cable instead of wireless when you're away.

Edited April 4, 2012 by DJLamar

[habanero]

I also think you should consider ssh-ing into your main computer.

[newms]

If you have something else which is actually portable, why don't you just leave your laptop at home running and set it and your router up so that you can ssh into it and run jobs? That's what I do with my desktop (though that's different because I work at home 95% of the time anyway). It's not hard to set up:

1) Install an ssh server on your computer (OpenSSH for example)

2) Get a free domain name from dyndns.com and install their daemon on the computer (to automatically update the IP of that domain name with whatever your computer's IP address might change to).

3) Set up your computer to manually specify a fixed IP on the local network (instead of having it dynamically assigned by the router)

4) Set up a port forward on your router from SSH and remote desktop ports to that port on the fixed local IP of your computer from step 3.

Pretty painless. Of course it helps with responsiveness and reliability if you connect the computer to the router with an ethernet cable instead of wireless when you're away.

That sounds interesting. I'll give it try - thanks!

[DJLamar]

Yeah, it's not hard to do and it's pretty useful. You can even really take things to an extreme and access your computer or a cluster from your phone. That way a night that would otherwise be spent checking and launching jobs at home from your computer can be spent out with your friends, launching jobs from your phone, if need be