Pango Quickshow and Amd E-450

[masterpj]

Dont worry, though you can be in problems when it comes to LC-max (3ds max) but other then that you should be fine. at worst when the pixel shader and vertex shader is too low (thus bad GPU) you can emulate it through cpu partually which takes away strain from the GPU but that isn't always the case.

Can be emulated through 3Danalyser

[movax]

QuickShow seems to be most bound by RAM in my experience. DDR3 over-production has resulted in ultra-cheap RAM prices; I have 8GB in my laptop, 16GB in desktop and 24GB in server, all at prices that would have been unthinkable maybe two years ago. 24GB RAM w/ lifetime warranty only ran me ~$200 from Newegg, after rebates.

On a laptop, you can get 8GB (2x4GB) of DDR3, lifetime warranty for $36.99. Just take whatever stock amount Dell, Asus, etc. gives you and replace it with this stuff. Never pay the OEM for a RAM upgrade, unless you have too (e.g. the soldered-on RAM in the Macbook Air).

Looks like in the mobile sector you have to go i7 to get a true-quad core. I don't think QuickShow benefits from HT very much, compared to something like MATLAB or an actual computationally intense workload. And I don't think QuickShow leverages the GPU whatsoever, so integrated video is fine (unless I missed Pangolin adding CUDA/OpenCL/DirectX/some kind of GPU acceleration).

Definitely recommend the high-res screen like someone else mentioned though. 1280x800/1366x768 are murderous to use QS on in my opinion, I wouldn't use anything less than 1680x1050 @ 15" if I could. At least most of the 17" screens tend to be 1920x1080/1920x1200, but I like high-density 1920x1080/1200 15" screens.

It used to be adding RAM to an older machine would be like a breath of fresh air. Dual-cores at the minimum are a must these days (the only reason I went to a 2600K from an E6600 was because of games like Battlefield 3). Now, adding RAM is nice, but the real kick-in-the-pants performance boost is a SSD, but that's another topic entirely. My MBP flies with a 120GB SSD now.

e: I would use Windows 7 Home Premium as a minimum, there's no reason to run a decade-old OS like Windows XP. If you have some software that absolutely requires XP and Compatibility Mode won't do it for you, there's always virtualization.