EEE+CS/EIE etc best MacBook? And should I wait

[jamesjingyi]

I'm just about to start my first year at Uni studying Electronic Engineering with Computer Science and was wondering what kind of power I would need. The university did not really give me a good idea as when I asked, they just said that I would be able to run all the programs on their computers. I would like to take my work to the dorm with me if needs be and was wondering whether anybody knew what kind of power I would need?

Also (sorry!) at the moment I have a 2012 i5 1.7GHz 11" Air. I was wondering whether to buy the new rMBP 15" or whether this would get me through the first year and I could just wait for Skylake or whether the upgrade to Skylake would be big enough to justify the wait due to the applications I would be using?

Thanks in advance

James

 

[snaky69]

Since you're going into CS, you probably know a bit about computers.

Since you know what school and classes you're taking, you probably know(or have the means to know) what software is used in those classes.

A quick google search of those software would yield you system requirements.

From there, I think you should be able to quite easily decide for yourself if you need an upgrade or not.

Hope this steered you in the right direction.

 

[jamesjingyi]

Since you're going into CS, you probably know a bit about computers.

Since you know what school and classes you're taking, you probably know(or have the means to know) what software is used in those classes.

A quick google search of those software would yield you system requirements.

From there, I think you should be able to quite easily decide for yourself if you need an upgrade or not.

Hope this steered you in the right direction.

That's the problem. Google searches just come up with the courses not the programs/applications needed. I was wondering if there were any CS/EEE students that could help me.

 

[snaky69]

That's the problem. Google searches just come up with the courses not the programs/applications needed. I was wondering if there were any CS/EEE students that could help me.

I'm no EE nor CS expert (I'm a mechanical engineer) but I'll take a wild guess at it and say you're likely to be using things like Matlab, Labview, Maple, a programming suite of some kind (most likely Visual Studio, Eclipse or equivalent), perhaps a bit of AutoCAD electrical mixed in.

And of course, Microsoft Office.

None of the aforementioned programs need a lot of power(at least not until you get into the very complex stuff which you are not likely to encounter at school).

This is but a wild guess though. Sorry if I did not answer this in my first post, but I'm a very firm believer in the principle that whatever you've learned through research or experience sticks.

 

[jamesjingyi]

I'm no EE nor CS expert (I'm a mechanical engineer) but I'll take a wild guess at it and say you're likely to be using things like Matlab, Labview, Maple, a programming suite of some kind (most likely Visual Studio, Eclipse or equivalent), perhaps a bit of AutoCAD electrical mixed in.

And of course, Microsoft Office.

None of the aforementioned programs need a lot of power(at least not until you get into the very complex stuff which you are not likely to encounter at school).

This is but a wild guess though. Sorry if I did not answer this in my first post, but I'm a very firm believer in the principle that whatever you've learned through research or experience sticks.

Thank you! That answers my question perfectly.

 

[Studflower]

I'm also a mech e. graduate, and the most taxing program I've used was SolidWorks. I got by mostly using the computers at the computer labs (you should do this with your group members anyways).

The other stuff like Maple, Matlab, and if you're a CS student, I guess you can use Eclipse, BBEdit or whatever else, will all run perfectly fine on your 11" air. All assuming you're not a boygenius taking graduate level courses calculating nonlinear second order differentials or something lol.

Stick out a semester and wait for that Skylake!

 

[jamesjingyi]

I'm also a mech e. graduate, and the most taxing program I've used was SolidWorks. I got by mostly using the computers at the computer labs (you should do this with your group members anyways).

The other stuff like Maple, Matlab, and if you're a CS student, I guess you can use Eclipse, BBEdit or whatever else, will all run perfectly fine on your 11" air. All assuming you're not a boygenius taking graduate level courses calculating nonlinear second order differentials or something lol.

Stick out a semester and wait for that Skylake!

Thanks for the advice! I think I will. Skylake just looks like such a big improvement.