That is completely false. They have always run predominantly on Linux, which is typical for an animation studio of that size.
That isn't true at all. Bootcamp drivers aren't always that great. The claims of this always use some bloatware comparison, which only works because you have to use a boxed copy of Windows to install bootcamp rather than whatever some oem provides.
Zbrush doesn't directly use any gpu frameworks. It's a very cpu heavy app. If you said mudbox that would be different. Photoshop isn't terribly reliant on the gpu. It's used for a number of things in ways that you probably won't really notice. It's nice, but I wouldn't worry about it when it comes to purchasing a machine. If a gpu is bug free in photoshop, that is much more important than its raw performance there. 3ds max has higher requirements. You want to make sure whatever you use doesn't have any glaring bugs with the nitrous viewport, as it's a significant step over the older drawing methods and features. I haven't used max in a very long time, but I read up on its development.
It's an issue of drivers, battery capacity, and other things. Apple achieves longer battery life by using the integrated graphics whenever possible in OSX. Their drivers + lack of graphics switching in Windows make that impossible.
Well if the OP animates them, that would be different. It's always a matter of what can be run in real time. People made some incredible stuff on far weaker hardware than what we have today, but they had to apply different workflows to achieve the desired framerates.
You're at Apple's mercy when it comes to Windows' drivers. They finally updated them for Windows 8 just a few weeks ago. It's not a priority for them.
And to those people here that say a MBP will run Windows better than a PC... LOL!
Same thing as I was saying. There are a lot of weird claims.
You would need to ask someone who has tested battery life on that model. I used to use bootcamp frequently on an older model, but I kept it plugged in much of the time. Battery wasn't that great. I don't know about the rMBP, but the prior ones (especially sandy bridge with the onset of quad cores) had an underpowered charger. If both cpu and gpu were being stressed, it could drain the battery even while plugged in. If you were rendering something in 3ds max, it wouldn't really tax the gpu heavily. If it needed to render for hours, I would just dim the screen to 0 to conserve power. Even in OSX, if you're running a modeling app that uses the gpu, it will switch to discrete graphics. Why wouldn't you just plug your laptop into the wall? Are you thinking of modeling while on a flight?
The Lenovo has a bigger power brick to prevent this from happening. I hate Dell, so I would probably go with the w530, although I remember complaints on changes from the w520 to the 530. You should read their forums and ask around on here. I know a few people who frequent this forum have owned or used Lenovo Thinkpads.
