Hello Owain.
On Tuesday, 26 January, 2021, you wrote
> My son is in the last leg of his chemistry
> degree and finding that his laptop is not up to
> the statistically heavy Matlab calculations he
> has to do, so he wants a higher spec laptop.
Does the replacement need to be a laptop? For a
given price, you will get substantially better
performance from a desktop.
> In the past I have used PC World and the like
> with both of my sons and been amazed with the
> disappointing performance.
I doubt any general retailers will be able to give
advice on Matlab performance.
I found this page on MathWorks' web site:
https://uk.mathworks.com/support/requirements/choosing-a-computer.html
In summary, their advice is "it depends on your
application". Matlab is a programming language, so
the best hardware will depend on the calculations
that your son needs to perform.
I have no experience with Matlab, unfortunately,
but I do work for a company which produces a
compiler for a different statistical programming
language. Some operations, such as sorting, can be
run in parallel, so many cores are an advantage.
Others are inherently serial, so a higher clock
speed and better IPC are more important.
As for memory, the more the better. Do you have an
idea of the amount of data your son is processing?
Ideally, you would like enough memory for both
source and result datasets, but that may not be
possible.
If the data is going to exceed available memory,
then disk performance becomes more important. A
PCI-e 3 or 4 NVMe drive would be a good idea in
this case. However, the machine should still have
as much memory as can be economically fitted, as
it will act as a cache for data on the disk.
Has your son tried contacting MathWorks' support?
Our support team regularly answers queries about
hardware requirements. He may need to supply some
example programs, or list the algorithms he uses.
Nick.
--
Nick Chalk ................. once a Radio Designer
Confidence is failing to understand the problem.
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