Would you recommend a Dell Inspiron 15 5000 series for 3D rendering?

[J_PUF_]

I've been looking into a new laptop, for use in programs such as Blender and Maya. I believe I need to prioritise CPU power for rendering, and GPU power for actually modelling, simulating etc. I could well be wrong about this. My budget is around £500-£650 ($760-$1000).
This will be for university, but it doesn't have to be super portable, 15.6" is fine. I'd settle for a 1366 x 768 resolution. Battery life isn't a huge concern, 4 hours would be plenty. Gaming isn't a priority either, but seeing as I think I'd need some of the more gaming-oriented components anyway, games should play well right?
The main use for this laptop is good performance in 3D rendering and modelling.
1TB Hard drive would be great.
I live in the UK.
From my research, the best I've come up with is the (new?) Dell Inspiron 15 5000 option.
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15-5558-laptop/pd?oc=cn55806&model_id=inspiron-15-5558-laptop
It sits nicely in my budget (£579). The CPU seems powerful (5th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-5500U Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.00 GHz)) I heard somewhere that all i7 CPUs are quad-core, but then 'multi-threaded' to a virtual 8 cores? Is this the case with my Dell? I know that the number of cores has a huge impact on render times. Is the graphics card good enough? (GeForce 920 4GB DDR3). The screen is not great, but I'm used to that resolution on my current laptop. And the memory is perfectly adequate (8GB RAM, 1TB HD)
I've looked briefly into MSI, ASUS and Lenovo, but I always saw something I didn't like (in my budget). Whereas I can't fault the Dell. Is there something I'm missing?

 

[velo3100]

No I wouldn't as the gpu is very weak. I would look into the acer e series with the gt 840m.

 

[hang-the-9]

For a system you will be using for 3D work, you want a high res screen and a fast CPU and video card. You may want to check into a year or two used workstation system like a Lenovo W520, HP Z Book, Dell Precision. Just make sure you can verify it runs fine without crashing.

You don't want a cheaper consumer model, a cheap new laptop is not as good as a quality used one.

 

[J_PUF_]

No I wouldn't as the gpu is very weak. I would look into the acer e series with the gt 840m.

Thanks for the response, I've looked into the Acers. All the E series laptops I could find only had poor integrated graphics. But would one like this ( http://www.ebuyer.com/718900-acer-aspire-v3-572g-laptop-nx-mnjek-023 ) work? It's in my price range, has a 2.4GHz i7 CPU, and a 840M. I'm not sure if this is the same as the GT 840M, I know very little about graphics cards.

 

[J_PUF_]

For a system you will be using for 3D work, you want a high res screen and a fast CPU and video card. You may want to check into a year or two used workstation system like a Lenovo W520, HP Z Book, Dell Precision. Just make sure you can verify it runs fine without crashing.

You don't want a cheaper consumer model, a cheap new laptop is not as good as a quality used one.

Thanks, I see what you're saying. I know a high-res screen would be preferable, but I'd rather skimp out on that, if it means I can improve performance. I'm sure my best solution financially would be to go second-hand. But I don't trust myself to avoid a mistake there, especially with a bit less supply in the UK. I'm sure I could find a killer deal, but I'm planning to purchase within a few days. I feel a cheap new laptop is safer than a quality used one. As I mentioned in another reply, I'm now looking into this Acer ( http://www.ebuyer.com/718900-acer-aspire-v3-572g-laptop-nx-mnjek-023 ). Hopefully this would be more adequate.

Thanks again for your response, I hadn't even considered shopping second-hand before.

 

[velo3100]

That is a good laptop for 3d rendering and modelling. I assume you are just learning how to do this rather than doing a masters.

No I wouldn't as the gpu is very weak. I would look into the acer e series with the gt 840m.

Thanks for the response, I've looked into the Acers. All the E series laptops I could find only had poor integrated graphics. But would one like this ( http://www.ebuyer.com/718900-acer-aspire-v3-572g-laptop-nx-mnjek-023 ) work? It's in my price range, has a 2.4GHz i7 CPU, and a 840M. I'm not sure if this is the same as the GT 840M, I know very little about graphics cards.