Best marine computer for maxsea? Fans?

[Holmes]

Anyone here have any experience with marine pcs? I am looking to pick one up to run Maxsea which i understand requires a significant graphics card. Not sure on what make to go with.

Also fanless compared to fan- which do I want and why?

thanks for any input

 

[Badlatitude]

You can get relatively good graphics cards these days for pennies on the dollar compared to years ago. Hell a lot of big box stores these days are coming with 8 gigs of ram and a gig of video

 

[Toro]

...The detail to sort out is the dimness to which the screen will darken to, and the brightness for broad daylight. Big box Store sourced not likely to do either very well but I'm no computer expert. Dimness is even more important of course..

 

[Badlatitude]

The brightness settings would be software based. We never had to use any monitor or internal computer settings for windplot. Although there certainly are adjustments to be had in the monitors controls.

One thing to consider is the placement and angles of your monitors in the first place. Also if going custom built a solid state hard drive and a dc power supply wouldn't be terrible additions.

 

[kmac]

A solid state hard drive is a must on a boat. It is much faster and immune to vibration that will kill a conventional hard drive.

 

[osprey47]

A couple of thoughts:
Do you really need MaxSea. It is a very complex navigation package, very expensive and has lots of added cost modules. I have used Fugawi for years and has all the necessary bells and whistles.
Marine PCs: So you can go top dollar with a Panasonic Tough Book, but if you are setting up an in-cabin nav station with good protection from the weather, take a look at the Lenovo T-series. An intel I7 quad processor is very fast and pulling component charts up should not be an issue with a 7200 drive. The real key is a sunlight compatible display.

Hope this helps.

 

[Holmes]

Thanks for the responses
I should have been more clear, I already have a 15" furuno marine display which I will be flush mounting on the dash. Looking for marine rugged 12v computer that will be in the cabin-Some moisture.
I've looked into different software and maxsea is what I'm going with for lobstering.

Lots of different brands for marine pc.. Don't know who to go with and fan or fanless

 

[bestfish]

Look on ebay for Panasonic Toughbooks. I bought a CF 29 for about 200$, Solid state hard drive, waterproof key board, can take heat,cold, vibration,dust, moisture. They're dinosaurs by todays standards, but unless your running at 75 kts it will track you fine. Oh yea, and I run Open CPN, does everything the fancy programs do but its free and doesn't use up a ton of RAM (Slow the computer down) Download vector and Raster charts free too. Find a cheap puck GPS antenna and your good to go. Just my experience, but I'm pretty cheap.