Minimum Computer Specifications
While the selection of an appropriate laptop computer is a personal decision, we do have a few recommendations to help guide you in the process. The following are minimums to help ensure that your laptop will serve you well for your four years at Clarkson.
| Special Note: Although it is not a requirement, students may find it useful to have access to a computer or tablet with a pen-touch interface to facilitate the electronic submission of handwritten materials. |
General Undergraduate Computer Recommendations
| Windows PC | Apple Macintosh* | |
|---|---|---|
| Operating System | Windows 10 | OS X 10.15 or later (Catalina) |
| Productivity Tools | Microsoft Office 365 for Education is available to current students at no charge. | |
| Processor Type | MINIMUM Intel Core i5 (12th Generation or newer) RECOMMENDED Intel Core i7 (12th Generation or newer) |
MINIMUM Apple M1 chip RECOMMENDED Apple M2 chip |
| Memory | MINIMUM 16 GB RAM RECOMMENDED 32 GB RAM |
|
| Storage | MINIMUM 500 GB SSD RECOMMENDED 1 TB SSD |
|
| Warranty | 3-year parts and labor | |
| Insurance | Comprehensive breakage, theft, hazard | |
*If you are considering a Mac, please consider a larger hard drive to accommodate "dual-boot" into Windows using Boot Camp to allow use of some Windows-only programs that are required for some classes. A Free version of the Windows 10 Student Edition operating system is available for all students through Microsoft Azure for Teaching. Ask the helpdesk for details.
Our processor recommendations are based on hardware specs that we use in our classrooms and computer labs where we have fully tested software compatibility and performance. It's possible that other vendors such as AMD have processors that will perform as well as the Intel recommendations, but we have not tested them ourselves.
Special Consideration for Civil & Environmental Engineering Students
The following are some base-line specifications for potential computer purchases for incoming students
planning to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Civil or Environmental Engineering.**
Please note that Clarkson University makes no endorsement of any particular computer product or manufacturer.
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| Operating System | Windows 10 64-bit Enterprise or Pro*** | Windows 10 64-bit Enterprise or Pro*** |
| Processor | Intel/AMD Processor scoring a single thread CPUMark of 2,200 or higher | Intel/AMD Processor scoring a single thread CPUMark of 2,600 or higher |
| Graphics Card | DirectX 11 capable graphics card with Shader Model 5 or better | |
| Productivity Tools | Microsoft Office 365 for Education is available to current students at no charge. | |
| Memory | MINIMUM - 32 GB RAM |
|
| Storage |
1 TB SSD SATA3 SSD or |
2 TB SSD SATA3 SSD or |
| Warranty | Recommended - 3-year parts and labor | |
| Insurance | Comprehensive breakage, theft, hazard | |
**These specifications are based on “Lumion 10.3 System Requirements”, https://lumion.com/requirements.html,
accessed on 15 April 2021; this software is used in some senior level classes and tends to test the capacity of student
computers based on its intensity of modeling functionality.
***Note about iOS (macOS/Macintosh/Mac/Apple) computer options: Clarkson does not prescribe the use of a
particular primary operating system (iOS or PC) for the computer you use. This is largely left to your preference. You are forewarned, however, that there will be numerous software used in the Civil or Environmental Engineering curriculum that do not perform well (or at all) in an iOS environment. Thus, if you have an iOS primary device, you will need to use “Boot Camp” to add Windows 10 at some point (typically by the third semester) following the instructions at this site: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201468.