I’m getting a new laptop and I’d like to make sure I’m getting the best graphics card and putting my money in the best areas. (Like Ram vs. processor and such.) I’m pretty bad at finding stuff, did a search, and can’t find any current info on this topic.
So is an ATI better or worse than Nvidia, or does it even matter? I know I want to go with a solid state HD and tons of RAM, but beyond that I’m clueless.
For ZBrush use, the graphics card will make absolutely zero difference. And I’m not even going to get into the nVidia vs. ATI war. 
ZBrush gets the most benefit from RAM first (6 GB recommended – more than that won’t benefit ZBrush although it may benefit other apps), CPU second (more cores are more important than faster speed, so if you need to make a choice for budget reasons go with the extra cores), and then hard drive speed (ZBrush will love your solid state drives, but those drives also tend to be a bit small – an important consideration given that ZBrush uses the drive where it’s installed for the virtual memory file. If you can afford it, RAID 0 more than one drive to get enough room.).
Thank you. That is exactly the kind of info I was hoping for! 
So here’s a practical question: Which would be better, a 128 gig SS hard drive or a 500 gb 7200 rpm. hard drive? Because the regular 500 gb is about 200 bucks cheaper for the laptop I’m getting.
It depends on how much you plan to put on the drive. If the computer is only going to be running ZBrush and a few other applications, you’ll be fine with the SSD. Especially if you plan to save data to an external or network drive. But if you plan to put some games on the computer as well, or lots of music and videos, you may find that the SSD doesn’t have enough room for your high end stuff to work well.
Look at your current computer. How do you use the available space there?
As far as ZBrush is concerned, the faster drive won’t make a huge difference. It’ll be noticeable only when ZBrush has to compact memory. The SSD would let that happen incredibly fast, but the rest of the time you’d see no difference in performance.
Thanks. I think you just saved me several hundred bucks! 