Your thoughts about Laptops

Comments

• deeahr2169 Posts: 485

  January 18

  PS> In case its not obvious this is for the English market....
• namffuak Posts: 4,445

  January 18

  I have an older MSI gaming laptop with pretty much the same specifications - but a 2070 gpu.

  There are two things you'll want to add - external storage andd a laptop cooler - do the memory upgrade; my system is a 16 GB system and that causes some issues, but this is not my primary 3D system.

  The additional drive space is self-explanatory.

  Google "laptop cooler" - in general, these are platforms the laptop sits on, with fans. Idealy some of the fans line up with the laptop cooling intake on the bottom resulting in significantly greater air flow.
• lkopop908 Posts: 84

  January 19 edited January 20

  Vram is the most important, imo 8gb is the bare minium. Id see about aiming for 4090m(16gb), 3080m ti(16gb), 4080m(12gb). In that order would be my go to list especially since your not aiming for the top end 50xx laptop with 24gb.

  The 50xx cards must use Alpha to render and Alpha doesnt do scripts yet which is a pain.

  Laptop cooler is a must(less you go with Eluktronics/XMG water cooled laptop), look into the one with the foam cushion sealing. shows it can drop by ~10deg.

  Also as a stop gap you could render in 480 or 720 and use an Ai upscaler, reduce render times and keep quailty.

  Post edited by lkopop908 on January 20
• lkopop908 Posts: 84

  January 19 edited January 19

  ~45£ a month gets you ShadowPc, 28gb ram 20gb vram running windows/nvidia card via remote'ing into a server pc. Would take ~20months of having ShadowPc to = your low end of the budge or about 30months on the higher end. You could work on stuff on the Mac send off to the server or just work server side, I had a slight delay/lag from time to time but wasnt always there and was relatively good imo *shrugs*

   

  Used it myself for about 6 months. Saved up to buy a better pc than I could afford at that time, got a 16gb vram laptop stead of a 12gb vram that I could orginally afford.

   

  *edit, heck they have a 16gb vram for ~30£ now(wasnt an option when I was using).

  So ~33months to = 1k £, and 50months to = 1.5k £

  Post edited by lkopop908 on January 19
• deeahr2169 Posts: 485

  January 20

  ok thanks for your input. What I think I will probably do is get myself a refurbed lapton runninng the latest version of Windows and learn how to use Windows before I actually invest in something more able to cope with the extra demands of higher spec machines...
• junk Posts: 1,500

  January 20 edited January 20

  Oh wait!

  My two cents is that I would get a dedicated RTX GPU with 12GB VRam or more if you can swing it. I have an 8GB RTX 5060 in mine, and more than not, I put so much into my scenes that the GPU can't handle it. Wish I had 12GB VRam at least and saw one a week ago with a 5070Ti / 12GB VRAM for $1080 US Dollars here:
  
  https://slickdeals.net/f/19087081-hp-omen-max-laptop-16-fhd-165hz-ips-ai-7-h-350-rtx-5070-ti-16gb-ram-512gb-1080-60-free-shipping?src=frontpage

  Laptop fans are noisy... just be aware of that especially if you don't undervolt the CPU/GPU. You could probably go into a "power saving mode" and get it quieter but the noise always bugs me personally.

  Post edited by junk on January 20
• Richard Haseltine Posts: 108,650

  January 20

  junk said:

  Oh wait!

  My two cents is that I would get a dedicated RTX GPU with 12GB VRam or more if you can swing it. I have an 8GB RTX 5060 in mine, and more than not, I put so much into my scenes that the GPU can't handle it. Wish I had 12GB VRam at least and saw one a week ago with a 5070Ti / 12GB VRAM for $1080 US Dollars here:
  
  https://slickdeals.net/f/19087081-hp-omen-max-laptop-16-fhd-165hz-ips-ai-7-h-350-rtx-5070-ti-16gb-ram-512gb-1080-60-free-shipping?src=frontpage

  Laptop fans are noisy... just be aware of that especially if you don't undervolt the CPU/GPU. You could probably go into a "power saving mode" and get it quieter but the noise always bugs me personally.

  12GB isn't that much - it was fairly easy to choke my 11GB 2080Ti in the old system, even some single sets like Notre Dame would do it. I'd aim for 16GB if possible, though the higher capavcity 40x0 cards are scarce (they pretty much evaporated when the 50x0 cards released) and of course 50x0 has the inconvenience of needing DS 2025/6 to render.
• tsroemi Posts: 3,523

  January 20

  If you're looking to get a refurb, maybe try to get a Windows 10 machine if you're only gonna use it for your 3d work, so mainly offline. Windows 11 is a data privacy nightmare.

  Personally, I'm using an older gaming laptop (Lenovo Legion 5 I think) with Win 10 and a 2060 NVidia card, 16 GB RAM. It works fine for me, but I don't do big scenes usually, mainly portraits and vignettes. I also don't render for hours at a time because the laptop does get rather hot with the card running high. So there are some limitations, but depending on what you plan to do, even a humble set up like this might be a good enough starting point for you. Compared with the CPU rendering on the Mac, it'll still be incomparably better! Been there as well ...
• lkopop908 Posts: 84

  January 21

  Buy with the most Vram you can afford, you'll reget not enough very very quickly, ask anyone if they have to much vram or regret getting "to much" the answer is 99% of the time NO. 3 characters, clothed-hair-jewelry-geoshells+lights+props+ a lightweight enviroment and I was near max on 16gb vram You cannot add more(well you can but that requires alot of know how and has hassels with voltage and drivers and you know....soldering). It would be better imo to get a desktop(vram per £=less on desk). You can also remote into your own desktop via phone/tablet/Ipad with keyboard and mouse so you could still "work" on the go via hotspot/wifi(best of both worlds, lightweight on the go/powerful at home)
• devin066 Posts: 34

  January 21

  I'm pretty happy with my "ASUS - ROG Zephyrus G14 14" 3K OLED 120Hz Gaming Laptop - Copilot+ PC - AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX - 32GB RAM - NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti - 1TB - Platinum White" for many reasons including the 12GB. I know its over your budget, but (and it was cheaper when I bought it last year) but if its something you use every day, its a better thing to overspend on because you are going to be using it for years.