Laptop for rendering?

[gsscott50@hotmail.com]

Hi,

 

I am currently looking at adding a render node to my current setup. I also need a laptop for light 3d work, photoshop and running Realtime engines on.

 

My questions is - do I buy a dedicated rendernode and a medicore laptop or do I buy a good laptop which can do both? I don't have any experience rendering with laptops. Are they able to run at high temps for long periods without ruining the hardware? I will basically be using it for stills where average render times are anywhere between 2 and 5 hours.

 

Anyone using a laptop as a rendernode out there? Anyone got any suggestions for laptops if this is a sensible option?

 

Thanks!

[Nikolaos M]

Laptops are not made for rendering. Wait for some more opinions on this, but imo your first thought is more wise. Buy a mediocre laptop for portability, and with the rest of your money, buy the best render node you can afford. If you could mention your total budget, I think people here would give a more specific advice.

[Stephen Thomas]

You're always going to get less bang for your buck with a laptop compared to desktop pc. And while they can function fine as a replacement workstation for 2d/3d work with occasional rendering they are definitely not suited to being a dedicated render node.

 

As Nikolaos says, look first at your budget and what you are trying to achieve. What is the primary reason for going for a laptop? Could you look at upgrading your current desktop to function as a render node and use the laptop as a workstation, if that is your preference? What is your current setup?

[notamondayfan]

A decent i7 node £700 + good / average laptop £1000 = £1700

 

I think you'd struggle to get a laptop for £1700 with the same power to be honest.

[Francisco Penaloza]

I agree with what everybody already said, and I would like to add some more

If you want to work with real-time engines, forget to buy a "mediocre" laptop, for a decent performance with any real-time or game engine you will need a "Gamer" laptop, something with a good GTX or Good ATI video chip, those intel video chip really suck on real-time software. They perform with minimum quality.

 

Here at the office most of our laptop are prepared for REVIT work, so they are beefy, Quadro video chips. But for real-time (Unreal, Unity, LumenRT) we purchased a gaming laptop with dedicated GTX video chip. Other than that your Frame rate will be very limited.