Newbie Help needed! - Laptop :)

[matthewaidan]

Hi for the first time! Can I ask for your advice?

 

I looking for a laptop; I already have the desktop set. I looking to use 3dsMax, Vray, Maya, ZBrush, and Substance mainly. I would like a usable performance out of VrayRT for scene set up. I will run off renders on the laptop sometimes but will more often render at home on desktop.

 

So GPU or CPU. Am I really going to see any practical difference between the GTX 960M, 970M or Geoforce 1060,70 or 80? Which graphics card to you guys recommend. Is it really worth going i7 on the processor or can I get away with an i5?

 

Any favorite laptops?

 

Could really do with some advice....

 

Thanks!

 

Matt

[Dimitris Tolios]

The most important piece of information you are not giving us, is both an expected budget / absolute spending ceiling. Without it, most advice can render itself pointless.

 

To start backwards, yes, I think the i7 does worth it - in fact more than the expensive GPU. That said, I doubt you will find a pre-configured laptop with a mid/high grade GPU that doesn't have an i7, so, this part is "fixed" for you.

 

I would take a look into ASUS ROG GL502VS. There is decent range of configurations available for it, but this one has most of the important stuff in it:

 

i7 6700HQ / 16GB Ram (user upgradeable to 32GB if required - 2 dimm slots) / GTX 1070 / IPS 1080p panel / 256 GB M.2 SSD for OS & Apps (upgradable to NVMe / PCIe, but I don't think it matters) / 1TB HDD for "stuff". Relatively discreet design for a "gaming" machine and relatively compact size.

 

Doesn't hold much against the aesthetics, portability or battery life vs. a 15" MBP or XPS, but the GTX 1070 alone makes it having 2x the thermal envelope of these...remember, for same generation of products, smaller = almost always less powerful: in CPU, GPU, upgreadability or all of above. And of course, more powerful is impossible to happen without more consumption (in same generation products), and more consumption means more heat, and more heat means either bigger size to be cooled easily, or much louder.

[joelmcwilliam]

Yeah, you need to give the budget or else we can name all the laptops here.

 

I don't get it, you already have a perfectly fine desktop at home and you still want to buy a laptop to do the things on it you can do on your desktop? Sounds like wasting money to me. Are you really that mobile?

 

What's your desktop at home? (specs)