New Laptop ?

[Nathan.c]

I wonder if you guys could help me out. I'm looking at getting a new laptop, the one I've got now is an everyday all round £250 Lenovo special from Argos, not the greatest, and it does struggle a fair bit with TG at times. I plan on buying TG at some point, but that's pointless until I get a better laptop. Years ago I wouldn't have had to ask, but I'm completely out of the loop with computer technology these days, and need pointing in the right direction. I've got a £500 - 550 maximum budget, I just want something that will run TG better than my current one, I'm not interested in gaming, but I guess the gaming side of the tech would probably help. Some pointers would be appreciated, also needs to be from/purchased in the UK. 

Cheers.

[WAS]

Hmm. That's kinda a hard price point. As you'll want to have adequate RAM, at least 32gb I'd say (what I use currently). But that then leaves weaker CPUs unless you up the price point. I can find plenty of 32gb equipped systems, but then they have crappy i3s or equivs with only 2 cores 4 threads unless we go higher on the price.

Here is what I suggest for a modern TG Mobile experience:

• 6-core+ system, though a quad could be OK.
• 24-32GB of RAM
• USB-C power supply - these systems often have really good stable power access (far more modern technology than old external PSUs) and would theoretically reduce kernel power faults which would either crash or restart the laptop when power is at peak (due to TG) and Windows decides to do something intensive. This happens to me occasionally.

But because you're also interested in gaming, this really hits the price point. GPUs are coming down in price, but are still above MRSP. If you really want to game I'd suggest a 1000 dollar minimum laptop, and just upgrade it's RAM. The CPUs are pretty decent, and they often come with 16gb of RAM which could get you started with TG until you get more RAM.

PS I would suggest just getting a desktop PC. Far cheaper, and more powerful for what you want to do. Just not mobile.

[KlausK]

hi, would be nice to have some info about your systems configuration right now.
CPU, Ram, GPU etc.
Me, like WAS don`t think your budget is good enough to buy into something up to date.
You won`t get anything worth the money. Interaction, Preview and Rendering will be painfully slow, I guess.
If possible, I`d also would buy into a good workstation. It`s just more fun - and easier to upgrade later.

What about refurbished or used labtops?

I bought a Asus ROG STRIX GL703GM-EE026T Gaming labtop from 2018/19 in January which cost me around £ 550.-.

Intel Core i7-8750H @2.20GHz / Max Turbo 4.10 GHz
6 Core / 12 Threads CPU
RAM 16.0 GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 / 6GB VRAM
17" Monitor at 1920 x 1080 / 120Hz

SSD 250 GB for the OS
m2 250 GB for Data

RAM is the only real shortcoming here when used with TG.
Simply not enough to work on larger scenes with populations. But it runs TG ok.

It is by no means a replacement for my desktop pc but it is running fast enough to use DaVinci Resolve + Fusion, TG, XSI + Houdini.
I mainly bought it for music software.

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Or, if we knew if/when TG will run native on the new MACs...wait for that and invest a little more, perhaps?

I suggest to take a look at dell.co.uk to get a overview of what you can buy nowadays with the money you have available.
I always found their prices at a good level when I started looking for new hardware.

CHeers, Klaus

[WAS]

Dell's quality may be better today, but boy. When we got a full desktop media PC it came with dead I/O. Keyboard, mouse, and sound system didn't work. Had them send a new one. It was simply dead, they said the motherboard was fried. They sent another, it fried within a week. We then find out they send refurbished machines, after we were supposed to get a new machine. That was a awful experience. My buddy has also had similar with trying to get his laptop repaired, and sending back the same broken machine, and then another machine with dead keys.

I have a MSI laptop with pretty much the same specs as yours, and it does decent with TG as well, not by comparison to even my low-end PC though.

[Nathan.c]

Sorry people's I forgot I posted this.. Anyway thanks for the input, I'll wait until the budget is better.

[WAS]

Here is a Desktop deal for 699 USD you may be interested in, which features a pretty good CPU, and GPU: https://deals.dell.com/en-us/work/productdetail/99sl

[KaseyBear]

Try the ThinkPad T480
You can find it for 500-550 USD

[Toggle]

I'm interested in it, too, but I would like to improve my laptop and change the processor, for example such options:
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Intel Core i9-9960X
Let me point out these tests:
https://versus.com/en/amd-ryzen-7-5800x-vs-intel-core-i9-9960x
https://rankquality.com/en/processors/
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i9-9960X-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-5800X/m653060vs4085
I would like to ask your advice on how to upgrade my gaming computer with a budget of 400-800$
What do you think about it? Let's go on talking about it...