Machine learning PC/laptop

[Gena]

Hello , 

     I'm first college student who just realized I have to do Machine Learning as a minor(being the only interesting choice) . Knowing I would have to spent a lot of money on a build or a laptop setup I was wondering if you could help with my choice. It goes without saying that student life means I don't have huge budget. 

      What would you suggest me doing.

1) Buying a gaming laptop that would be inconvenient to carry around.

2) Building a desktop PC which will be impossible to carry around.

3) Building a laptop setup with an external GPU

 

P.S. For ML is it better to buy components oriented towards the workingstation space(old Quadros and Xeons) or should I stick with the consumer parts.

 

 

[Enderman]

You can get powerful 'gaming' or workstation laptops that aren't that large or inconvenient.

They're just more expensive.

[kelvinhall05]

I would get a desktop with a lot of cores.

 

 

Don't buy a gaming laptop...well, ever. The battery life is shit and if you're gonna have it plugged in all the time just get a desktop. Even if you're travelling often a SFF PC could work as well if not better.

[Metallus97]

How do you train?

Do you need GPU power?
OpenCL/Cuda 

Or are you doing it on the CPU?
Consumer components are fine. Especially with Ryzen and whizz 

[The1Dickens]

Your best bet is to keep an eye on second-hand stores (Goodwill, Salvation Army, Savers, etc.) for a decent desktop, after doing a bit of research to see where about you should consider. All the stuff in those stores are priced arbitrarily, based on whatever someone feels its worth, and that could vary person to person. I've seen decent builds for under $150USD, and mice/keyboards for under $5USD all day. 720p to 1080p monitors for $10-$25USD. When I built one of my first PCs (AM3+ socket), I was able to buy an AM3 CPU for 10 bucks so I could update my BIOS.

 

And Craigslist, some would swear by, could have good deals on decent hardware that you could end up upgrading at a later point.

 

Depending on what sort of machine learning, though, will determine what advice and parts you will be advised to keep any eye out for.

[tech.guru]

why not use the cloud?

look here, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-ca/services/machine-learning/

 

this is the pricing, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-ca/pricing/details/machine-learning/

 

since its a course for school. i wouldnt invest in hardware that is not going to be used after the course.

its cents to a few dollars per hour to rent, be much more expensive to buy

[Metallus97]

1 minute ago, tech.guru said:

why not use the cloud?

look here, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-ca/services/machine-learning/

Well i use Google cloud for compute sometimes. Also a solid solution.

 

But meh... depending on how much OP wants to do a own rig might be better. As I understand he is a stundend and therefor a own box tho learn on makes more sene i think