Purchasing advice for prosumer mobile workstation

[Fristad]

Hi

 

I'm a Swedish student applying for a three year bachelor course in additive manufacturing with a focus on biomedical engineering and sports medicine.

I have designed in CAD using Fusion360 and Inventor for about three years and I'm so sick and tired of designing on an old Latitude 5480 so I'm thinking of spending between 2000-3000 euro on a mobile workstation in the fall.

I'm looking for something that i can use for Fusion/Inventor, Solidworks and NX. All with local computation. I'd also like to be able to run demanding games so i don't have to lug around my Tower 900 gaming rig if i ever want to go on a LAN-party with friends. I haven't been able to find a good deal for under 3000 euro with my requirements so if anyone would like to share good alternatives within my budget feel free to share them.

The requirements I'm adamant about are as follows:

• 15 to 19" screen, with touch
• Six or more cores CPU
• 3840x2160 resolution
• Thunderbolt 3/4 support
• TU106-based GPU e.g. RTX2060/Quadro RTX 3000 or better
• 32GB ram capable
• Minimum of 2 total drive slots with atleast one being NVMe
• Not a mac

Features that would be interesting but not required:

• 4G WWAN
• Sleek and light design e.g. something similar to Surface Laptop or Macbook Pro
• Additional screen real estate like on the Asus Zenbook Duo
• USB-C charging option
• Adobe suite bundling available
• Long warranty and/or tech support
• Wide colour gamut
• Able to be bought directly from manufacturer at a competitive price

 

Finally I'd like to clearify that I'm only able to purchase this from within the EU or the UK. I'd also like to thank everyone who takes the time to help me, I've only ever bought desktops in parts and built my own computers so I'm not that familiar with what alternatives there are on the market for laptops.

[Fasauceome]

If you wanted to consider a mini tower build:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	€316.99 @ Amazon Deutschland
CPU Cooler	Corsair H80i v2 70.69 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	€99.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
Motherboard	Gigabyte X570 I AORUS PRO WIFI Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard	€227.99 @ Mindfactory
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	€89.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
Storage	Gigabyte AORUS NVMe Gen4 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	€297.02 @ Amazon Deutschland
Storage	Sabrent Rocket Q 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	€219.95 @ Amazon Deutschland
Video Card	PNY Quadro RTX 4000 8 GB Video Card	€999.90 @ Alza
Case	Silverstone SG13 Mini ITX Tower Case	€39.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
Power Supply	BitFenix Formula Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply	€74.33 @ Amazon Deutschland
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€2365.88
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-02-21 18:59 CET+0100

But for a high power laptop, I believe there are Acer Predator Triton and Asus Zephyrus models that would fit the bill. In the price range you're seeking, they offer a thick chassis and some nice display options.

[Fristad]

7 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

If you wanted to consider a mini tower build:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	€316.99 @ Amazon Deutschland
CPU Cooler	Corsair H80i v2 70.69 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	€99.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
Motherboard	Gigabyte X570 I AORUS PRO WIFI Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard	€227.99 @ Mindfactory
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	€89.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
Storage	Gigabyte AORUS NVMe Gen4 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	€297.02 @ Amazon Deutschland
Storage	Sabrent Rocket Q 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	€219.95 @ Amazon Deutschland
Video Card	PNY Quadro RTX 4000 8 GB Video Card	€999.90 @ Alza
Case	Silverstone SG13 Mini ITX Tower Case	€39.90 @ Amazon Deutschland
Power Supply	BitFenix Formula Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply	€74.33 @ Amazon Deutschland
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€2365.88
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-02-21 18:59 CET+0100

But for a high power laptop, I believe there are Acer Predator Triton and Asus Zephyrus models that would fit the bill. In the price range you're seeking, they offer a thick chassis and some nice display options.

A mini tower is sadly out of the question. I already have a gaming rig, I need something mobile since i live 70km from the university. But thanks anyway

[Fasauceome]

2 hours ago, Fristad said:

A mini tower is sadly out of the question. I already have a gaming rig, I need something mobile since i live 70km from the university. But thanks anyway

Well if you only wanted the PC to be portable because you needed to drive it hassle free, this build works really well. The case that I selected only is the size of a shoebox.

 

But if you need portability at the workplace then that's a different story.

[panzersharkcat]

It's not exactly sleek and light but maybe a ThinkPad P53. It has the option of WWAN, a 4K OLED touch display, up to RTX 5000, up to an i9-9880H (though your only GPU option with that is the RTX 4000), and up to 128 GB of RAM. The issue is if you're ordering directly from Lenovo is they take goddamn forever with shipping, even more if you're custom ordering. You can also try looking at the Dell Precision 7540, which has similar features. I'm not as familiar with Dell's stuff, though.

[Fristad]

On 2/22/2020 at 7:02 AM, panzersharkcat said:

It's not exactly sleek and light but maybe a ThinkPad P53. It has the option of WWAN, a 4K OLED touch display, up to RTX 5000, up to an i9-9880H (though your only GPU option with that is the RTX 4000), and up to 128 GB of RAM. The issue is if you're ordering directly from Lenovo is they take goddamn forever with shipping, even more if you're custom ordering. You can also try looking at the Dell Precision 7540, which has similar features. I'm not as familiar with Dell's stuff, though.

Yeah, tried looking at the large companies like HPe, Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft etc but couldn't find any good deals. Hopefully it will get cheaper in the summer when everything new from CES has launched

[Kilrah]

A very small SFF can still be viable if you can leave a monitor/keyboard where you work. Mine (in signature) is small enough that I carry it everyday in my backpack between work and hotel during my work trips, and it trumps any laptop you can find (I have a 1070 becasue I already had it when I did the build, and I'm skipping the 20 series entirely since 30 is close, but you could put a 2070 in the same footprint).

[Kilrah]

 @404usrnmntfnd "TU106-based GPU e.g. RTX2060/Quadro RTX 3000 or better", "32GB ram capable"

 

Read the requirements maybe?