Recommendations for signal processing/complex modelling laptip

[Cerebellus]

I'm sure this question gets asked a lot and I'm going to scan through the forum next. However, can anyone recommend the best laptop for doing complex stats analysis and computational modelling?

 

A lot of my work is done in MATLAB which I understand requires a lot of parallel processing, but I don't know what that means in terms of what I should buy. 

 

My plan was to build a desktop system for analysis and buy a cheap laptop for the day-to-day, but I've just found out when I start my new job I won't get my first paycheck for 6 weeks. Given the amount of work I already have to do with no functioning laptop and no income I'm reduced to having to buy a laptop capable of doing my analysis and pay for it in monthly installments. 

 

Any help would be much appreciated. At this point, imagine money doesn't matter and neither does gaming capability. All I care about is the best performance I can get in a laptop. 

 

Edit: Just wanted to add that I need windows but hate windows. So I will be dual booting with Ubuntu. Not sure that affects recommendations 

Edited November 12, 2018 by Cerebellus

[Princess Luna]

how much are you willing to spend? there's a lot of great value laptops featuring the i7 8550U which is a decent 4c/8t CPU

[Cerebellus]

5 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

how much are you willing to spend? there's a lot of great value laptops featuring the i7 8550U which is a decent 4c/8t CPU

Thanks for replying! Let's say £1500/$2000usd. 

[genexis_x]

10 hours ago, Cerebellus said:

Thanks for replying! Let's say £1500/$2000usd. 

Are you buying in UK? Does your workload benefit from Quadro? Any preference on display quality, weight and battery life?

[Cerebellus]

10 hours ago, GeneXiS_X said:

Are you buying in UK? Does your workload benefit from Quadro? Any preference on display quality, weight and battery life?

Yes to buying in the UK. I'm not sure how much of a difference the GPU makes? I know MATLAB and python borrow GPU processing so maybe it's best to get a Quadro but that does seem to bump my price a lot? 

 

Like I say, not bothered at all about gaming so I don't think the display size or quality matters. Weight doesn't matter either. I was hoping for 5h battery or better but again it seems like the more beastly laptops average out at 2 or 3 hours. 

 

I considered using some form of custom build site so if you could recommend a site to go with that would be great!

[genexis_x]

13 hours ago, Cerebellus said:

that does seem to bump my price a lot? 

Indeed

 

Any links of online stores? Do you mind low sRGB display?

[Cerebellus]

1 hour ago, GeneXiS_X said:

Indeed

 

Any links of online stores? Do you mind low sRGB display?

Don't mind low sRGB. I built two on pcspecialist.co.uk, one with an i7-8750k and another with the i9-8950hk I'll post their specs below. 

 

Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 8850H (2.6GHz, 4.3GHz Turbo)

 

FREE Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!

Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 3000MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1^st Hard Disk
1TB SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1^st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SAMSUNG 970 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 2300MB/W)

 

FREE Assassin's Creed: Odyssey with select SAMSUNG NVMe SSDs!

Intel Optane Memory
32GB INTEL® M10 OPTANE MEMORY - USE WITH MECHANICAL HDD
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery
Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (66WH)
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + Sound BlasterX® Pro-Gaming 720˚
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ WIRELESS-AC 1550 M.2 GAMING 802.11AC + BLUETOOTH 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
4 x USB 3.0 Ports + 1 x USB 3.1 Type C Ports
Keyboard Language
RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,926.00 including VAT and Delivery

 

LAPTOP 2

Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 17.3" Matte QHD 120Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (2560x1440) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Six Core Processor 8950HK (2.9GHz, 4.8GHz Turbo)

 

FREE Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 & More w/ select Intel CPUs!

Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 3000MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1^st Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE 7mm SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1^st M.2 SSD Drive
250GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 1500MB/W)

 

FREE Assassin's Creed: Odyssey with select SAMSUNG NVMe SSDs!

Intel Optane Memory
32GB INTEL® M10 OPTANE MEMORY - USE WITH MECHANICAL HDD
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Battery
Defiance Series 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (66WH)
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Thermal Paste
COOLER MASTER MASTERGEL MAKER THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + Sound BlasterX® Pro-Gaming 720˚
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-9260 M.2 (1.73Gbps, 802.11AC) +BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
4 x USB 3.0 Ports + 1 x USB 3.1 Type C Ports
Keyboard Language
DEFIANCE SERIES PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price £2,163.00 including VAT and Delivery

[genexis_x]

Which model is that? (sounds like Clevo PA71ES-G)

 

Would it be better to provide me some links of online stores besides PCSpecialist so that I can look through the options

[Cerebellus]

4 hours ago, GeneXiS_X said:

Which model is that? (sounds like Clevo PA71ES-G)

 

Would it be better to provide me some links of online stores besides PCSpecialist so that I can look through the options

I don't know which model it is, the info you get is just the chassis and display type. 

 

For prebuilt I've only been looking at laptopsdirect.co.uk. For custom builds I've been looking at scan.co.uk, ebuyer.com, box.co.uk and mysn.de. 

[genexis_x]

HP Omen 15-dc0029na

CyberpowerPC stuffs (TongFang barebones)

Lenovo Legion Y530 (customize)

Dell G5 with UHD panel (default panel has low sRGB)

 

Might have bad QA/QC:

MSI GE63/GE73/GP63/GP73 8RE

Asus GL504GM

Asus GL703GM

 

Bulky models:

HP Omen 17 - bulky

AW15/17 - OK-good cooling, bulky

 

PCSpecialist stuffs:

Vyper Elite (TongFang GI5CN5E/GJ5CN6E) - low sRGB IPS

Recoil II (TongFang GK5CN5Z/6Z) - thin and light (loud fans, can be tuned), can be also bought from 3XS - LG15 Vengeance Pro

 

All with CFL-H i7 and at least 1060 GPU

 

Do you mind models above 1500 pounds?

[Cerebellus]

12 hours ago, GeneXiS_X said:

Might have bad QA/QC

Thanks for all the recommendations! If I could buy you a drink I would. I'm not sure what QA/QC means?

 

I actually started looking at the Dell Precision 7530. With a Xeon-E2186M and a Quadro P2000. That laptop with beefed up specs cost just less than £2500 so I'm willing to up my price range. 

 

I just want a laptop that is capable of doing things like computational modelling and simulation and machine learning. If I have to pay a premium for that I will have to pay it and just eat beans for the next few months. 

[genexis_x]

14 hours ago, Cerebellus said:

I'm not sure what QA/QC means?

quality assurance, quality control

14 hours ago, Cerebellus said:

I actually started looking at the Dell Precision 7530. With a Xeon-E2186M and a Quadro P2000

Might also want to look at Thinkpad P52 if you need Quadro, cheaper. Avoid Xeon mobile unless you need the extra features like ECC RAM as it only provide minimal to none extra CPU performance (mainly multi core) due to thermal limitation