Laptop for business/virtualization

[Marco2G]

Hi everyone

 

Getting fed up with the dreck that is Apple Macbook Pro I was looking into what alternatives there are. This is a company laptop. My alternative at the time was a 13 inch Surface. I chose the Apple because it's 15 inches and because I figured I'm not much better off having to get used to Win10 so I might as well give OSX a chance. Two years later, I'm thoroughly done with OSX. Seeing as I had a Win10 vm running on it (with classic shell so I don't have to murder people) I am thinking of just installing Win10 on this. Problem is preliminary tests with a 2012 Mabook ended in boot problems.

 

Anyhow, another issue is I cannot find anything that is actually better than this. It all seems to be garbage.

 

If you want something that has 32 Gigs of RAM and doesn't throttle too much, you have to get a gaming laptop and live with it looking cheesy as all hell AND you'll be paying for a gaming graphics card I really don't need and don't want.

 

So is there a laptop on the market that looks somewhat professional, has decent IO, comes with 32 Gigs and a GPU from Intel? I need decent CPU power but I don't think I'd need more than 6 cores. Four might do the job actually.

 

Oh yeah, if it could be somewhat easy on the ears, that would be great.

 

Does such a thing exist?

[BobVonBob]

High end Lenovo Thinkpad? Although it's only 4 cores, the 6 core i7s just don't come without a dedicated GPU, but if you do need 6 cores you could look at the Dell XPS. 

Lenovo

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DQG9GQY

Dell

https://www.amazon.coms/dp/B07D4ZMYCM/

[Super Spartan]

1 hour ago, Marco2G said:

Hi everyone

 

Getting fed up with the dreck that is Apple Macbook Pro I was looking into what alternatives there are. This is a company laptop. My alternative at the time was a 13 inch Surface. I chose the Apple because it's 15 inches and because I figured I'm not much better off having to get used to Win10 so I might as well give OSX a chance. Two years later, I'm thoroughly done with OSX. Seeing as I had a Win10 vm running on it (with classic shell so I don't have to murder people) I am thinking of just installing Win10 on this. Problem is preliminary tests with a 2012 Mabook ended in boot problems.

 

Anyhow, another issue is I cannot find anything that is actually better than this. It all seems to be garbage.

 

If you want something that has 32 Gigs of RAM and doesn't throttle too much, you have to get a gaming laptop and live with it looking cheesy as all hell AND you'll be paying for a gaming graphics card I really don't need and don't want.

 

So is there a laptop on the market that looks somewhat professional, has decent IO, comes with 32 Gigs and a GPU from Intel? I need decent CPU power but I don't think I'd need more than 6 cores. Four might do the job actually.

 

Oh yeah, if it could be somewhat easy on the ears, that would be great.

 

Does such a thing exist?

Custom Built MSI PS63 8RC Modern-085 - 15.6" FHD - i7-8565U - GTX 1050 Max-Q

When building it, you can choose 32GB RAM and I recommend you choose Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut on CPU + GPU, and Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads on heat sensitive surfaces to mitigate any heat issues.

 

HIDevolution has superb quality control as they do synthetic stress tests and actual gaming sessions to ensure the laptop works 100% out of the box. They also give you lifetime tech support for free which is way better than the regular tech support from OEMs

 

If you don't like that, take a look at the Gigabyte Aero 15

[genexis_x]

2 hours ago, Marco2G said:

a GPU from Intel?

Wut

 

Where are you from? Budget? Any preference on weight and battery life?

[markr54632]

You want pretty much what I needed for school minus 16gb of ram. I did alot of research and used alot of different models and really it doesnt exist. You WILL give up on at least one of your requirements. That doesnt factor in the complete lack of qc from every brand. Just expect to exchange whatever you end up choosing at least once.

 

There really isnt a laptop on the market that can keep a modern CPU at acceptable temperatures in an attractive form factor period. Much less do it quietly. There are laptops that thermal throttle at different points and maintain slightly different clock speeds. 

 

As for io alot of non gaming models are ditching the wired nic, which makes a laptop completely worthless for my purposes. I am assuming it would be fine for you as you are using a macbook now.

 

Honestly it's just a game of making concessions to find the piece of crap that best fits your use case.

[matt-fr]

You should look into the HP Zbook lineup.

 

 

HP ZBook 15u G5 Mobile Workstation - Customizable (link)

Up to an Intel Core i7-8550U with Intel HD Graphics 620

Up to 32 GB (2x16 GB)

 

 

HP ZBook Studio x360 G5 Mobile Workstation - Customizable (link)

Up to an Intel Core i7-8850H with Intel HD Graphics 620

Up to 64 GB (2x32 GB)

 

 

HP ZBook 15 G5 Mobile Workstation - Customizable (link)

Better cooling, but you'll have to pay for the included professional graphics card (Nvidia Quadro or Radeon Pro)

Up to an Intel Core i9-8950HK or Intel Xeon E-2186M processor

Up to 128 GB (4x32GB) with Intel Core i9 or up to 64 GB (4x16 GB) with Intel Xeon.

[Marco2G]

17 hours ago, Ultra Male said:

Custom Built MSI PS63 8RC Modern-085 - 15.6" FHD - i7-8565U - GTX 1050 Max-Q

When building it, you can choose 32GB RAM and I recommend you choose Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut on CPU + GPU, and Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads on heat sensitive surfaces to mitigate any heat issues.

 

HIDevolution has superb quality control as they do synthetic stress tests and actual gaming sessions to ensure the laptop works 100% out of the box. They also give you lifetime tech support for free which is way better than the regular tech support from OEMs

 

If you don't like that, take a look at the Gigabyte Aero 15

I'll have to see whether they do business in my region.

 

Also liquid metaling the shit out of it sounds like what I'd do but isn't that a tad dangerous in a laptop? Do they give warranty on that?

As for the Gigabyte one, they are quite expensive due to the GTX 2070 I'd never need....

Edited February 27, 2019 by Marco2G

[Marco2G]

12 hours ago, markr54632 said:

You want pretty much what I needed for school minus 16gb of ram. I did alot of research and used alot of different models and really it doesnt exist. You WILL give up on at least one of your requirements. That doesnt factor in the complete lack of qc from every brand. Just expect to exchange whatever you end up choosing at least once.

 

There really isnt a laptop on the market that can keep a modern CPU at acceptable temperatures in an attractive form factor period. Much less do it quietly. There are laptops that thermal throttle at different points and maintain slightly different clock speeds. 

 

As for io alot of non gaming models are ditching the wired nic, which makes a laptop completely worthless for my purposes. I am assuming it would be fine for you as you are using a macbook now.

 

Honestly it's just a game of making concessions to find the piece of crap that best fits your use case.

I absolutely do need an RJ-45 port. Right now that's solved by the OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock and a dongle. As you can imagine, I am fond of neither.

[Marco2G]

15 hours ago, GeneXiS_X said:

Wut

 

Where are you from? Budget? Any preference on weight and battery life?

Switzerland. Weight can be more than the MAcbook. I've been trying to make a temporary replacement machine in the last week and was carrying around a MBP 2017, MBP 2012 and two chargers as long as it's lighter than THAT, I'm good.

Batterylife obviously as good as possible but frankly, that's nice to have. For the few times I do something on the train, an hour of battery life is enough. In the office, at home and in the server room I have power outlets.

[Marco2G]

2 hours ago, matt-fr said:

You should look into the HP Zbook lineup.

 

 

HP ZBook 15u G5 Mobile Workstation - Customizable (link)

Up to an Intel Core i7-8550U with Intel HD Graphics 620

Up to 32 GB (2x16 GB)

 

 

HP ZBook Studio x360 G5 Mobile Workstation - Customizable (link)

Up to an Intel Core i7-8850H with Intel HD Graphics 620

Up to 64 GB (2x32 GB)

 

 

HP ZBook 15 G5 Mobile Workstation - Customizable (link)

Better cooling, but you'll have to pay for the included professional graphics card (Nvidia Quadro or Radeon Pro)

Up to an Intel Core i9-8950HK or Intel Xeon E-2186M processor

Up to 128 GB (4x32GB) with Intel Core i9 or up to 64 GB (4x16 GB) with Intel Xeon.

The ZBook throttles like a motherfucker as far as I've read...

[genexis_x]

1 hour ago, Marco2G said:

Switzerland

Any links of online stores? Budget? Give a range on weight and battery life (kg, hours)

[Super Spartan]

1 hour ago, Marco2G said:

I'll have to see whether they do business in my region.

 

Also liquid metaling the shit out of it sounds like what I'd do but isn't that a tad dangerous in a laptop? Do they give warranty on that?

As for the Gigabyte one, they are quite expensive due to the GTX 2070 I'd never need....

They ship internationally and have an international global warranty which covers shipping both ways should anything go wrong with your laptop. I live in Dubai and this is one of the big reasons I buy from them.

About the liquid metal, they have their proprietary application method which prevents it from spilling and holds it in place, plus, anything done by them is covered under warranty

[kingfurykiller]

I'd look into some of Lenovo's engineering models. I think some of the P52s that we have around the office are speced similarly, and I THINK they still have an RJ45 (gotta go find one to check for sure). And they don't look all GAMING RGB EVERYWHERE so that's a a plus.

 

If you aren't terribly concerned about price or weight, that seems like the direction to go in.