Prestige 15" vs 14" 1650 or mx 250 ?

[Mesiah]

Hello everyone!

I am looking for a laptop to buy in the next few days.

My main needs are the following, very good battery life. weight, good processor, Nvidia graphics ( working with render engine that require a cuda card to open my files, even if i dont render).

at least 16gb RAM and a good ssd.

I will use this laptop for notes taking, media consumption and work ( i do 3d and 2d animations ).

This is not my only computer (I have a workstation), i dont expect to render much 3d with it, but I will model, animate and set scenes. i mainly wants to be able to work at a client, work in a cafe and on the go, as i do travel quiet a lot). 

 

I was hesitating between Lenovo X1 extreme, XPS 15 and Msi prestige.

but the lenovo battery doesnt seem great. Xps seems to have some throttling and some build issues. 

 

So here I am, going with the Prestige 15"+ 1650. when I discovered there was a 14" version with either the same GPU or a mx250.

Would it be a mistake to go with the 14"? does it heats up too much? and if so, is going for a MX250 puts up less heat while still giving me a bit of power?

Is the 14" crippled by its single fan system? should i stick  to the 15" version even if it is bigger?

 

if someone has used both or one of them I would be super interested to see what they think about it.

 

thanks a lot!

[genexis_x]

What's your budget? Where are you from?

[Mesiah]

Canada, QC.

around 2000 CAD would be nice.

thanks!

 

[genexis_x]

Was going to suggest Mag-15 but it seems like it's out of your budget, unless you get it in US

[Mesiah]

I could adjust my price a bit if the difference makes sens.

but the mag 15 it seems much thicker than the one i listed, maybe it's just the design that makes it look bigger. 

Also the power brick seems huge. 

It does seems to be a good price to performance but it looks a bit bulky.  

 

[genexis_x]

34 minutes ago, Mesiah said:

mag 15 it seems much thicker

Thicker = more cooling room. Cooling performance of all the options you listed above is no where near Mag-15. Performance too

34 minutes ago, Mesiah said:

Also the power brick seems huge. 

230W is needed to power the 115W Turboed GPU (Tongfang unique feature)

34 minutes ago, Mesiah said:

but it looks a bit bulky

1.88kg according to official spec, which is actually similar to XPS 15

[Mesiah]

this is why I asked my questions, I dont need such a GPU in my laptop, it is not good enough to replace my rig,  I would rather have something slimer, with a smaller brick with a weaker gpu. ( under 100W would be great for thunderbolt charging).

for the bulky aspect, i might be wrong, but it is light because of the magnesium chassis, however it doesnt change its size.

Don't get me wrong, it is a nice laptop but it is a bit too much for my need. 

 

 

[LittleMS2]

I would recommend prestige 14 with the 1650. It has decent performance (if you are running only the gpu or the cpu at a time). Undervolting would easily fix this problem. The mx250 is too weak to do anything but really light gaming. 

[Roswell]

1 hour ago, LittleMS2 said:

I would recommend prestige 14 with the 1650. It has decent performance (if you are running only the gpu or the cpu at a time). Undervolting would easily fix this problem. The mx250 is too weak to do anything but really light gaming. 

MX250 is perfect for what they want, acceleration in apps. They made no mention of wanting to game on it, they said it's for professional use, so why are you suggesting they base their purchase on gaming performance?

[Mesiah]

indeed, I am not planing to play on it.

I was thinking of getting the mx250, but i am afraid of the perf with simple things. 

thanks!

[Roswell]

18 minutes ago, Mesiah said:

indeed, I am not planing to play on it.

I was thinking of getting the mx250, but i am afraid of the perf with simple things. 

thanks!

It's plenty, I have a notebook with an 8th gen i7 and MX250 for use with acceleration in graphic design apps and it works great. CUDA doesn't seem to scale linearly like cards do in gaming unless you're measuring video render times. 

 

The other benefit is that the MX250 is a 25w part, it won't completely decimate your battery if you need to work unplugged for a little while.