Looking for a laptop for Unity Development (Shaders) and general programming

Rug · May 15, 2021

I'm looking at buying a laptop, probably in the $2500 CAD range. I dont game really at all, aside from Roll20 and thats not a very big resource hog, lol.

I have a full blown desktop setup, but as things open up and my life has changed I'd like to get something portable to do my work from.

My main work is writing shaders for the Universal Render Pipeline, basically mid.to low end graphics so i dont need anything intensive like a 30 series i dont think, but I do believe I need a dGPU. I do some modelling work with Blender and texture creation with Substance Designer, but those are less common. I dont need anything crazy for renders either, i can just handle that on the desktop.

My main criteria is just that I need it to be quiet, both with fan curve and the keys. I dont want to be the guy with RGB Everything and a screaming laptop at my local library, lol. A numpad is a big plus, but i can live without it.

I plan to experiment more with other types of programming and development that may be a bit more GPU intensive, but this wont be my main rig so i'm not too concerned with it being top of the line.

I was looking pretty seriously at the XPS lineup after seeing the ShortCircuit(i think?) Review, but they seem to want to just put a 1650 in it and i don't know if that is worth the money the whole system costs.

riklaunim · May 15, 2021

A lot of Dell XPS price is the name and it won't be as quiet when cooling things in a thinner chassis. IMHO a good RTX 3050/3050 Ti laptop with Ryzen 5800H and up or Intel 6-8 core 10/11-gen should be really good at what you describe. Check what models are available and then check notebookcheck and other sources for reviews of specific model.

Another option is to check your local Clevo/Tongfang reseller for a more customized laptop.