Non-gamery, non-RGB workstation laptop for CAD/Rendering/Simulation

[AgentL3r]

Hey all,

Looking for some advice here. I'm planning to buy a laptop for college - mechanical engineering.

 

I plan to take my PC, but I also plan to get a laptop for when I'm mobile. I've not bought a laptop since 2013 so wondering where I should start?

 

The laptop needs to be able to run Inventor Pro, AutoCAD, Fusion 360 (not that hard to run anyway), Maya, Rhino etc.

 

Ideally with a dedicated GPU and a decent processor. Maybe a bit of Rocket League every once in a while but gaming is absolutely not the core focus - that's what my PC is for.

 

Budget is around £1500 GBP but of course less is better. Since I've got my PC for gaming, I really don't want a "gaming" laptop with RGB lights, sharp edges and that gamer aesthetic. Something tame and non-descript would be pretty ideal, a mor professional understated design rather than big and bold. I like the look of HP ZBooks since we use them at work but I'm not a huge fan of HP.

 

Any advice guys?

 

[igormp]

At this budget you could look like at some Dell offerings. The Vostro lineup is cheap and light, but has a really entry-level GPU.

You could get some precisions, but they'd also only be available with an entry-level GPU at this price point. If you are okay with a 1650~T500 levels of performance, then I'd so go for it.

The XPS 15 is sadly above your budget

 

The Thinkpad T15 is also an option, but it has a worse GPU than the aforementioned Dells.

[AgentL3r]

Just now, igormp said:

At this budget you could look like at some Dell offerings. The Vostro lineup is cheap and light, but has a really entry-level GPU.

You could get some precisions, but they'd also only be available with an entry-level GPU at this price point. If you are okay with a 1650~T500 levels of performance, then I'd so go for it.

The XPS 15 is sadly above your budget

 

The Thinkpad T15 is also an option, but it has a worse GPU than the aforementioned Dells.

May have a look at the XPS 15s then, thanks

[mt123]

Knowing that you're going to college for Mechanical Engineering - same situation as me! - I highly recommend saving some more money (if possible) for your budget to get extra performance, because when purchasing my laptop, I went with the mindset that this machine is going to last me my four years of undergraduate. Because of that, I settled with a kitted out XPS 17 9700 (and because I had the money for it), which came out to ~$2,200 after discounts codes, though I kind of missed out on the updated 9710 models since they have NVIDIA 30-series GPU's and intel 11th gen CPU's - which may not be better performing than the i9-10885H in my system, but they get features like thunderbolt 4 and other goodies.

 

If you can, I'd highly consider waiting and saving just a little bit more to get the XPS 15 9510 (or, on Dell's website, the "New XPS 15") since you can get it with an NVIDIA 3050, which has the same amount of memory as the 1650 and 1650 Ti (4 GB), but it's so much faster. Heck, I'd say it might be even faster than the 2060 Max-Q in my XPS 17.

 

However, if you really do need to stick with your budget, then I'll try and browse the web for other non-gamer laptops with good hardware specs, though I believe this is going to be difficult if you'd like the 3050 or 3050 Ti over a 1650/ 1650 Ti. 

[mt123]

1 minute ago, mt123 said:

However, if you really do need to stick with your budget, then I'll try and browse the web for other non-gamer laptops with good hardware specs, though I believe this is going to be difficult if you'd like the 3050 or 3050 Ti over a 1650/ 1650 Ti. 

Speaking of this, I found this Acer laptop. Even though it is in their gamer-like predator lineup, I'd say it looks pretty professional. Plus, since it's not as thin as my laptop, I don't believe you'll get into any issues with cooling. 

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-predator-triton-300-se-14-144hz-laptop-intel-11th-gen-i7-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3050ti-16gb-ddr4-512gb-ssd/6462533.p?acampID=0&cmp=RMX&loc=Hatch&ref=198&skuId=6462533

[mt123]

Also comes in 3060 variant! (i.e., veeery good mid/ high range GPU, imo)

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-predator-triton-300-se-14-144hz-laptop-intel-11th-gen-i7-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-16gb-ddr4-512gb-ssd/6455816.p?acampID=0&cmp=RMX&loc=Hatch&ref=198&skuId=6455816 

 

Also, these are from U.S. sites, so I'm not sure how you'd be able to acquire them in the EU, but both of these fit well into your budget.

[AgentL3r]

5 hours ago, mt123 said:

Knowing that you're going to college for Mechanical Engineering - same situation as me! - I highly recommend saving some more money (if possible) for your budget to get extra performance, because when purchasing my laptop, I went with the mindset that this machine is going to last me my four years of undergraduate. Because of that, I settled with a kitted out XPS 17 9700 (and because I had the money for it), which came out to ~$2,200 after discounts codes, though I kind of missed out on the updated 9710 models since they have NVIDIA 30-series GPU's and intel 11th gen CPU's - which may not be better performing than the i9-10885H in my system, but they get features like thunderbolt 4 and other goodies.

 

If you can, I'd highly consider waiting and saving just a little bit more to get the XPS 15 9510 (or, on Dell's website, the "New XPS 15") since you can get it with an NVIDIA 3050, which has the same amount of memory as the 1650 and 1650 Ti (4 GB), but it's so much faster. Heck, I'd say it might be even faster than the 2060 Max-Q in my XPS 17.

 

However, if you really do need to stick with your budget, then I'll try and browse the web for other non-gamer laptops with good hardware specs, though I believe this is going to be difficult if you'd like the 3050 or 3050 Ti over a 1650/ 1650 Ti. 

Cheers. I had a look at the ZBook Create last night which is £3000, way out of budget.

 

XPS is looking like the best option here

[Dirtnapper]

Asus TUF A15  AMD 5800H 16G 3060 512GB NVMe + 1TB NVMe(2nd drive I installed) 

 

Yes its a gaming rig, but im hoping the TUF mil spec stuff for the ruggedness will be okay for working while away from home.