Laptop advise with a lot of RAM (64gigs +)

[GHristov]

Hello I am on the look out for a laptop that I can remote work from. I am a game developer (UE5, AAA title) that force some higher end minimum requirements:

• 64gb of RAM (preferably upgradeable)
• 8gb of VRAM
• GPU shouldn't be throttled at 50W or similar (That rules out things like HP Omen Transcend and XPS 14)
• Decent battery life
• Doesn't have to be gaming laptop. A clean esthetic is preferred.

Since the point of the laptop will be easy travel I am looking at 14 inchers, decent battery life and built quality. If the new Asus Zephyrus G14 wasn't capped at 32gigs of ram, I was sold. (I even read if people do resoldering of RAM...)

The only 2 that I could find with good specs and capability of a lot of ram are:

• Razer Stealth 14 - decent reviews, bit bulkier than G14 for example, not as amazing battery life.
• MSI Stealth 14 AI - not yet released. 2023 model seemed to have horrible battery life.
• Older G14 - kind of reluctant to go back in versions. The higher end built quality of the Razer and Newer G14 for example is a pretty nice for the lack of better words.

I am open to suggestions, discussions and ideas that don't fit in the above criteria except for RAM and VRAM, they are a hard limitation.

[ki8aras]

10 minutes ago, GHristov said:

Decent battery life

define decent

[filpo]

13 minutes ago, GHristov said:

• Decent battery life
• Doesn't have to be gaming laptop. A clean esthetic is preferred.

decent battery life without being a gaming laptop might be difficult 

 

13 minutes ago, GHristov said:

Since the point of the laptop will be easy travel I am looking at 14 inchers, decent battery life and built quality.

budget?

 

13 minutes ago, GHristov said:

If the new Asus Zephyrus G14 wasn't capped at 32gigs of ram

it's not?

HIDevolution ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA402XY 14" WQXGA 165Hz, 4.0 GHz Ryzen 9 7940HS, RTX 4090, 64 GB DDR5 RAM, 4 TB PCIe SSD, Windows 11 Pro - Newegg.com

 

one a bit more sensible - HIDevolution ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA402XZ AniMe Matrix 14" WQXGA 165Hz, 4.0 GHz Ryzen 9 7940HS, RTX 4080, 64 GB DDR5 RAM, 1 TB PCIe SSD, Windows 11 Home - Newegg.com

 

only real benefit of the first one is more storage and GPU has 16gb of vram instead of 12. But I'd also look at this one if you need 16 HIDevolution ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA402XY 14" WQXGA 165Hz, 4.0 GHz Ryzen 9 7940HS, RTX 4090, 64 GB DDR5 RAM, 2 TB PCIe SSD, Windows 11 Pro - Newegg.com

[GHristov]

1 minute ago, ki8aras said:

define decent

8hours of battery life would be nice. 10 is probably only the g14?

[8tg]

Budget is gonna be a concern here, you can get what you want out of mobile workstations, but mobile workstations can cost as much money as you can throw at them.

Spec a Thinkpad P16 gen 2 to your needs

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadp/thinkpad-p16-gen-2-(16-inch-intel)/len101t0069

 

14” isn’t going to be doable with 64gb of ram and having it be upgradable, alongside higher end mobile gpus. 14” gaming laptops can kinda do this but with only 2 ram slots, your 64gb is a hard limit, and at that point why bother with sodimm slots.

The P14v exists which is a 14” workstation but that caps the ram to 64gb soldered and a think an A500 which is 4gb.

 

[voyager_]

20 minutes ago, GHristov said:

8hours of battery life would be nice. 10 is probably only the g14?

I don't see you finding a laptop with those required specs and that sort of battery life. We have pretty high end dells at work and if Im just remoted into my desktops I can get 5-6 hours if I start running tasks on my laptop it plummets. Same goes for any of my personal laptops. I have a small HP that I got for playing very basic games and other uses while traveling and browsing the web or videos it's 8-10hrs, playing something like factorio takes it down to 3 maybe 4 but I have an external usb c 100w battery bank that can fully recharge the battery. 

 

25 minutes ago, filpo said:

decent battery life without being a gaming laptop might be difficult 

 

budget?

 

it's not?

HIDevolution ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA402XY 14" WQXGA 165Hz, 4.0 GHz Ryzen 9 7940HS, RTX 4090, 64 GB DDR5 RAM, 4 TB PCIe SSD, Windows 11 Pro - Newegg.com

 

one a bit more sensible - HIDevolution ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA402XZ AniMe Matrix 14" WQXGA 165Hz, 4.0 GHz Ryzen 9 7940HS, RTX 4080, 64 GB DDR5 RAM, 1 TB PCIe SSD, Windows 11 Home - Newegg.com

 

only real benefit of the first one is more storage and GPU has 16gb of vram instead of 12. But I'd also look at this one if you need 16 HIDevolution ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA402XY 14" WQXGA 165Hz, 4.0 GHz Ryzen 9 7940HS, RTX 4090, 64 GB DDR5 RAM, 2 TB PCIe SSD, Windows 11 Pro - Newegg.com

 

I would look really closely at these, they are some good recommendations. 

 

Personally I wouldn't want a 14in to work off of, my work laptop is a 15.6 and I don't like it compared to my personal 17" msi. It's harder to use, unless you always plan to dock it but then the battery life shouldn't really matter at that point. Just something to consider before you drop that much on a computer.  

[powertoys]

Just chiming in here: it will be a lot. a LOT. A LOT cheaper if you buy something with less RAM (but 2 SO-DIMM slots) and upgrade it yourself. Computer manufacturers have a ridiculous upcharge on RAM, and 64 GB won't cost less than a kidney

[CV Dan]

You're probably able to find something close to what you're looking for (highly doubt you'll find something that will match everything you want) but it will cost you a kidney and will most likely die within 2 hours of actually using it at its max potential.

Imo scrap design and weight and get yourself a quality backpack that won't make lugging around the laptop a future back problem and go for something more within the realm of possibility (15"/16")

This is just my personal opinion as someone who works at one of the laptop manufacturer so take it with a grain of salt but the perfect type of laptop you're looking for is yet to be developed and will likely not happen within this year, you'll always have to sacrifice one the needs you want out of it at least for now