Best Laptop for Engineering Student

[BrittonsChickens]

I am going into college for a degree in engineering and I am looking for a laptop to handle CAD work and some light gaming. I am hoping for some recommendations for something I can buy that will handle that. My current top choice is a Dell XPS 17" from 2022. My main requirements are at least 2 TB of storage, a dedicated GPU, 16"+ display, and I would prefer a business class laptop. I have no preference to brand, just something that will work for a long time and complete CAD and simulation work with ease. I would greatly appreciate any recommendations you can offer. 

[BentleyOwen123]

budget?  

 

this is a good option but without a budget... who knows you might be able to get a 4090?

 

 

https://www.newegg.com/lunar-gray-msi-creator-z16-hx-studio-a13vfta-046us-content-creation-home-personal-work-busin/p/N82E16834156584?Item=N82E16834156584

[BiG StroOnZ]

Thought this was looking pretty classy and the specs for the price are quite nice.

 

Aorus 16X Series (16X ASG-63USC65SH) - 16'' 165Hz IPS - Intel Core i9-14900HX - GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU - 32GB DDR5 - 2TB PCIe SSD - Windows 11 Home 64-bit:

 

Aorus 16X ASG-63USC65SH Gaming Laptop Intel Core i9-14900HX 2.20 GHz 16'' Windows 11 Home 64-bit - Newegg.com

 

$1899.99 with Free shipping. 

 

I know you said you preferred a business tier laptop, but these specs for the price are too good to pass up! You will most likely pay a premium for it being workstation or business nomenclature, when you probably will get more value for money out of a gaming designed one (IMO). The chassis designs on many of these newer gen gaming laptops (2022 or newer) are relatively cohesive and not overbearing (not too gaudy). 

[BrittonsChickens]

4 hours ago, BentleyOwen123 said:

budget?  

 

this is a good option but without a budget... who knows you might be able to get a 4090?

 

 

https://www.newegg.com/lunar-gray-msi-creator-z16-hx-studio-a13vfta-046us-content-creation-home-personal-work-busin/p/N82E16834156584?Item=N82E16834156584

I don't have a true budget, the XPS I was looking at was coming in at $3200 on sale with the specs I want. I prefer the option to choose things like storage, the GPU, and other items like that, but its not essential. Any good deal is welcome as college comes with many other expenses. My first goal is to get a laptop that will handle everything like a champ, but not blow stupid money on it. 

 

Here's the build I'm looking at for the XPS: i9-13900H, 12GB 4080, 64GB ram (DDR5), 2TB SSD

 

I have no preference over touch vs. non touch display, but if a non touch display is cheaper, then that would be preferred. 

[BrittonsChickens]

3 hours ago, BiG StroOnZ said:

Thought this was looking pretty classy and the specs for the price are quite nice.

 

Aorus 16X Series (16X ASG-63USC65SH) - 16'' 165Hz IPS - Intel Core i9-14900HX - GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU - 32GB DDR5 - 2TB PCIe SSD - Windows 11 Home 64-bit:

 

Aorus 16X ASG-63USC65SH Gaming Laptop Intel Core i9-14900HX 2.20 GHz 16'' Windows 11 Home 64-bit - Newegg.com

 

$1899.99 with Free shipping. 

 

I know you said you preferred a business tier laptop, but these specs for the price are too good to pass up! You will most likely pay a premium for it being workstation or business nomenclature, when you probably will get more value for money out of a gaming designed one (IMO). The chassis designs on many of these newer gen gaming laptops (2022 or newer) are relatively cohesive and not overbearing (not too gaudy). 

My concern with a business class laptop is to get something that will survive college. If the build has improved in recent times then I would love to avoid that premium for business class. I also don't love some gaming laptops because I want something I can have away from the wall. That's why I am attracted to the XPS. It can be super powerful when I would like that, but also last the time I need away from the wall. My past experience with gaming laptops has been that they are power hogs and usually don't last more than an hour away from the wall. 

[BentleyOwen123]

i would go for this, its a creator class, core ultra 9, 32gb ram but only 1tb ssd, you can add one on tho

 

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16834156614?Item=N82E16834156614

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/vKVMnt

Storage: Acer Predator GM7000 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($84.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $84.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-05-11 00:05 EDT-0400

[BiG StroOnZ]

9 hours ago, BrittonsChickens said:

My concern with a business class laptop is to get something that will survive college. If the build has improved in recent times then I would love to avoid that premium for business class. I also don't love some gaming laptops because I want something I can have away from the wall. That's why I am attracted to the XPS. It can be super powerful when I would like that, but also last the time I need away from the wall. My past experience with gaming laptops has been that they are power hogs and usually don't last more than an hour away from the wall. 

 

I agree that the portability and survivability factor is important when taking college scenarios into consideration. The build quality has definitely improved drastically on these units, but for your needs going "business class" might be necessary due to some of your other requirements needing to be fulfilled. Since as you seem to be aware of, the battery life on many of these gaming laptops isn't very practical when they aren't connected to the wall (even if the performance on battery is still exquisite). Usually, two to three hours tops are battery life numbers you are looking at with 12th, 13th or 13th Gen Refresh parts (Alder Lake, Raptor Lake, or Raptor Lake Refresh).

 

However, there have been some serious strides made with 14th Gen Meteor Lake parts in the battery life department, and in most reviews, you can see units hitting really amazing battery life digits:

• 14 W (~6 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 13 W (~6 h of use) – 4K fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 11.5 W (~7-8 h of use) – Netflix 4K HDR fullscreen in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 17 W (~5-6 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 85 W (~1 h of use) – Gaming – Witcher 3, Performance Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON, no fps limit.

These numbers were with a 90Wh battery, Intel Meteor Lake Core Ultra 9 185H (16C/22T) and Intel Arc + nVIDIA RTX 4090 Mobile.

 

It seems @BentleyOwen123 suggested a Meteor Lake Laptop (14th Gen Core Ultra) as well, and honestly that's the direction I was thinking you should go in too. You pay a bit of early adopter tax, but these Core Ultra Series CPUs look really promising on paper and in benchmarks. The XPS you have spec'd out will perform on par with the Meteor Lake counterpart (CPU wise) but with superior battery life and a better GPU/Video Card. If you went with a 14900HX, you would get more CPU performance but then as we discussed you are losing on battery life when not connected to the wall, and as a result will probably not even be able to take advantage of the extra cores or threads from not being at full power.

 

This is a more professional non-gaming variant akin to what @BentleyOwen123 suggested:

 

 

MSI Creator 16 AI Studio Laptop Intel Core Ultra 9 185H 64 GB Memory 2 TB NVMe SSD GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU 16.0" Windows 11 Pro 64-bit (Creator 16 AI Studio A1VIG-074US) - Newegg.com

 

• Intel Core Ultra 9 185H (16C/22T)
• 64GB DDR5 5600MHz Memory
• 2TB Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD
• GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU
• 16" UDH+ 3840x2400 120Hz Mini LED HDR 1000, 100% DCI-P3 Panel
• Windows 11 Pro 64-bit

Additionally, if you wanted to save some money (not needing the RTX 4090) there are some lower priced versions of it with the RTX 4080:

 

MSI Creator 16 AI Studio A1VHG-072US 16" UHD+ Intel Ultra9 Creator Laptop - MSI-US Official Store

 

MSI Creator 16 AI Studio A1VHG-073US 16" UHD+ Intel Ultra9 Creator Laptop - MSI-US Official Store

 

Many reviewers basically concluded that with Meteor Lake you are getting practically the same performance as previous gen (Raptor Lake or Raptor Lake Refresh) but with far better efficiency, and a much better iGPU (an 8-core Arc that's almost as fast as a GTX 1650M or RTX 2050M).