Searching for the best (current) mobile workstation

[coniminimi]

Hey there,

 

I lately thought it could have a meaningful impact to gather some opinions from the community. Now I'm here and am craving for your input.

 

So first of all, the requirements resolve from the following:

 

- I'm a professional Engineer (Software), Researcher and Author

- I work a lot with AI (Especially DNN and A-DNN)

- I travel a lot, do not always have a good enough internet connection available and always work no matter where I am

- I benefit a lot from the CPU performance, either core count or clock (since compiling goes well with multi core and/or a high clock)

 

My current workstation is a Clevo P65xHP:

 - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7820HK CPU @ 2.90GHz (over clocked to 4.3GHz)

 - GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile 3GB

 - UHD Panel

 - 32GB RAM

 - 1TB HDD

 - 512 GB Samsung 960 PRO NVMe

 

The hard requirements are:

 

- min. 32GB RAM (yes I really needs this, also while I'm travelling)

- min. 512 GB NVMe SSD

- Availability of a second disk slot

- A decent panel - imporant is:

 - wide viewing angle

 - Around 15", but that should be about the upper boundary

 - A resolution that is bigger than FHD but not necessarily UHD

- A decent graphics card to accelerate local AI experiments

- Strongest CPU that the budget allows

- Linux compatibility (I only use linux, no Mac, no Windows, just linux)

- Fans should be quiet (using a loud laptop in a meeting is not that funny)

- The look is optional

 

So also the reasoning, why I am not deciding for the Clevo P65xHP again. From performance perspectives, this laptop is perfect for my needs, but not for all of them. Especially the fans are problematic, it was quite useable when using the Intel GPU instead and clocking down the clock to 900MHz (which made it pretty slow, but for stuff you mostly need in meetings it does not matter that much). The reason for the noise is clear: The UHD panel. Both the Nvidia GPU and the Intel GPU installed on this device would have been significantly less loaded on a FHD device or something in between FHD and UHD. So that is ultimately the reason, why I'm looking around for something even better.

 

Ah and btw. no Mac Books are not an option, the reason: Simply: I hate the keyboard of the new MacBooks, the old one was fantastic..., and the touchbar is a nightmare for developers, since I utilize the fkeys for a lot of automation stuff, the ESC key is not a problem since I remap the Caps Lock Key as second ESC key, but still... .

 

Budget is around ~5000USD.

[Radium_Angel]

Look into a lunchbox PC

http://www.theportablepc.com/

 

Everything you need, nothing you dont.

 

[r2724r16]

Maybe you should check out HP Z mobile workstations.

 

Here's one I found for $4350: https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?item=9SIA97K6HR0234 

[Crunchy Dragon]

I really like the Lenovo ThinkPad P50, sounds like something you could make use of: https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/ThinkPad-P50/p/22TP2WPWP50

[AnonymousGuy]

HP ZBook

Dell Precision Mobile Workstation

 

Dell seems a bit more business-friendly in terms of customizing ram and cpu and such.  For $5k budget you can easily get a maxed out laptop with Xeon quad core, ECC memory, 1TB SSD, and a Quadro card.

[coniminimi]

Never heard of Lunchbox yet, but that is maybe a bit too much to carry around :).

 

Had years ago a Lenovo T530, has their keyboard improved since that? Could be a viable option.

 

The problem I have with all of the common laptops on the market including the ones you already posted are the quadros, which are compared to GTX cards slower when it comes to DNN. At least most of the time.

 

Btw. since I write the device off the taxes, a 3 year warranty is also a plus :D.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions already

[genexis_x]

Where are you from?

[coniminimi]

germany (most of the time at least), why do you ask?

[genexis_x]

3 hours ago, coniminimi said:

germany (most of the time at least), why do you ask?

So that I can know the prices and availability of laptops in your country.

 

Good 15 inch options are:

Lenovo Thinkpad P51

Dell Precision 7520

HP Zbook 15 G3/G4

Dell Precision 5520

 

A few words from me:

1. Why not 17 inch workstation laptop? You get bigger battery, better cooling (which helps in fan noise) and much powerful Quadro GPU (eg P3000, P4000, P5000). The best GPU you can get in a 15 inch workstation is usually M2200 which is just behind GTX 1050 in terms of real world performance (not in professional workloads)

2. It's very hard to find a panel resolution between FHD and UHD in workstation laptops (1440p for instance) so you may want to settle with UHD if you don't prefer FHD

3. The strongest CPU would be a desktop CPU, however laptops with desktop CPU usually don't have Quadro GPU option and they can be bulky. Xeon mobile is the fastest mobile CPU but requires good cooling to perform well (bigger chassis like 17 inch helps, also 7700HQ can be faster than a Xeon mobile in some cases)

4. RAM and storage can be added after purchase (usually cheaper)

[sicily428]

15 hours ago, coniminimi said:

Hey there,

 

I lately thought it could have a meaningful impact to gather some opinions from the community. Now I'm here and am craving for your input.

 

So first of all, the requirements resolve from the following:

 

- I'm a professional Engineer (Software), Researcher and Author

- I work a lot with AI (Especially DNN and A-DNN)

- I travel a lot, do not always have a good enough internet connection available and always work no matter where I am

- I benefit a lot from the CPU performance, either core count or clock (since compiling goes well with multi core and/or a high clock)

 

My current workstation is a Clevo P65xHP:

 - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7820HK CPU @ 2.90GHz (over clocked to 4.3GHz)

 - GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile 3GB

 - UHD Panel

 - 32GB RAM

 - 1TB HDD

 - 512 GB Samsung 960 PRO NVMe

 

The hard requirements are:

 

- min. 32GB RAM (yes I really needs this, also while I'm travelling)

- min. 512 GB NVMe SSD

- Availability of a second disk slot

- A decent panel - imporant is:

 - wide viewing angle

 - Around 15", but that should be about the upper boundary

 - A resolution that is bigger than FHD but not necessarily UHD

- A decent graphics card to accelerate local AI experiments

- Strongest CPU that the budget allows

- Linux compatibility (I only use linux, no Mac, no Windows, just linux)

- Fans should be quiet (using a loud laptop in a meeting is not that funny)

- The look is optional

 

So also the reasoning, why I am not deciding for the Clevo P65xHP again. From performance perspectives, this laptop is perfect for my needs, but not for all of them. Especially the fans are problematic, it was quite useable when using the Intel GPU instead and clocking down the clock to 900MHz (which made it pretty slow, but for stuff you mostly need in meetings it does not matter that much). The reason for the noise is clear: The UHD panel. Both the Nvidia GPU and the Intel GPU installed on this device would have been significantly less loaded on a FHD device or something in between FHD and UHD. So that is ultimately the reason, why I'm looking around for something even better.

 

Ah and btw. no Mac Books are not an option, the reason: Simply: I hate the keyboard of the new MacBooks, the old one was fantastic..., and the touchbar is a nightmare for developers, since I utilize the fkeys for a lot of automation stuff, the ESC key is not a problem since I remap the Caps Lock Key as second ESC key, but still... .

 

Budget is around ~5000USD.

Eurocom tornado F5W/F5 with a xeon cpu or a desktop cpu, up to 64gb of ram and a quadro card

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Eurocom-Tornado-F5W-Xeon-E3-1280-v5-Quadro-P5000-Workstation-Review.262400.0.html

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Eurocom-Tornado-F5-Notebook-Review.189496.0.html

 

here some european resellers

https://laptopparts4less.frl/MSI-MS-16L3-game-laptop-samenstellen

http://www.eurocom-europe.com/shop/gaming-laptops/eurocom-tornado-f5/

[coniminimi]

19 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

So that I can know the prices and availability of laptops in your country.

 

Good 15 inch options are:

Lenovo Thinkpad P51

Dell Precision 7520

HP Zbook 15 G3/G4

Dell Precision 5520

 

A few words from me:

1. Why not 17 inch workstation laptop? You get bigger battery, better cooling (which helps in fan noise) and much powerful Quadro GPU (eg P3000, P4000, P5000). The best GPU you can get in a 15 inch workstation is usually M2200 which is just behind GTX 1050 in terms of real world performance (not in professional workloads)

2. It's very hard to find a panel resolution between FHD and UHD in workstation laptops (1440p for instance) so you may want to settle with UHD if you don't prefer FHD

3. The strongest CPU would be a desktop CPU, however laptops with desktop CPU usually don't have Quadro GPU option and they can be bulky. Xeon mobile is the fastest mobile CPU but requires good cooling to perform well (bigger chassis like 17 inch helps, also 7700HQ can be faster than a Xeon mobile in some cases)

4. RAM and storage can be added after purchase (usually cheaper)

1) Basically 17" are worse to handle than 15", that is the only reason. For the Quadro, I would prefer a Geforce, since Quadros are not good for scientific computations and Geforce deliver better performance for the same money. Especially since DNN is mostly about Single Precision and my past experiences with Quadros compared to Geforce is, buy a Geforce instead. I do not expect to have a TESLA in a laptop though, when stuff gets that big, I offload it to the server farm anyway, but for local testing with smaller datasets it is still important to have a good card in place.

2. Yeah noticed that already.

3. Yes I'm aware of that, bulky is not a problem though, the lenovo t530 was also bulky but not that much of a problem.

4. Mostly true yup, but I'm lazy and would not mind the few bucks

[genexis_x]

45 minutes ago, coniminimi said:

I would prefer a Geforce
bulky is not a problem though

Clevo P750TM then. Get the 8700K. Tons of upgrades, optional UHD panel, I believe there's a customizable fan control as well. HIDEvolution and Clevo-Systems provide delided CPU+LM. International shipping+warranty is available with HID, not sure about clevo-systems. @sicily428

Spoiler

Germany
http://www.mysn.de
http://www.nexoc.de/
http://www.ceg-hardcorecustom.com/
http://www.notebookguru.de/
http://www.one.de
https://www.kiebel.de/
https://www.csl-computer.com/
http://www.bullman.de/index.htm
http://www.mifcom.de/
http://www.linux-onlineshop.de/index.php
http://www.tuxedocomputers.com/index.php

https://www.pczentrum.de/

 

[sicily428]

1 hour ago, ZM Fong said:

Clevo P750TM then. Get the 8700K. Tons of upgrades, optional UHD panel, I believe there's a customizable fan control as well. HIDEvolution and Clevo-Systems provide delided CPU+LM. International shipping+warranty is available with HID, not sure about clevo-systems. @sicily428

  Reveal hidden contents

Germany
http://www.mysn.de
http://www.nexoc.de/
http://www.ceg-hardcorecustom.com/
http://www.notebookguru.de/
http://www.one.de
https://www.kiebel.de/
https://www.csl-computer.com/
http://www.bullman.de/index.htm
http://www.mifcom.de/
http://www.linux-onlineshop.de/index.php
http://www.tuxedocomputers.com/index.php

https://www.pczentrum.de/

 

Clevo-system is located in Germany too. they offer an european support. check with xmg/schenker for international warranty

[coniminimi]

Just as an Update, as my new daily driver the Lenovo T580 made it, thanks for all your inputs.

 

Reasoning:

 

I had the chance to test the keyboard of the latest Lenovos and it is comparatively the most satisfying one. Remember, I need something mobile so an external keyboard is not an option. Apart from that the main reason wasn't the keyboard, but the Lenovo was just the best deal between: Performance, comaptibility (especially linux), quality and battery life. So I wasn't aware of Lenovos "new" (I know it is not that new though) hot swapable battery, which is by far the best option to keep performance without having to stop working after half an hour.

So the t model made it instead of the p model since they do not really differ that much in their latest generation and as said before I do mostly only need single precision, so the quadro in the p model is nothing that would attract me. Finally the few hundred bucks I saved on the p model have been spend on additional batteries  

 

Overall I am pretty satisfied, I was suprised, compared to the t530 which was the last lenovo I had used in the past was quite bulky, lenovo has even made their t series now really slim. The IR camera is a nice addon, I coupled it with sudo requests for permissions and it is quite nice to use. But for login to the account it is still too insecure, so that makes a combination out of password (on linux you will always need a password the first time you log on (since all your passwords are encrypted with it)), fingerprint and an yubikey neo, which now also works via nfc which is nice for fast access, but mostly I still stick it into its port, at least when I am longer at the desk since removing the key automatically locks my system, which is convenience and why change a habit that ultimately makes you carry your key with you, which is the best you can do for external authetication factors. Face recognition with IRs depth support may only add on top of that.

Overall recommendable, linux driver support is as good as it used to be in the past. Even the new docking stations that build upon USB-C/Thunderbolt works fine. Everyone of you who ever needed to deal with usb-c and/or thunderbolt on linux know the support is just really terrible as of today, especially screens via usb-c are a thing that doesn't work with the common adapters you find on the market. As always hardware producers don't care about linux and sadly they still do not open source their drivers, which would make stuff way more easy and they do not really loose much since their value is their hardware, not their software... .

 

The only thing that sucks is that lenovo still forces you to buy windows with it... . I mean even if I would use windows, which never ever happens, everyone already owns a license from previous purchases... .

 

P.S.: The only concern I had before I bought the System was the U processor, but it seems like the quite high boost clock of 4.2 GHz manages to keep everything fluent. However, and no one including me will see this as a surprise: Compiling is a bit slower compared to non u processors with higher base clocks, but not that much that it would really matter.