Quadro workstation laptop

Dackzy · July 29, 2018

So it is finally time for me to get a new laptop, the good old T420s is at last being put on the shelf.

I do a lot of CAD work, with some decently sized assemblies of 200-300 parts. From my own testing with a GTX 1080 in Inventor and Siemens NX then a GTX card is basically useless, I at max see about 25% usage of the GPU in Inventor and nothing in Siemens NX.

I currently have two laptops in mind.

ThinkPad P52

i7 8850H
Quadro P2000
256gb NVMe
16gb ram
1080p

Price after student discount: 2650€

But in Germany after student discount it cost: 2250€ (this has just proven to be a pain in the ass, since I need to get a PO box or get a hold of some forwarding service) and the warranty covers the whole of the EU

Precision 7530

i7 8750H
Quadro P2000
256gb NVMe
16gb ram
1080p

Price after student discount: 2400€

So the main difference between these two laptops is the keyboard and the CPU, the keyboard is a clear win for the P52 at least it is in my book and the CPU in the P52 is slightly better, not really anything worth talking about though. The price of the 7530 is certainly nice and a pretty big win for a student like me. I will later add another storage device.

The reason why I go with the P2000 over the P1000 is because the price difference is so small, so it makes sense to get the extra performance, at least it does for me.

Has anyone tested both of them? I have only tried the P52.

Does anyone know of a workstation with similar specs for the same as these two or less? Budget is about 2500€

I have no interest in thin and lights or laptops with GTX GPUs. I need all of the performance I can get, battery life also doesn't really matter, but I don't want to go above 3kg in weight.

The Zbook 15 G5 is out of the question because I can't get any form of student discount with it and it cost more than both the 7530 and P52 for similar specs.

TLCH723 · July 30, 2018

I think the P52 is better. You sure your programs will benefit with a Quadro?

Maybe you can book a decent hotel in Germany and tell them you will have a package. Also you can have a mini vacation

genexis_x · July 30, 2018

Both are equally good I should say. Get the cheaper one. Which display option you've chosen?

Pendragon · July 30, 2018

8850H will not perform better in extended full workloads. The 45w limit doesn't allow these new 6 core chips to turbo to max forever. So the performance is really the same.

The 150 difference is really paying in the difference in chassis. I wonder if Lenovo has online chat support. You can always knock them down a few more dollars that way.

Dackzy · July 30, 2018

5 hours ago, TLCH723 said:

I think the P52 is better. You sure your programs will benefit with a Quadro?

Maybe you can book a decent hotel in Germany and tell them you will have a package. Also you can have a mini vacation

Yes, all of my programs are made for Quadros, I have also ran tests and let's just say that the P1000 made my 1080 look bad. The problem with the mini vacation is that the laptop takes about a week to be made and then it will be shipped from Switzerland. So to time everything correctly will be hard AF.

3 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

Both are equally good I should say. Get the cheaper one. Which display option you've chosen?

The Lenovo is the 1080p non touch, the Dell is the highest quality one, so UltraSharp 1080p 72% color gamut. From pure specs the screens seem to be the same quality.

2 hours ago, Pendragon said:

8850H will not perform better in extended full workloads. The 45w limit doesn't allow these new 6 core chips to turbo to max forever. So the performance is really the same.

The 150 difference is really paying in the difference in chassis. I wonder if Lenovo has online chat support. You can always knock them down a few more dollars that way.

Ah yeah that is true, the 8850H will only really perform better with workloads that are short.

Yeah they have a chat, I still just wonder why the one in Germany is so much cheaper. Before VAT the P52 is still a lot cheaper in Germany than it is in Denmark. Ofc I expect the one in Denmark to be more after tax, since we have 25% VAT and the Germans only have 19% VAT.