[SOLVED] Very power efficient gaming laptop, but not for gaming?

[Franziska]

Hi,

up front some info.

I am professionally creating design and archviz renderings. Typically 360degree stills (Up too 12000x6000 pixels) and animations (Typically a couple of hundred 1920x1080 pixel images) in Blender 2.81
As render engine I do use predominantly Cycles and, to some extent Eevee.
CPU intense animations & simulations with Flipfluids and large ocean surface modifiers do also play an important part in my work.
Modelling is done in Rhino3D.
At the moment I do run an aging (2012) HP Z800 with a Dual Xeon X5650@2.67GHz, 72GB of RAM and a NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB.
This draws just way to much power for the calculation bang it gives…

IMPORTANT I do not use the machine for gaming, the focus is completly on rendering out the animation and still images. So things like framerates in games are not the important part for me. Still, gaming laptops seem to give the most calculation power for the buck. I do need workstation components.

Maybe we have some specialists here who can recommend a suitable machine?

Special & important twist: Maximum performance for minimum power draw. I am aware that the two are contradictory but I drive the machine primarely by solar power, so power consumption is an issue. As laptops are generally more power optimised I am looking into a laptop. As I am travelling occassionally basic portability is necessary.
Here is what I have ideally in mind, but I appreciate any suggestions to get the best compromise of power use to performance ratio within the budget:

• About 2000€ max budget
• i9 or i7 Processor (not sure of ideal model, Blender 3D favours Intel processors)
• Min 15" Screen
• 32 GB Ram (best in 1 slot with a second slot empty for future upgrades)
• 2080RTX Graphics card (not sure of ideal model, Blender 3D favours NVIDIA cards)
• 1x 512GB SSD
• 1x (or 2x) 1TB HD
• Weight and size are secondary, I only travel very occassionally with this machine
• Good upgradeability would be beneficial.

Thanks for your input. Especially for specific model recommendations with an explanation as to why this would be a good choice are appreciated.

 

[Lutfij]

You could go for the MaxQ series of GPU's from Nvidia but even that will not offset the power to performance numbers you will see on Intel's platform. In fact if you do your digging, you'll see that the Intel processors need to be undervolted in order to preserve battery life and reduce heat output, consequently battery life as well.

I would suggest that you look into the Ryzen 4000 series based laptops that will be coming out in a couple of months time in order to gauge what to buy since the press conference made by AMD a couple of hours ago has made a lot stand up and take notice.

Yes you do need a workstation grade processor and GPU but it would either have to be what's available off the shelf or partnering with AMD or any other brand to make a product that's specific to your needs.

 

[Franziska]

Thanks, actually I do not need a workstation GPU. Neither Blender nor Rhino need it anymore ;-)
Currently I use a 1060 GTX.
Creating a custom unit would be something I'd like to avoid. I'm a one woman show ;-) so its unlikely AMD will create something for me.

 

[hang-the-9]

You may want to look at workstation laptops, they should be better engineered than gaming laptops, maybe have longer warranties and will be built with your programs in mind not how fast they can run game engines. In your price range you are well within things like Lenovo P models. And if you are OK with looking at used stuff you have a few years of good CPUs to pick from. Even the 6th generation stuff from Intel is pretty fast compared to new stuff.