Question What specs should I look for in a laptop for basic gaming & learning 3D animation?

[Technoidy]

I want to buy a laptop to replace my old Lenovo Ideapad 330. Quite frankly, that thing is a piece of crap. Maybe it's just full of dust by now, but it takes a solid 5 minutes to fully boot up, and I had to switch to Chrome because it could barely handle Firefox. I've tried cleaning things on the software side to no avail. The main thing I want in a new laptop is avoiding this. Maybe it had an overheating problem or something, idk. It had 4GB RAM so I'm looking for 8-16. Will be running Windows 11.

I'm learning 3D modelling & animation in Blender, but surprisingly it's actually handled that pretty well, so not too concerned there (smoother FPS would be nice tho). Other than that I'll be watching movies & playing some games, like Cities Skylines or some of the old COD/Far Cry games. It'd be great if it can run Doom Eternal, or Battlefield 1/2042, but I'm not sure I'll be able to find one that can within my budget. I don't care about screen size since I have a monitor. It'll also be ethernet connected instead of wifi 90% of the time.

My budget is sub-$250, sub-$100 if I can manage it, so I've been scouring eBay as I've had lots of good luck there in the past, but I'm unfamiliar with what to look for these days. I have no idea what the difference is between an i5-4200U or an i3-1115G4 for example. Or AMD equivalents. Or integrated graphics.
Is there some convenient list/compilation somewhere explaining that sort of thing? I don't have the time I did as a kid to spend hours learning about different CPUs, lol

TIA!

 

[Ralston18]

First look at the hardware requirements for any software that you intend to run.

Most software manufacturers provide hardware requirements listed in the form of "Minimal", "Recommended", and "Best".

You do not want minimal and you do want as much best as you can afford.

Unfortunately, my sense is that your budget is going to be very restrictive and only support minimal.

You will have to do some research to learn more and get a fuller sense of what may be necessary for your requirements.

For example:

https://www.cgdirector.com/best-computer-for-blender/

Hopefully there will be more specific suggestions from Blender users. Or those who game as you do.

You must do some work/research on your own in order to help intepret or otherwise understand those suggestions.

And what trade-offs may be necessary with respect to hardware, performance, and the budget.

 

[LinuxDevice]

These days there is now some use in some games for more video RAM. A GPU with 11 or 12 GB of VRAM might be useful. It is conceivable that this might also help in Blender in some scenes. Actually, more RAM in general might help, but it is variable and depends what you are doing. If you were running a CAD program you could use all the RAM the system can hold, but most of Blender won't need nearly that much. If you were running AI training, then you could use all the VRAM you can get. If the GPU has at least 11 or 12 GB of VRAM though you can do most anything you want.

 

[Technoidy]

First look at the hardware requirements for any software that you intend to run.

Most software manufacturers provide hardware requirements listed in the form of "Minimal", "Recommended", and "Best".

You do not want minimal and you do want as much best as you can afford.

Unfortunately, my sense is that your budget is going to be very restrictive and only support minimal.

You will have to do some research to learn more and get a fuller sense of what may be necessary for your requirements.

For example:

https://www.cgdirector.com/best-computer-for-blender/

Hopefully there will be more specific suggestions from Blender users. Or those who game as you do.

You must do some work/research on your own in order to help intepret or otherwise understand those suggestions.

And what trade-offs may be necessary with respect to hardware, performance, and the budget.

I suppose moreso than asking about specific hardware suggestions, I'm asking about some sort of condensed "catch me up on the latest hardware deets" so that I can make sense of all the numbers that come after the "i5-X" or what that equivalent would be for AMD. My google-fu has only brought up direct one-on-one CPU comparisons, which will take hours putting in every single one so I can get a sense of what's-what.

Like, Doom Eternal's minimum specs just says "i5 3.3 ghz/AMD Ryzen 3 3.1ghz" while the recommended is "Intel Core i7-6700K." I'm sure there's a lot of CPUs that would be sufficient between those, but I have no idea what. Where do I go to find out?

It also only mentions dedicated graphics. Surely there's some integrated graphics laptop somewhere that can run it? But I have no idea what, so I have no idea what to look for that might be affordable.

That website you linked doesn't even mention i3 CPUs, when I'm sure some sort of i3 would be plenty sufficient for my Blender usage. Again, I have no idea what, or what to search on Google to find out.

 

[Technoidy]

These days there is now some use in some games for more video RAM. A GPU with 11 or 12 GB of VRAM might be useful. It is conceivable that this might also help in Blender in some scenes. Actually, more RAM in general might help, but it is variable and depends what you are doing. If you were running a CAD program you could use all the RAM the system can hold, but most of Blender won't need nearly that much. If you were running AI training, then you could use all the VRAM you can get. If the GPU has at least 11 or 12 GB of VRAM though you can do most anything you want.

Do you know of any 11GB VRAM laptops that are even sub-$500??? I sure can't find any.

 

[Ralston18]

This:

"Like, Doom Eternal's minimum specs just says "i5 3.3 ghz/AMD Ryzen 3 3.1ghz" while the recommended is "Intel Core i7-6700K." I'm sure there's a lot of CPUs that would be sufficient between those, but I have no idea what. Where do I go to find out?"

You have to look at the i5 andf i7 specs and then look for CPU's that match or exceed those specs.

Also FYI:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html

Then double check and look for details via the manufacturer's websites.

And [Blender link]:

"That website you linked doesn't even mention i3 CPUs, when I'm sure some sort of i3 would be plenty sufficient for my Blender usage."

i3 CPUs may not have been tested and thus not be mentioned simply because the i3 was not sufficient for Blender use.

Yes the i3 could run but performance would be unacceptable. Check the benchmarks.

At the risk of being a bit out of context - from the link:

"If you aren’t specifically optimizing for CPU rendering, don’t worry too much about picking an expensive processor. You probably shouldn’t go for an Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 1500x if you can afford something better, but there’s no need to break the bank here."

Still my overall thought and assessment is that to meet the recommended hardware requirements the budget will need to be increased.