Laptop with 64gb or 128gb of memory?

[gustavoesser]

Hey guys,
I'm planning to buy a laptop for work because I plan to live as a digital nomad and occasionally move to other places.
One thing I'm not sure about is the amount of memory. If I go with 128gb I would probably get the Msi GT77 Titan, but it's quite big and the power charger is huge, there aren't many options for laptops with 128gb of memory. On the other hand, if I choose 64 gb of memory, there are many more options, smaller and lighter.
The question is with all these updates and improvements to the Corona render, do you think I could work with 64gb in any kind of project? I mostly do exterior rendering of houses and multifamily buildings.

[Juraj]

I have two 128gb laptops, Titan GT77 and Dell Precision 7670, I'll write here later :- )

[James Vella]

The Titan is a beast of a laptop, out of curiosity Juraj how much does it weigh including the charger & accessories in a backpack?

Gustavoesser, I think it would just come down to how often your projects exceed 64gb, if they do then you will certainly need more ram instead of trying to optimize your scenes to the nth degree.

In my specific case since I have been a 'nomad worker' for the past 5 years I have my own bias as to what my preference would be now. Here is some of my experience which may help with some of your decisions. I started with a thin 15" Gigabyte Aero which was 2.5kg + charger/accessories so 3.5kg total. I'm now rocking the 17" Asus Rog Strix, quite large compared to the previous laptop. Thermals are better (but also any laptop after 2022 will be better for thermals). I travel sometimes daily to different places/countries for work and the 17" is just too big in hindsight, also it hits 7.5kg + accessories in my backpack which can be quite limiting on some airplanes as they limit your onboard to 7kg. Now these laptops come in 18" which is even harder to fit in a backpack or even open on the plane comfortably for some light work/entertainment - at which point I wish I had of purchased a 15" or 16". Again portability is a personal choice however just giving my feedback as I was quite comfortable with the smaller laptop which still works quite well and much easier to travel with and when docked in my office I use a 27" monitor.

Thought I'd add to this regarding things like battery & cpu. I also seem to see the same thing with the current generation of laptops - AMD run more quiet with longer battery life (I get 6 hours and dead quiet on the AMD cpu doing normal tasks, intermittent rendering I can get about 4 hours with slightly louder fans but not too loud to be honest). Intel seem to be less battery life overall and much louder fans in my experience. With the AMD I actually just use the built-in GPU when doing light 3D work like modelling/materials and scene prop placement and battery runs for a long time and 0 fan noise with decent viewport speed - don't expect miracles but I actually forget I left it on sometimes instead of using the DGPU. My last intel laptop iGPU/dGPU didnt make much difference, battery life was poor but that was 2017 so difficult to compare on that front personally.

[Juraj]

The 17" Titan GT77 is actually very light-weight for its class, just 3,3 KG. This type of laptops used to weight way above 4-5KG. Even now the new Alienware M18 is almost 4KG.
The same can't be said for the 330W which is not just heavy but also very big and ugly. I think the only reasonable 330W charger is from Razer, and on my travels, I use 240W GAN charger from SlimQ which is 1/3 the size and weight. It still fits only into very few bags :- ) I have plenty of big outdoor backpacks but it still fits only into one from Razer because it's so deep.

Dell Precision is 3KG as well but it's full metal chassis with much higher built quality, but no vapour chamber and no capability to cool HX Intels well.

Sadly that's pretty much it for 128GB capable laptops. Of them, the Precision is using super expensive CAMM module which I believe put it out of reach of creatives. I asked Intel to spec it like that for me but I wouldn't pay 2000 Euro for 128GB memory myself...
The Titan is using 4-Dimm slots making it 3 times cheaper. I always suggest to buy lowest config and buy aftermarket memory and SSDs. You can save 1000-2000 Euro very easily this way.

128GB come with another big limit not just for laptops but for mainstream DDR5 platforms. Both Intel 13th-gen and new Ryzen struggle to run fast memory in this configuration because 4x32GB reaches 8-ranks and that puts too much stress on the memory controller. So the fastest memory will be DDR5 limited to  4000 +/- MT/s. It doesn't affect rendering speed in my experience at all though, just mentioning it. 64GB can be run at 6000 MT/s even on laptop.

I think 64GB is enough if the laptop isn't your only workstation. I ran the Titan with 64GB and it was just fine for me with the Corona texture off-load. I just don't multi-task with so many other softwares like Photoshop at same time in such config.

That opens the doors to much more affordable Asus STRIX range laptops for example or the new Alienware or even Clevo/Eluktronics chassis. Because paying 5000+ Euro for gaming laptops is sort of absurd (the Dell was more than 8000... but that is corporate level and the CAMM has big premium on price sadly right now) esp. given these are still plastic boxes with not amazing built quality and questionable longevity.


I am also somewhat nomad with 4-5 months of travelling per year and I travel with 3 laptops, 1-2 27" Monitors and I fit all the into Land Cruiser with child and big husky dog :- ).

[gustavoesser]

Hi Juraj, i think I will get the Gt77 Titan because of the memory amount. What bag do tou use to carry it?

[Juraj]

I use heh my Razer Rogue 17" backpack (now it's called 18" but it's the same one) https://www.razer.com/eu-en/gear-backpacks/razer-rogue-backpack-17-v3
I got it for free from one guy who sold me Razer Blade time ago and it fits there... little painfully but it does. And I can carry everything else there in front parts.

I also have this ugly cheapo Pedea case that they make even in sizes to fit 21". But I prefer the backpack, easier to throw into car, take through air-ports,  safer, etc..

Anyway, there was new development recently and 48GB SO-DIMMs are heading to market, meaning 2x48=96 GB which is very solid.
I am not sure if they can be bought already and how well they will work. They technically will work, but practically always means different thing. You may look into this, it would mean you can chose from pretty much any dual so-dimm laptop on market, not just the two.

[gustavoesser]

Uoww that is great news Juraj. I just saw that Mushkin is already selling these memories. With those memorys i would probably go with the Asus Rog Strix Scar 17 with the Ryzen 9 7945hx or the Asus Zephyrus Duo 16.

[Juraj]

If you go this route, let us know back how it worked out, will be super interesting for me as well.

I feel like the DUO is very thin laptop chassis due to that half-display above keyboard. I really need to stress how loud these laptops get in workstation tasks.

[James Vella]

After seeing that Razer bag I'm getting massive FOMO lol.

While I think the Zephyrus Duo is great I hear the battery gets drained by the second screen. My thoughts on this are that while its useful for people who are regularly in Davinci, most of the time I'm in 3D and for me a second monitor is more useful to the side if docked. I see a few portable monitors on the market now also I use a wacom so it depends on your workflow I suppose since the wacom does the job for me as the 'second screen' (in the case of the Duo).

To be honest after seeing so so many reviews on youtube and watching those intel laptops hitting 58 decibels, to me thats far too loud. My Asus Rog Strix 17 (2021) probably hits around 30-40 (I haven't measured) but compared to other laptops Ive used (also in the workplace) I would say that the Ryzen machines are far more quiet. To me that's an important factor since the fan noise can really get under your skin after awhile. The reason I say that is rendering on 100% Turbo boost (highest power) I cant even hear the fans over a youtube video playing at 20% volume, so thats a win for me.

[Juraj]

It's only the Titan that reaches 60dB :- ) It's the only laptop capable of feeding 300W into it. Every other one has average load between 30 to 40dB based on NotebookCheck reviews.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Strix-Scar-17-G733PY-laptop-review-Intel-is-no-longer-king.706291.0.html

Based on this particular review, it's interesting they measured Scar 17 to be 10dB lower in load average than Strix 17, both with identical CPUs (Ryzen 7945HX) but different GPUs, Scar having 4090 and being the quiter one. But in that chart, pretty much every current laptop has similar 40dB mixed CPU/GPU) average load. Regardless of Intel/AMD (7945HX is much more effective, but it's also denser node, so the heat transfer is more complicated, so you won't get much quiter laptop, just less power draw, more cool chassis and longer battery, which are still very impressive features).

[James Vella]

Actually you make a good point, the 2021 Strix Scar I have is quite under powered compared to the new ones with 115-130W 3080RTX and the new 4080/4090 are about 150-175W. Also the CPU in this is 5900HX vs 7945HX and being in quite a large chassis 17" I think it makes sense that it doesn't get so loud. The max Im pulling right now while rendering is 52W on the CPU.

[gustavoesser]

Hi Juraj, I'm still waiting on reviews of these new memory modules to see if they will be compatible with the laptops tha I am looking.