Laptop vs Desktop in 2024

[Karolis]

Hello friends,

I have recently came back to archviz (using 3ds Max + Corona) and working on quite an old 6900k gtx 1060 workstation. I want to make an upgrade. However, mobility is quite important to me. So I was looking into this year's Lenovo Legion laptops and am focused on the Legion 5 pro (14900hx + rtx 4070 + 32gb of RAM) or a cheaper variant with (14650hx + rtx 4060 + 16gb of RAM). I have two spare sticks of 16gb 3200mhz RAM memory and could use it if I buy the cheaper Legion 5 pro variant. My plan would then be to use the old workstation as a render node for some extra power.

However, I am worried whether working and rendering on a laptop like this could lead to degradation of hardware at some point. Would greatly appreciate the opinion of those who have experience of using laptops for 3ds Max + Corona for long periods of time. Did you have some issues? Since the gap between cpu rendering in mobile chips and desktops has been getting smaller and smaller I am very interested in buying a laptop for my work. However, I am worried that using it for archviz full time could lead to it degrading in a year or two. Another option for me would be to upgrade my current desktop with a 7950x or a 14900k but as I said before, being able to take my work with me is quite important for me so would definitely prefer having a mobile solution.

Opinions much appreciated! Thanks a lot!

[James Vella]

While its not 'recommended' to use a workstation laptop 24/7 as a rendering machine and workstation I pretty much have since 2017. I was using the Gigabyte Aero from 2017-2021. Now Im using the Asus Rog Strix (2021 - now). I never have had any degredation issues other than fans being clogged after 1 year with dust, and liquid metal needing to be re-applied to the GPU (Asus Strix).

The only reason I knew of these issues is that every 6 months I take my laptop to a technician, get them to do a full dust cleanout and fan replacement if required. I needed 3 fan replacements on the Aero but none on the Asus. The last dust clean I got the technician noticed the liquid metal needed to be re-done and the laptop still runs smooth as the day I purchased it, I render on it all day basically, and most importantly keep it physically clean and software wise up to date.

I think the Lenovo is a great option, I would probably pick that now instead of the Asus, dont get me wrong all laptops have their quirks but I do like the feature set on the Lenovos. The Strix is mostly gamer orientated and I do miss having a webcam, an SD card slot and these days lots of great ports and GPU power restrictions (mine was 1 generation before they went from 115w to 150w, makes a big difference when doing more real-time 3D stuff).

My only advise would be - max out the RAM on that whatever you can afford, you will need it. And enjoy the nomad lifestyle, I surely do :)

[Karolis]

Hey there James,

Much appreciate your insights and quick reply. Good idea having someone to have a maintenance check of your machine done each 6 months. By the way, do I understand it correctly, that having insufficient RAM will make the scenes that are too big for it to crash but otherwise it will not effect viewport performance and things like that? Also do you know if RAM speed has any effect? Because I might replace the stock 16gb that would come with the laptop which might be 4800mhz with my 32 gb of 3200 mhz RAM which I already have.

Thanks again and glad to hear that you are enjoying your chosen lifestyle :) Hope myself to become more flexible with my work location again soon

[James Vella]

From what I understand the scene shouldn't crash, it just swaps the memory to the SSD which is very slow when rendering or calculating light cache etc. Regarding the viewport it uses the GPU so it should not affect the viewport speed. I have never really benchmarked the difference in RAM speed, I don't really consider it important as long as I have enough of it and its compatible. I was reading on some posts even though it says on the Lenovo website that it 32gb is the max, apparently it can support 64GB (2x 32gb sticks).

[Karolis]

Thanks James. I had no idea that having insufficient RAM results in slower renders. That being said I guess it would be wiser for me to go with the cheaper Legion 5 pro version (14650hx, rtx 1060, 16gb ram) and use the extra cash to purchase two sticks of 32gb memory to replace the one that comes with it. Or would you suggest going with the more expensive one that has the 14900hx, rtx 1070, 32gb of ram right away. And then add more RAM when I can afford it. By the way, at the moment I am doing only interiors, but most likely will do exteriors later on. Thanks again!

Oh and regarding the maximum capacity of memory on the Legion 5 pro, I came to the same conclusion as you. I think the maximum configuration that Lenovo offers is 32gb of RAM when you buy the laptop but it can be expanded up to 64 (2x32gb).

[James Vella]

Im guessing you mean 4060 & 4070 RTX GPU right (not 1060)? In terms of viewport not much difference between the 4060 & 4070.

In terms of the CPU, there's a pretty decent difference between the 14650hx and 14900hx, faster single core performance (better for 3dsmax), also 8 more threads for rendering. Comparison here

I dont know how much RAM you use - you probably have a better idea based on your scene size and workflow. If you intend on replacing the entire RAM kit later then it doesnt matter what it comes with just replace it when you need to. For Corona (and most things) get the fastest CPU you can, max out the RAM and if you dont do any real-time 3D or heavy GPU work then any 40 series RTX GPU will do.

At the time I purchased mine I got the 16GB 3080RTX, barely use even half of it. In fact when I'm travelling a lot I just switch it off and use the built-in GPU on the CPU and I get longer battery, 3dsmax runs just fine in the viewport and it stays dead silent.

[Karolis]

Hello,

Yes, I meant the 4060 and 4070 in the Legion 5 Pro. Thanks for your insights. Regarding the cpu comparison you showed, it compares the 13650hx with the 14900hx, not the 14650hx. The 14650hx has more cores than the earlier 13650hx. However, the 14900hx is of course still faster as you said. Its a pity that the sellers where I am don't offer configurations with 14900hx and rtx 4060 to max out on the cpu (I am located in Lithuania). Not sure if there are ways to configure it myself and have it delivered here. Though I have found an Asus Studio book Pro with a 13980hx, rtx 4060 and 32gb of ram. Do you have any thoughts on those? By the way, its interesting that you have your gpu switched off even at times. So basically if I would need to upgrade my desktop that I mentioned (6900k with gtx 1060) its not worth to upgrade the gpu at all? Wonder if it would not have any bottlenecks with a 7950x or a 14900k, 64gb of ram and a gtx 1060 :))

Thanks a lot!

[James Vella]

Yes, I meant the 4060 and 4070 in the Legion 5 Pro. Thanks for your insights. Regarding the cpu comparison you showed, it compares the 13650hx with the 14900hx

Ah yes apologies, I did 3 comparison checks and this was the one I copy pasta lol. This was the first one I found. Still shows 8 more threads & 16% faster single core.

Though I have found an Asus Studio book Pro with a 13980hx, rtx 4060 and 32gb of ram

Those CPUs are pretty much on par with each other so same/same. However I think this is a great laptop as well, depends on the port layout, display (I think this uses OLED which is much nicer), I didn't see the 4060 option just the NVIDIA RTX 3000 Ada Generation Laptop GPU but if you can get that It would be fine, again if you don't intend on doing any GPU rendering or heavy real-time stuff.

By the way, its interesting that you have your gpu switched off even at times.

Sometimes for months at a time, It doesn't affect 3dsmax much. To be honest I forget I have it switched off and everything runs as I expect it to.

Wonder if it would not have any bottlenecks with a 7950x or a 14900k, 64gb of ram and a gtx 1060 :))

The GPU wont be the bottleneck unless you have some seriously dense scenes (viewport). Even then you can alleviate that with proxies/xrefs. In saying so I still think a 4060 would be a cheap and useful upgrade from a 1060, but not a necessity. Definitely the CPU/RAM first if Corona is your weapon of choice.

[Juraj]

You can't really mix ram, I don't think your existing 3200MT/s memory is DDR5 which is required for current gen platforms. It's best to just buy 2x32 GB or even 2x48 GB DDR5 in SODIMM form factor. Retail price such upgrade is +/- 300 Euro I believe.

Laptop is perfectly fine for 24/7 workstation nowadays, but it require some specific setups often (laptop dependent) to optimize the performance for particular task, as laptop cooling and power system is shared for both CPU+GPU together and majority of gaming laptops come setup to favour GPU performance. So by default, they will for example allocate only 50 Watts for CPU and 150 Watts for GPU which will be sub-optimal for Corona.
Quite a lot can be written about this that I don't really have much time but there are laptop forums such as https://notebooktalk.net/ where people go in-depth about it.

[Karolis]

Thanks for your insights James and Juraj!

James, here is the studiobook with a 4060 that I found available locally:

https://bigbox.lt/nesiojami-kompiuteriai/1847971-asus-studiobook-pro-16-oled-h7604jv-my067w-mineral-black-16-oled-touchscreen-glossy-intel-core-i9-i9-13980hx-32-gb-ddr5-so-dimm-ssd-1tb-intel-uhd-graphics-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4060-laptop-gpu-windows-11-home-keyboard-backlit-4711387513705.html

But there is another version with a RTX 3000 like you mentioned. However, I'm still leaning towards the Lenovo after the reviews I've watched. I can also get the Legion 5 Pro model that I mentioned a few euros cheaper (the one with the 14900hx, 32gb ram, rtx4070):

https://bigbox.lt/nesiojami-kompiuteriai/1959802-lenovo-legion-pro-5-16irx9-intel-core-i9-i9-14900hx-laptop-406-cm-16-wqxga-32-gb-ddr5-sdram-1-tb-ssd-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-wi-fi-6e-80211ax-windows-11-home-grey.html

Thanks Juraj for the info regarding the ram compatibility with the current gen platforms. You're correct, the 32gb I have laying around is DDR4 so I'm guessing I won't be able to use it. Was not aware of it.  I know that it's not possible to mix ram but was thinking to replace the one that comes with stock (in case I buy a laptop with 16gb). Oh well. Will check the laptop forum you mentioned. Thanks!

By the way guys, do you have experience/opinions about using the new intel ultra processors for Corona? I was thinking also about the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9 (2024) 16'' with a 185h. Of course its not as capable as the 14900hx but still twice faster than my current 6900k :)). Also it seems to be super efficient and the laptop I saw locally on display was ice cold to the touch. Though that was from an earlier generation I think, but still. Here is the current gen model that I was interested in:

https://bigbox.lt/nesiojami-kompiuteriai/1914660-kompiuteris-lenovo-yoga-pro-9-16imh9-16-intel-core-ultra-9-ram-32gb-1tb-ssd-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4060-windows-11-pro-83dn006smh-198153128358.html

The Yoga seemed like a pretty nice hybrid between performance and portability since I'm not sure how much rendering I will be doing in the future. Though probably this is not the best choice for rendering full time.

Feel free if you'd like to share which would you guys choose yourself between the studiobook, Legion 5 pro and the Yoga 9. I was thinking also at first about the 2024 Legion 7 (non pro). Its slimmer and the white version especially looks really nice but I think its better to go with a thicker chasis for rendering like the Legion 5 pro because I would loose performance due to lower wattage. Furthermore, the Legion 7 I saw displayed was quite warm even just sitting there. Should get really hot when rendering.

Thanks again for your opinions guys!

[Juraj]

My opinion is to stick to "big" laptop CPUs, such as Intel HX and AMD HX, but to get them in slimmer, portable body if you want the laptop to be more universal. So for example something like Razer Blade 16.
I think most Legions are decently portable, not as good as Razer, but not as bad as for example my MSI Titan :- ). The Legions are very popular choice for past 2-3 years so I think most of them are very safe choice.

Buying lower-end GPU like 4070 model and upgrading memory and SSD yourself afterwards is the right way to go unless you have unlimited budget.

Pay good attention to display options, with gaming laptops, sometimes there are multiple without the vendor even specifying. For example CPU option A will get 2560px with only 250 NITs, but CPU Option B will automatically upgrade to 400 NITs brightness display. It's really sad how complicated this can get. It's good to double-check the exact configuration in reviews on https://www.notebookcheck.net/ . The website is bit B-tier news aggregators, but they have very detailed laptop reviews and they check in detail the display, noise, etc.. which other websites don't.

[Karolis]

Thanks Juraj,

Yeah probably a better I idea to stick with the HX chips. Today I found some quite good deals on last year's Legion 5 Pros with 7945hx and 13900hx. Might go with one of those. Do you guys have experience running these chips? the 7945hx seems to be quite ahead in multicore scores while the 13900hx seems like almost the same chip as the 14900hx. Both look like rather good deals.

[James Vella]

I have to agree with Juraj, thicker chassis = better airflow. But I am really looking forward to snapdragon/ARM chips getting to a point where I can get 20hrs battery life in a thin laptop, would be much easier to carry around than my 17" asus.

Regarding the 7945hx thats a fast CPU (in my opinion). Ive been working with the 5900HX since 2001 and while its half the speed of this CPU its more than enough for my needs, I still find it blazing fast for everything I do.

[Juraj]

The AMD one is bit faster, but much more power efficient, so it keeps high performance in almost any chassis. It's definitely better laptop chip.

There is no difference between 13th gen and 14th gen Intel CPUs. It's matter of statistical error, +/- 3-5perc.

[Karolis]

Thanks. Really appreciate the opinions guys. Snapdragon/ARM looks interesting but are you planning to render on it? :)