Laptop vs Desktop in 2024

[James Vella]

Snapdragon/ARM looks interesting but are you planning to render on it? :)

When the proof is in the pudding, then hell yeah :) Until then I'll hold my breath :)

I only render for like 8-10 hours per day with basic interiors so for me I dont need crazy amounts of power these days, but once I see some real-world stuff from 3D renders on those ARM chips then ill be ready to make the switch, or just buy an extra machine for funsies and see what happens. I purchased a $350 chromebook back in 2015 which actually was a fantastic laptop, not for 3D but I really loved the simplicity of the OS, just doing basic things like email, youtube, android apps, long battery life, etc. If I could marry that with a workstation (even if it wasn't as amazing as my current laptop Id be very happy!). Again, everyone has different needs, these days I don't need a powerhouse PC (portability is more important in my world now), so for me even getting speeds on par with my current 2021 machine in an ARM thin laptop would be fantastic for the next 2-3 years.

If you have demanding clients with ever expanding archviz scenes, well yeah the game changes a lot, which leads back to what I said earlier, get a really fast CPU, lots of RAM and you should be good to go (for the next few years, if Corona is your renderer, and those are your clients).

[Karolis]

Thanks. Yeah sure, makes sense if you like the OS and don't need the power of a full mobile workstation :) Should be way easier to use if it provides what you need.

Pity that the 14900hx and 13900hx Legion 5 Pro's I had my eyes on were sold out recently. Might have to wait for the new batch. I was now comparing the 14700hx and 14650hx variants but am a little confused. Maybe you can help me with this if you want :)) Do you guys have any idea why the benchmarks for the 14700hx and the 14650hx are almost identical? The 14700hx has more cores so it should be evident at least in the multicore:

https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-14700hx-vs-intel-core-i7-14650hx

If the performance is the same, doesn't make sense to go with the 14700hx. Though it is weird.

[Juraj]

In laptops, performance between different laptops with same chip can be up to 50perc. It also fluctuates much more depending on conditions.

Different laptops provide different amount of juice and cooling. But majority of laptops outside of boost only provide around 50 +/- Watts for extended duration (rendering, etc..) and that makes it almost impossible to distinguish between different CPU models.

There is often very little benefit to upper tier of CPUs/GPUs in laptop, there is only so much the tiny body of laptop can cool. With GPU you're at least getting more VRAM which is always valuable, but with CPU the top models are almost useless.

[Karolis]

Thanks Juraj. The majority of benchmarks must probably be done with short runs which create a bigger gap between different cpus? But I guess in real world cases like rendering the gap becomes smaller because of wattage like you said. I was quite surprised by this comparison:

where the difference between a legion 5 pro with a 14650hx and the legion 7 pro 14900hx was only 24000 to 27000 in CB. Guess in real world applications it would be even smaller.

That being said, would you say that there is no big difference of going with a 14650hx or a 14900hx/7945hx in a similar laptop for Corona? I suppose the 7945hx would make a bit bigger difference for multithreading but I can only find a few laptops with it. I see a Legion 7 pro with a 7945hx and a 4080 at a local retailer but that one is quite expensive and I don't want to overpay for the GPU. Also there is an Asus Strix G17 with a 7945hx and a 4060 for almost half the price (would need to add ram though). However, I don't like the gamery looks of the Asus. And Lenovos should probably be better in terms of reliability and if the 14650hx would provide almost the same speed as the top cpus, I would probably just go with a Legion 5 pro (14650hx/4060) which would be the cheapest of the bunch.

Thanks again!

[Juraj]

There really is no easy way to answer that :- ) You posed the questions and partly answered yourself already. It's just too many choices and variables with laptops unfortunately.

The more all the features aligns, the more expensive it gets. "Buy once, cry once" I see quoted fairly often on internet today :- ).

You always overpay with laptops. They're just damn expensive today.

[Karolis]

Haha I guess you're right :) Good quote. I have a similar one that goes along that :)) Appreciate your insights!

[ONO]

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).

The Intel laptop i9 actually support 48gig ram sticks

[Karolis]

Heeey Ono,

Thanks. Actually went with the Lenovo Legion 7 2024 (non pro) 14700hx i7, rtx 4060, 32gb. I went with a slimmer device since I don't know how much rendering I will be doing in the future and wanted a more hybrid machine. After checking the benchmarks on the internet I came to the conclusion that the i9 doesn't provide a really huge difference in multicore performance, especially in the slimmer model but on the other hand might generate more heat.  Same with the gpu - I won't be actually needing something above a 4060. I might upgrade the ram and ssd in the future though if a need arises. Do you know if the 14700hx also supports dual 48gb ram? Couldn't find info about that.