PC Hardware and building thread

[Trent]

New PC time.

After discussions with the missus, she convinced me a laptop is the way to go. I want something that I can game on and can handle Fusion 360 and probably Blender. Budget is $2-$3K.

Any suggestions?

[DELTAprime]

New PC time.

After discussions with the missus, she convinced me a laptop is the way to go. I want something that I can game on and can handle Fusion 360 and probably Blender. Budget is $2-$3K.

Any suggestions?

You should only buy a laptop if you 100% are sure you're going to need portability. While CPUs in laptops are very similar to desktop parts these days. The GPUs are nothing like the desktop version. You might look at a laptop and see a "4090" and think you are getting the same thing as the desktop part, but you're actually getting something more like an underpowered 4070.

So are you still thinking laptop or are you willing to go desktop?

[Trent]

You should only buy a laptop if you 100% are sure you're going to need portability. While CPUs in laptops are very similar to desktop parts these days. The GPUs are nothing like the desktop version. You might look at a laptop and see a "4090" and think you are getting the same thing as the desktop part, but you're actually getting something more like an underpowered 4070.

So are you still thinking laptop or are you willing to go desktop?

It needs to be a laptop. We need the portability. Believe me I would much prefer a desktop. And a lot of the time it’s gonna be hooked up to the dock in the study running through my 2 monitors. But we will have to move it on occasion.

[DELTAprime]

It needs to be a laptop. We need the portability. Believe me I would much prefer a desktop. And a lot of the time it’s gonna be hooked up to the dock in the study running through my 2 monitors. But we will have to move it on occasion.

Ok, well... Things are looking pretty grim from my browsing. Looks like the best you're going to be able to get for $3000 is a 4060. And remember that's a laptop 4060, not a more powerful desktop 4060. I'll ask someone I know who reviews laptops if he has any recommendations.

[Trent]

Ok, well... Things are looking pretty grim from my browsing. Looks like the best you're going to be able to get for $3000 is a 4060. And remember that's a laptop 4060, not a more powerful desktop 4060. I'll ask someone I know who reviews laptops if he has any recommendations.

Cheers.

And just for clarification gaming isn’t the primary use of this thing. I’m not looking for an out of this world experience. I’d say primary GPU uses would be for Fusion and Blender. Gaming is just a “nice to have”.

[DELTAprime]

Cheers.

And just for clarification gaming isn’t the primary use of this thing. I’m not looking for an out of this world experience. I’d say primary GPU uses would be for Fusion and Blender. Gaming is just a “nice to have”.

Unless Fusion has some sort of CUDA or OpenCL acceleration gaming perf more or less directly correlates to productivity perf.

[DELTAprime]

Cheers.

And just for clarification gaming isn’t the primary use of this thing. I’m not looking for an out of this world experience. I’d say primary GPU uses would be for Fusion and Blender. Gaming is just a “nice to have”.

Ok, ignore the highlighted product in the slide, it's for un upcoming product review. But here are a bunch of Blender results.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...290&height=726

So if you can possibly spend an extra $400 you can get double the Blender perf over a $3000ish laptop with a 4060 and it will last you a lot longer than the already struggling laptops with 4060s.

https://www.pccasegear.com/products/...n-144hz-laptop

[Trent]

Yeah I can stretch that far if it’s worth it.

[Trent]

Ok, well... Things are looking pretty grim from my browsing. Looks like the best you're going to be able to get for $3000 is a 4060. And remember that's a laptop 4060, not a more powerful desktop 4060. I'll ask someone I know who reviews laptops if he has any recommendations.

What would you recommend I look at if tha laptop 4060 isn’t that good? 4070? 4090? I don’t really want to put in the effort to bring myself back up to speed on PC stuff.