Budget laptop for game development

Hi guys. I am a student from Ukraine. I earn extra money by developing small games. It so happened that I needed a laptop for study, which could replace my old PC (2011). My budget is limited to $800. I looked at laptops with AMD but I heard that almost all compilers are optimized for Intel. In addition, AMD videocards are very bad when working with Blender and Adobe After Effects. Is it so? If you can, then advise a laptop that will work well with Unity and will not be more expensive than my budget. Sorry for my English)

 

On the contrary the new Ryzen 3000 series are perfect fit for compiling code. Though at this point laptop versions are not known, and looking back at Ryzen 1 and 2 series I wouldnt hold my breath.


edit: They have scrapped the large cache on the laptop versions so probably not a good fit no and its on the old 12 nm node

 

It turns out amd does not fit? So I need to look at Intel. What about a videocard? Integrated video is definitely not suitable. Will something from the MX series from Nvidia fit? In my shops, there are a lot of laptops with the Core I3 + mx150. Is this the best option for current budget?

 

I would go with a eGPU solution. But 800 usd is not alot. Maybe get the laptop first and then save up for the external GPU?

 

I thought about it but still threw this option away due to instability. I heard that they work extremely poorly with demanding programs.

edit: I read more about eGPU. As for me, this option is much more expensive than buying a laptop with a ready-made video card.

 

What kind of student?
School/Highsciol, or University?
If from Uni, maybe try apply for laptop renting, or laptop discount?

 

Outside of unusual situations optimizations only bring a minor increase in performance. What they won't make up for is a lack of cores or threads. A Ryzen 3000 CPU from AMD is within 5 to 10% of the performance of an equivalent core and thread count Intel 9000 CPU. Once one side has more cores or threads the other side loses.

That said it's not too relevant for you because Ryzen 3000 CPUs for laptops aren't out yet to my knowledge.

AMD's integrated graphics is approximately 2.5 times the performance of Intel's integrated graphics. NVIDIA's MX 150 is basically the equivalent of AMD's integrated graphics. I don't know where the others stand but they're generally inferior to an equivalent non-MX GPU.

Do you have the equivalent of Black Friday sales in the Ukraine? Because a budget of only $800 would normally place you within the range of the Acer Predator Helios 300 in the United States but I'm betting it's double that in your country. If you can get it for a similar price during a sale it's one of the best budget laptops available.

If you can't afford anything better than an NVIDIA MX GPU my recommendation is to look around at used hardware.

 

What you need is this!

Spoiler

 

Thanks for such an informative answer. We have Black Friday, but it’s rather a day when there are small discounts on many products. Unfortunately for us, this is not as grand as yours (I have already looked in the direction of the used hardware and so far I am considering it as one of the options.

 

I am student of Kharkiv University. I dont think that laptop renting is good idea...

 

I am dont need gaming laptop. And he cost more then $800.

 

There is an option to buy Lenovo Ideapad 330 with I3 + MX150 8GB and SSD. This is not too weak option at least for the first time? https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Ideapad-Computer-i5-8250U-Bluetooth/dp/B07DRGBS61

 

Not sure if that will be the case for you, but if I were you, I would check, what laptops options University has for their students. Maybe they have even some discounts.
At least it is good to find out, to be aware what you can do, or not.

 

I'd save up a few hundred dollars more really. With Unity you want good core count, today 16GB of RAM, SSD with enough space to fit your projects (not just the OS), and better than bare minimum graphics. The exact specs of what you want depend on your actual projects. $800 is hard to fit that all in a laptop.

I took that as sarcasm.

 

Thx for idea. Maybe we have some discounts.

 

Ok i'll take that into account. Thx

 

Thx everybody for you answers. With your help I founded optimal laptop - Acer Aspire 5 with SSD and IPS display.

 

What about the Asus TUF gaming fx505?

 

That is at least 2x OP budged.

Edit:
Sorry, ignore ...