Which model of notebook to select (list with spec is available)

Hello,

I decided to upgrade my notebook and I need your advice. I have MSI Leopard Pro GP72 with upgraded memory (16Gb) and SSD on SATA port. I intentionally sacrify extra performance which PC may offer me in exchange of mobility. Since notebook is always connected to ultra wide screen and wireless keyboard/mouse, the screen size of notebook does not make any significant difference. The weight of 2kg or 2.8kg are equally heavy and uncomfortable to carry.

When I did a research, I found that for 2D and mobile game development my notebook is more than enough. However, if I can reduce IL2CPP compilation time, iOS built time or get rid of micro compilation delays when I switch from Visual Studio to Unity, that will make my life happier =)

I am using VMware to run MacOS (for those who worry about legal aspect: I own MacBook Pro (the biggest mistake of my life) which I cloned because its keyboard is very uncomfortable). So if a new notebook will speed up VMware, running MacOS and reduce iOS build time from 12m to lets say 6m and archive time from 24m to 12m, that would be awesome!

I love games but since I started game development, I have no time to play them (unless I am learning their core mechanics). So I am not sure, do I really need RTX2060 6GB or GTX1650 4GB will be enough for Unity and 3D models (if I ever decide to use 3D models in 2D games or learn Blender)? I believe the first one is 30-40% faster but both are 6x and 3x faster than what I currently have (GTX 950M). I am old school gamer so I am very happy with 30fps and I value story/gameplay more than visuals.

As for CPU, there are only two options i7-10875H and i7-10750H. Where I will benefit from i7-10875H?

Is there any noticeable difference between DDR4 2666MHz and 3200MHz? Is there any benefit from single 16Gb over two 8Gb? If I ever need to upgrade to 32Gb (I even never saw my 16Gb ever fully used), I believe I will need to recycle current anyway. If it's one then because I cannot find second with the same frequency, if it's two then because I do not have more free slots =)

As for SSD - 512Gb seems to acceptable but not much. What I was thinking that may be it's worth to buy just 512Gb and later replace it with Samsung's 1Tb, which I believe should work faster. Anyway, even existing one will be ~7x faster than SATA which I should notice.

Do you think it's worth to upgrade or save $1.5k and keep using the current one?

 

Its not the right time to buy a laptop computer right now. With Zen 3 mobile CPUs around the corner.

 

Thanks for your message, could you please tell me what exactly Zen3 will affect?

 

Do you actually travel with laptop and ultra wide screen? Why you need for mobility exactly? Maybe you should consider proper dev desktop. And ligh laptop just for carry most necessary tasks and real mobility, not for actually heavy Unity dev.

 

20% single core performance increase over zen 2 / Intel

 

That's a good question. I have a two working places. I spend a month at one and a week at another one (it helps refresh your mind and get new ideas). At both places I have big screen, keyboard and mouse. Since I am notebook, it's easy to move and be productive at both locations. I even consider to buy a PC for one place and use existing notebook at another (since it's still doing well). The external SSD could be used to sync two working places but then I started to worry that I have powerful machine at one place which I cannot use for a one or two weeks. I had to decide between two options: 1) both places with mid quality hardware or 2) one place with high and another with low quality hardware.

Is there any chance to make slim PC case which is no more than 5kg in total or anything around it? When I researched, the good quality case itself was heavy =)

Very good that you mentioned that. When I was comparing i7-10750H with RYZEN 7 4800H, I noticed that first one was faster with single thread and the second one with multi thread and also 64bit calculations (if I recall correctly). So is one thread performance giving more noticeable benefits than multi thread?

What is the most important, where I can see the benefit? I did not include i9 CPU simply because it was giving 10-20% improvement while price was significantly higher. Thanks!

 

What I suggest, maybe not best solution, but if considering having powerful machine in one place, that where you would do heavy lifting. Otherwise, you can work on smaller assets while in other place.

With that setup in mind, you can use remote access, to drop / update assets and let run simulation / build / baking etc. while sitting in your other remote place and letting focus work on your smaller assets.

Smaller you got, you either loosing on performance, or putting price up.
I would really review, what is more important for me. Mobility or performance.
To be honest, if you got a car, even moving full size Desktop, is not really a big deal. Specially you not doing it every day. Sure, cables are hurdle. But question is again, what you really need as priority and what your other options?

 

Single core perf is a combination of IPC and clock frequency. Both multi core and single core workload benefit from a higher single core perf.

 

That's right! So I did a research and compared i7-10750H (mobile) with 7-10700. I can see that it has higher frequency (due to better cooling and unlimited power supply) but here is the actual comparison result. Extra 10-20% is not that impressive. Then I searched for RTX2060 6GB mobile VS desktop and here is result. Extra 20-30% power... I agree that more is always more but in exchange of extra heat, noise, mobility? The most important, will I really notice the difference. Lets assume I bake a light, if it takes 2.5min, that extra power will reduce it to 2min. The both scenarios are equally annoying =)

There could be a big mistake in my logic: the heat is a very big problem mobile devices. Notebook spec could be a marketing trick, just like a quad core in a mobile (works at 100% power for the first 30 sec).

Finally, I still decided to give a shot and quickly assemble the PC with the same hardware. Unfortunately I cannot see a huge price difference either, it was around 1380. Of course it's less than 1650 but for that price I am also getting 1Tb SSD and 10850 CPU and if we compare with 1480 price tag then we save only 6.75% (I intentionally calculated a difference in % to avoid false impression of noticeable discount).

I am not expert in the subject. Here what I can see here and here. The i7 is doing slightly better with single core but Ryzen with 4 and 8 cores. So which is more important for Unity, WMware, Blender, Illustrator or app building? I worry to end up with power which no existing app is able to utilize =)

 

This is important to keep in mind when looking at laptops. The cooling solution has to be good enough to keep the processor and GPU running at those performance levels, and they often are not.

 

So are batteries. High-end laptops don't run at full speed unless they're plugged in because batteries aren't capable of feeding them at full power.

Probably not a huge concern if you're plugging into screens and just moving between different offices, but worth being aware of.

I think you should be looking at the raw difference in price, rather than a percentage.

$50 will pay the same amount of bills whether you "saved" it as 5% of $1000 or 50% of $100. They're the same dollars.

 

Yeah Intel is slighly faster then Zen 2. Thats why I suggest you wait for Zen 3 mobile CPUs they crush both Zen2 and Intel with about 20%

edit: if you can wait offcourse

 

Thanks I will. I plan to check repairing videos for each model and see how the cooling system is organized (it should have at least two fans. Mine has only one and that causes me a problem if I run a heavy game.

You are right any dollar counts. I was just trying to say that both 1380, 1480 and 1650 are all expensive. The topic remains open - can Unity and other apps utilize that much performance? May be it's better to buy one from Lenovo (the cheapest in the list) which offers everything the same but Rayzen instead of i7 (I had one and if we ignore its poor design, it is still working well). Or even look to the ones with GTX1650 but they are still in the similar price range 1000-1200. The PC has advantage as well - extra 20% power with 10% discount.

Sure, I can... I thought to buy one because of new year and shops usually offer extra discounts =) BTW how long we should wait and do you think that price tag will be close to those ones mentioned above?

Thanks everyone for your tips!

 

Yep I think too much focusing on %s.
Gaining or loosing 10% won't be a deal braker, if other factor comes into play.
Indeed cooling system is big one. For the laptop it need really be considered. Also probably need additional stand, to keep it cool from the bottom, for better air flow.

Small / compact desktops are exposed to higher heating, due to space constrains.
How that affect in long run, don't know to be honest.
But one thing for sure is, you loose on extensibility.

I am so far happy with using liquid cooling in my desktop. Works past 5 years without issues. No need for periodical replacement of coolant. That is already past my expectations, regarding time frame.

Noise is big one. I would rathe take note on the noise. Not when device is idle however. But when is running on full capacity on prolong time. I.e. 30 min +.
Getting quiet fans and cooling, can be really important. May be overlooked otherwise.

Don't forget about PSU in case of desktop. You should allow some spare margin. Not only to prevent PSU running close to 100%, but you may want to connect multiple periferials as well. I.e. Multiple drives, usbs, different better GPU, etc.

Motherboard with additional IO ports? Maybe you want to have at least 1-2 internal spare. Never know, what you may want to connect in two years. Unless planning to replace hardware by that time.

MB with WiFi, vs cable. Do not underestimate that aspect. Either having own Wi-Fi card, or having MB with good Wi-Fi. Good antena. Unless you are connecting with a network cable directly.

 

Mind, deving will require more processing power than game of course.
Running Unity editor can be taxing. For most however it is single threaded. However. If you run baking task for example once in a day, which takes 2-5min, is not a big deal braking, gaining 30sec, on better hardware, for whole day.

Then you may want to run profiler, or simulations. All starting to add up.

But keep in mind, you are not expecting to run just Unity editor. You may want have open 3D tools in background, some Web browser tabs, docs, some other software running in background. Or even test playing builds, without needing closing Unity. Maybe video compression and compiling in background.

Then if you decide utilise Unity Jobs and even DOTS, then you will start really appreciate power of CPU. Even if your target hardware is much lower, you have plenty capabilities, to test and stress test performance.

Wanting networking? You want have testing multiple local clients running on your same machine. Multiple threads are possibly be used.

And you want your OS to stay responsive at any given time.

Or simply, you may want to play new cool games.

So yes, plenty of use cases for your desktop, to utilise the performance.

I would say 16GB RAM is minimum for such, to feel comfortable. For me, it is not unusual come to close capacity limit, with many open software. However open multiple Web browser tabs takes quite a chunk of memory, which is very annoying.


I personally focus on hardware which is around 1 year on the market, which is tested and verified by users, with proper benchmarks in various builds and configurations. Also the price tends to be lower, than for those early adopters. 10% performance gain is not really deal breaker, just because is a new model on the market. And CPU performance per core really stagnates past decade, with some minor tweaks from year to year, increasing cache and adding more cores.

 

There are leaks and rumors about the 5800U now from multiple places, cant be long before an official statement from AMD

edit: but for UNity work you would want the H model without APU and external GPU

 

Thank you so much for your informative reply. I thought a lot yesterday and today. I am no longer so sure about notebook idea =) Could you please share what PC will you build in the around 1.5k?

That's very correct. I forgot to think about that since notebook rarely causes it (unless I play heavy game and I have to turn off turbo fan mode which makes notebook sound like a SkyJet is going to take off

That's in my schedule! However, I was thinking that DOTS should help me reduce resource (cpu & memory) consumption =)

That's very strange because I never experiences any issues or may be I was not aware that luck of RAM was bottleneck in certain situations.

When I was trying to build a PC like Unity offers, I had to search for PSU with removable cables to keep only those cobbles which are required for better air flow and the prices for such PSU was impressive =)

You mean mobile version right? I was able to find only 5800X and it's really impressive! I just worry that my budget may not be enough

 

I'm really happy with my machine it's a water cooled 5950x, 32 gig 3200mhz Cas 14 (I used to run 64 gig but it ran slower in games so opted out, I haven't checked might exist single ranked 16 gig sticks today or if there is single ranked 32 gig sticks ) and nvidia 3090, Samsung 970 Pro in 16x slot and Samsung 980 Pro in 8x slot (this is important becasue gen4 performance much better on 8x than gen3, and x570 does not support 2 NVMe at 16x and a GPU at 16x)

Only task Its not up to is baking our acoustics, it takes week for it, we have rented 1024 nodes in azure for this

 

OMG that's not a PC, that's a monster =) The RTX 3090 alone will use up all my budget I love Samsun 980 but I had no clue about Gen4. May I know for what do you use that much power and what about noise? Or did you mean that you rent a rack space at local hosting provider and use it remotely? Thanks!

 

Hey,
I am a bit rusty with most update and best permanent to cost ratio hardware. But I would pick some starting point.
For example here

Spoiler

Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 275Q QUIET CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor i7-10700K (3.8GHz) 16MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B460-PLUS: ATX, LGA1200, USB 3.2, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 SUPER - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Storage Drive
256GB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (500MB/R, 400MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
3TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
Memory Card Reader
USB 3.0 EXTERNAL SD/MICRO SD CARD READER
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W TXm SERIES™ SEMI-MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre European Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100x Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Extra Case Fans
1x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 PORT (2 x TYPE A) USB 3.1 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on USB Drive
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 13 to 15 working days

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z490-pc/DXqZCAmQ5Z/

The price tag is around $1,7k, after tax and with delivery.

Then I would investigate any of component and look at benchmarks.
I would probably reduce memory from 32 GB to 16 and increase frequency.

I picked components briefly as a reference. So they need putting deeper thought into it.
Specially if you want bring price tag lower.

I hope this will be somehow useful at least.

You may be wanting different / more local shop. But I would avoid as fire, any default builds and on promotion hardware, which can be found in generic hyper markets.

 

If you do do not bake light a 3080 is good enough

yeah we rent 1024 nodes (1024 8 core CPUs) in azure clouding. Small scenes take about a week to bake on my computer but larger ones would take months. With 1024 nodes it takes a few minutes to a few hours and only costs a few hundred USD for a bake. Edit: we use it to bake sound

The new gen4 drives are the latest gen drives which are alot faster than gen3. But you wouldn't notice alot of actual performance gain over a gen3 in daily workload, unless you have two drives with not enough pcie lanes to run both in 16x (Thread ripper). Gen4 runs as a gen3 even at 8x

 

For making mobile games you do not need a 3080.

 

Isnt most mobile games baked or mixed mode lighting? Anyway. Its nice to have a litte VRAM when you are in the editor too.
I guess you could go for a 3070, but this is a tool and its stupid to cheap out, more so since it a deductible expense.

edit: fun calculation project, my 3090 costs 17 000 SEK here in sweden (2000 USD). VAT (25%) is not applied to businesses so that is removed left is 13600 SEK. In sweden we can take out dividend to total 30% tax, its alot better than tax on salery. Those 13600 then becomes 9520. I sold my old 1080 TI on the second hand market for 2800 SEK so that brings down the total cost of the card to 6 720 SEK (792 USD). Pretty cheap for a 3090

 

Most mobile games don't have lighting.

That aside, I still work on machines with previous gen GPUs in them, and it doesn't significantly impact my productivity. The stuff I'm working on is already oodles more powerful than the mainstream consumer hardware I'm targeting, and if you've got specific tasks which require some brute force you can rent it online. As long as it's enough then what you do with it is far more important than what equipment you've got.

Are there even laptops with 3080s in them available yet?

 

OP have rightfully started to think about desktops. Unlit games? lucky for me I dont play mobile games

edit: googled seems most have lighting? first example I saw when googling baked lighting mobile

 

If you're googling "baked lighting mobile" then of course that's what you'll find!

Open an app store on mobile and see what other people play and what's popular. There's plenty of stuff on PC and console where baked lighting isn't relevant, too.

Not everything is a realistic looking VR game exclusively targeting high end enthusiasts.

 

You loose faith in humanity when this is the top list I don't use my cellphone for gaming though so maybe a mobile gamer would get another toplist



Edit: the premium selection have lit games

 

Andrew, please don't feed in everywhere your game semmi promotions, specially when is not relevant to a OP question. Next time please focus on OP requirements and criteria. Including price brackets. Posting latest top spec hardware, for ridiculous price, it is not helpful.

 

This. Company I'm with is working on an HDRP project targeting 4K @ 60 Hz and my GTX 1080 has had no trouble hitting and often surpassing the performance requirements. The rest of my system is basically inline with it too. A Ryzen 5 3600, DDR4-3600, PCIe 3 NVMe, etc. You don't need to spend a fortune to be a high-end developer.

 

Ryzen 4800H is one of the best CPU's available in laptops right now. It has single core performance similar to the i7, but 2 additional cores. Plus the prices you list have it cheaper.

On storage, you'll want more than 512GB. Just check if there is an extra M.2 slot, and adding an additional SSD is pretty cheap. 1TB about $100, or a little more if you want a high performing one.

Spoiler

I personally have an MSI Bravo 15. It is Ryzen 4800H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 1080P 120hz. Good laptop. I added a WD 1TB SSD right after I got it. Total cost with the extra drive about $1100 plus tax. Its biggest weakness compared to your list is the included 5500M graphics is not as good as the 2060. Though I've found it totally fine for game dev and playing games. For example, it plays COD:BOCW at about 90FPS at low settings. Less demanding games it just sits at 120+.

 

The best AMD mobile cpu is actually the 4900hs. I bought a Asus G14 to my son with this CPU and its nice. Though zen 3 is around the corner and zen 2 will be old

 

4800h and 4900hs are within a couple percent of each other, so I'd pick up either based on the rest of the laptop.

I don't think we're going to see Zen 3 laptops in our hands until summer. Last time around the Zen 2 laptop CPU release date was around March, but we didn't see actual laptops with them until the June/July time frame. Couple that with AMD having significant supply constraints on their entire product line currently, they may wait even longer this year. So I wouldn't hold out for a Zen 3 laptop if you're in the market right now is all.

Spoiler

By the way, have you run geekbench on the G14? Here's my Bravo 15
Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Bravo 15 A4DDR - Geekbench Browser

 

Im not in the habit of using that software actually will try it Will se how it compare to my 5950x desktop

I'm mostly using Cinebench to bench

 

Wait, what? Andrew is OP.

@andrew_pearce_ Also, I'd like to provide a different perspective on your purchase. First I should note that I develop only on laptop nowadays because I'm always working on it, at home, at lunch at my day job, and when I'm away on weekends.

I've been developing on an ASUS ROG Strix GL753 for over 3 years now, and I absolutely love it. And it's not because of its specs. Hardly, if you actually look at it. It's the build; The feel of it. I used to brush off gaming laptops, thinking they were just money grabs. I think my ROG has been the best computer I've ever used, and aside from the specs, it was the usability. The layout of the ports, the solidity of the keyboard and touchpad (when I need it), that just made my development quality of life so much better. I've had my fair share of laptop duds, that just made every-day-development slightly less enjoyable, so having confidence in an entire piece of hardware is refreshing.

Also, my wife needs a laptop, and she likes the keyboard so much, I'm handing this laptop to her, and I just recently purchased a ROG Strix G712, which is similar in spec to that G742 in your list. Otherwise I'd still be developing on the GL753 for another 3+ years.

 

Biggest problem with gamer laptops like ROG is that the screen is pretty S***ty, on my kids ROG G14 it's a decent 1440p but that laptop costs close to 3000 USD. Other than that the performance is top notch as far as laptops go.

 

Well, not this Andrew I was referring to. It is just coincidence that OP is Andrew by name and I should take grater care. Sorry for a confusion.
Mr MDA and I am sure some other users knows, who I meant

 

Wow, that sucks. Sorry to hear that. I'm pretty sure not all ROGs have the same manufacturing quality, but I know the two I've bought are pretty solid, and I haven't spent more than 1600US on either machine. I tend to get last year's model though. The laptops I got are 1080p, which I'm happy with anyway.

 

For work I don't think a single 1080 screen is quite enough these days. My laptop also has that, and it's fine for many things, but doesn't fit (for example) scene plus game plus debug info all at once at reasonable sizes. Or any node based editor plus the scene view.

As a portable that's no big deal, and I have screens to plug it into in my work environments. But worth noting depending on what work you do and where you'll be doing it.

 

As for me, I think that Lenovo could be a good variant