Right now I’m working on a MS Surface Pro 4 with an i7 6650U processor. It’s a bit slow maybe, but not too bad for my not very complex scenes. But the PC is arriving at its end…
I’m wondering if I rather buy
something with the latest i5 or i7 chip and built-in graphics only
or rather
something with a lower prpcessor, but an entry level Nvidia card on it, like the 2050 or 3050
or rather
a used gaming laptop with a 7th generation i7 and a 1050 graphics card that someone is selling.
I don’t want to spend too much. Thanks for any advice.
No idea what your budget is (“not too much” doesn’t really say anything), but given the other mentioned laptop is 2500 usd, thought I’d throw this out.
Surface Laptop Studio 2. You get a choice of graphics cards in this, it supports touch, and if you pick up the pen, supports that as well. It’s designed for art, CAD, etc. You can have integrated graphics, which I generally wouldn’t recommend for Rhino, or you can get it configured with RTX 4000 series, or even the RTX 2000 Ada.
I’m quite surprised, given the tie in with Microsoft and Intel, that Microsoft have not been more aggressive in releasing a Meteor Lake centered product.
I actually thought the original Surface was a rather cool product, despite the poor performance. That keyboard was rather quirky.
I think if you can, wait a couple of months to see if new mobile Ryzen or Meteor Lake products become available. You would see an advantage moving out of the Skylake after Skylake series of CPUs, when Intel couldn’t be bothered improving anything. If you wish to stick to Intel, you’ll see a good improvement with many Alder Lake onwards (12th Gen+).
The supply may be tailing off now, but something with a 12th Gen and 40-series would be okay. Maybe a 12700H and an Nvidia RTX 4050 would suit your needs. Stepping down, you could try a 12600H and an RTX 3070 combination. An RTX 3070 mobile will at least get you 5000 CUDA cores and OptiX acceleration.
Avoid getting something with integrated GPU if you can.
I’m sure people can help more if you had a budget and a location.