Laptop recommendation!

Kind of an emergency. I started a new job today, and my custom-built windows CAD box died. No time to fix or rebuild. I brought in my 7 year old laptop and it’s working, but slowly. Any recommendations for a laptop I can buy quickly that has the goods to run Rhino and push two 30" monitors through displayports?

Silly question, but why not try a prebuilt desktop if you can use one?

It’s hard to recommend a laptop without a price guide.

But over there in the US, the world is your oyster. For mobile, you may want something like an Intel 14700HX and an RTX 4070. Many chose a Lenovo as they are cheaper. But I am sure MSI, Asus, and even the mighty Falcon Northwest will provide you with something within reason.

Have a look at Jarrods Tech. They usually have good and reasoned guidance.

Dell has pretty good and reliable laptops as well.

Thanks guys. I was freaking out. I think this old MSI will be able to tide me over for the time it’ll take to research something.

I was hoping to get something in the $1500-2000 range. I love this old MSI Stealth, and My previous Sager was rock solid. A quick search shows a lot of manufacturers have gone to 16" screens. All my previous laptops have been 17". I need display outputs to run display-ports.

I’m calmer now.

Displayport monitors can run from Thunderbolt ports as the latter are fully backward compatible with them. I think you are more likely to find multiple Thunderbolt ports than multiple Displayport ports on current generation laptops.

You will need Displayport cables with usb-c style connectors at the laptop end though.

I like and use titan computing machines. I personally do not like dell stuff.

Isn’t Thunderbolt an Apple format?

I have to see it this will work with my monitors. I used a Sager for 10 years as my workhorse machine.

Ooo! Thanks for the link. ITX workstations. If I can buy one that will work for me ready made.

My machine that died was a Small Form Factor Ryzen mATX build.

I personally really like Dell stuff.

I don’t think either of these comments are particularly helpful, but dissing a brand without justification is IMHO worse than recommending it.

On the other hand, if you have some practical reasons for not liking Dell in general or in particular for Rhino, I’d like to hear them. I have been using Dell workstations and laptops for several decades and find them trouble-free and excellent for Rhino. The 27" 4k monitor I’ve had for over a decade through 2 workstations is still going strong and looks as good as the day I bought it. The 2015 vintage touchscreen laptop my granddaughter used for school is now doing yeomen service running my CNC router. The last home-brew hobbits machine I built was state of the art with an 8086. I decided there were better uses for my time than spending hours researching spex, choosing and buying parts, assembling and troubleshooting the machines and repairing them when the components failed. I picked Dell since they were the hottest ticket at the time and are still up there with the best commercial machines. Don’t get me wrong: I know there are other manufacturers whose machines are no doubt just as good; I just don’t have much experience with them except seeing them on the desks of many companies I deal with.

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No, it’s universal (see Dell XPS 16 for example). But Apple adopted it earlier.

This whole thread isn’t very helpful. Of course people will only offer their subjective opinion, because objective opinions on this stuff simply don’t exist. Nobody in this forum has been running 10 different laptops in parallel. All the stories in here are just anecdotal evidence at best.

If you want something reliable for work, I’d say go for a Macbook. Unmatched build quality, longevity and service, which is what you want if you need your machine to make money.

Sorry. I wasn’t very clear in my original post. However, I was looking for subjective opinions. Like “I’m running a xx that cost xx from Best Buy pushing three monitors at 4k resolution for the last 3 years.” And of course I should have specified Windows. I posted here with the idea that I’d get a few responses that might help me focus to a few machines rather than be overwhelmed by the multitude of Windows brands and models available. This is not a problem those in the Mac ecosystem have.
A little info on my freakout. I had not worked in 18 months and am fortunate to get this job in an industry that recently crashed. My custom-built (by me) workhorse machine died on my first day on the job due to “residue” from my pet who often slept on it. A very long story I won’t get into. Thanks to everyone who has responded.

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Hi, I like Dell mobile workstations, but my old one died, and I was looking for a fast and cheap replacement, use it only for travelling…bought an cheap Acer 17 AN 17-51, still need to upgrade RAM to 96 GB but for now:

Rhino V6, Holomark does not work in V7 and V8

Holomark 2 R6 v2,61

Total Score: 402568
Total Runtime: 1650.27 sec

GPU scores: 371260
GPU_01 - 1428.60 fps - Cube 4 tests
GPU_02 - 131.60 fps - UDT Shape
GPU_03 - 1666.70 fps - Wireframe
GPU_04 - 1111.10 fps - Shaded
GPU_05 - 294.10 fps - Rendered
GPU_06 - 263.20 fps - Block Rendered
GPU_07 - 1430 units Nurbs @ 5 fps in Wireframe
GPU_08 - 740 units Nurbs @ 5 fps in Shaded
GPU_09 - 211 units Nurbs @ 5 fps in RenderSpeed
GPU_10 - 454.50 fps - RenderMesh Render
GPU_11 - 1250.00 fps - RenderMesh RenderSpeed
GPU_12 - 1111.10 fps - JoinedMesh Render
GPU_13 - 1666.70 fps - JoinedMesh RenderSpeed
GPU_14 - 166 units mesh @ 15 fps in Shaded
GPU_15 - 268 units mesh @ 15 fps in Render
GPU_16 - 998 units mesh @ 15 fps in RenderSpeed
GPU_17 - 434.80 fps - mesh in Rendered Studio
GPU_18 - 90.10 fps - Nurbs in Rendered Studio
GPU_19 - 113.60 fps - Block Illustration
GPU_20 - 269.50 fps - 2D single
GPU_21 - 166.40 fps - 2D massive (20x)

CPU scores: 31308
CPU_01 - 3.89 sec - Booleans and Contours
CPU_02 - 0.75 sec - Twist and Taper (UDT)
CPU_03 - 1.85 sec - Meshing Mini
CPU_04 - 0.02 sec - Extract Render Mesh
CPU_05 - 0.01 sec - Join Render Mesh
CPU_06 - 6.93 sec - Reduce Mesh
CPU_07 - 0.66 sec - Calculating Technical display
CPU_08 - 1.86 sec - Making Silhouettes

Acer
Nitro AN17-51

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU - 4095.0 MB
DriverVersion: 31.0.15.4618
Intel(R) UHD Graphics - 1024.0 MB
DriverVersion: 31.0.101.4146

13th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i7-13620H
NumberOfCores: 10 NumberOfLogicalProcessors: 16
MaxClockSpeed: 2.4 GHz

I keep saying this. Many Rhino users don’t even have control over their hardware. And all laptops are awful compromises between cost and power and portability, no one can tell you what’s right for you. It’s a new kind of logical fallacy that needs a name… “Using Software Makes you an Expert on Computers, Right?”

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It’s simply my personal preference, but for specific detail-

have used 3 owned one, and all were troublesome, loaded with ad and bloatware, overheated and were overpriced, with less than stellar tech support.

In fact my last try with them resulted in me simply drilling a hole in the hardrive to wipe the data and then dropping the laptop in the trash instead of trying to deal with their tech department. When I was working as a full time consultant, I had zero time to spend getting support, and they were burning days of time trying to solve a dumb problem that should have never happened. (2 month old machine, they refused to replace kept overheating and bluescreening)

I switch to boxx, then to titan and have had zero hardware issues since. Both have excellent support.

I guess that would put me off too. Support is important. Fortunately the one or two times I’ve needed support I got a tech who knew what they were doing and wanted to help.

Ideally, of course, one would like the machine to just work and would never need to find out whether the support was good or poor.

BTW: I have always bought my machines directly from Dell through their small business channel. Dell puts a couple of “support” programs on the machine which can be helpful if you want to run online. I don’t so blow them away. Then there’s Windows and all the annoying stuff they try to foist off on the user. It takes me several hours when I get a new machine to set Windows (and Edge) up for non-annoying offline running.

The Macs are much better in that regard.

I might have come close. At various points I’ve been in IT capacities in small/mid-size startups - involving various laptop and workstation purchase decisions and maintenance. Here are a few subjective experiences/observations.

One company in the early (20-teens) had a weird mutant hybrid of two teams being grafted together (corporate acquisition and then spin-out) - everyone coming in the door was given a then high-spec MacBook Pro. Within a couple months the entire company (except a few execs) was permanently running Windows on the MacBooks - and it turned out that these were hands down (at that time at least) the best Windows laptops you could get in terms of Performance/Power/Reliability/Maintenance - likely because at the board level all the drivers and peripheral interfaces were fully known (this has always been Apples intrinsic advantage - total hardware control rather than a exponential mishmash of chipsets and strange interface compatibilities to manage). (Probably irrelevant now given the situation is likely different with the Arm chips).

Also not a fan of the Dell laptops I’ve experienced, (their Xeon stationary workstations are solid on the other hand). Dell’s value-prop seems to be geared to the IT departments perspective, and things like the ergonomics and fans running etc. are more of the end-users problems. (And you have to be a big enough account to matter to get the good service).

This ^^^ - it’s the reality and the compromises get worse the lower down the cost tiers you go. Laptops are a “pick your poison” situation.

For Rhino on-the-go, have had good luck on the last couple rounds with Lenovo’s X1 Carbon’s - not the fastest for rendering or video (that’s what the tower is for) they have the Thunderbolt ports for power and data combined (which is really nice). In terms of running multiple large displays - a Thunderbolt dock is a great option if you’re frequently detaching.

eta :

yep - such an unfortunate situation - I truly hope that the bring-your-own-device mentality continues and gathers momentum. The current state of affairs has created a distorted market for hardware (corporate amortization cycles, lowest-bidders). Particularly for technologists - the philosophy in many industries, (from factories to construction, to mechanics shops) - where workers own their own personal tools and hence take care of them and learn them more deeply is totally where we should be going. ( :man_facepalming: “managing piles of late model abandoned e-garbage”)

Did you find a new machine? Man that sucks I built my first pc in 2011 and still use it for Rhino only thing that died during the years is a harddrive and 2 gpus

The ITX form factor someone posted here definitely sounds like my next build when it dies entirely

I am definitely in the Sager camp.