I’ll mostly be using Rhinoceros with Grasshopper and Vray. I’ve been running Rhino via Parallels or Bootcamp from a mac for ages now, so PC’s are a little new to me. Any help would be rad.
I was recommending Gigabyte Aerow15x but seems to be discontinued already…
Gaming PCs are good if you want cost effective ones and some say go with Quadro GPUs for better stability, so thinkpads, but really expensive tho…
Many sites to check like here
Gigabyte MaxQ GPUs seems to be good for portability, though haven’t seen too much of those yet
What do you think of the Lenovo Thinkpad P50 for complex modeling and rendering in Rhino, Grasshopper & Vray?
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-thinkpad-p50-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i7-8gb-memory-nvidia-quadro-m1000m-500gb-hard-drive-black/5192502.p?skuId=5192502&cmp=RMX&extStoreId=886&ref=212&loc=1&ksid=kenshoo_clickid&ksprof_id=8&ksaffcode=pg266301&ksdevice=m&lsft=ref:212,loc:2&gclid=CMmY4cnTitoCFQfHswodh6YKew&gclsrc=ds
On the cheaper side of things, I’m also looking at the MSI GL62M 7-REX
I have a MSI GS60 and won’t be getting another MSI, just ordered a thinkpad P52s. The MSI is has very noisy fans, gets super hot and the battery lasts for about 15 mins.
Just my 2cents
Did you buy it standard, or did you improve any of the specs?
I ordered 16gb of RAM, the 4k screen and 500gb SSD. Good thing is they are easily expandable.
Thinkpad P50 and Thinkpad P52s are good. ThinkPad P51 is best. The main difference is their graphics card. Thinkpad P50 has Nvidia Quadro M2000M graphics card. Thinkpad P52s has Nvidia Quadro P500 graphics card. ThinkPad P51 has Nvidia Quadro M2200 graphics card. Quadro M2200 has 1024 CUDA processing cores. Quadro M2000M has 640 cores. Quadro P500 has 256 cores. (The letter “s” at the end of Thinkpad name means cheap version.)
My 5-year old laptop (ThinkPad W530) has Quadro K2000M card which has 384 cores - more than new Thinkpad P52s.
ThinkPad P51 review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kse7KwwBHuM
For Cuda cores 1000+ recommended.
I don’t know how Quadro does with Geforce, but
Geforce 1050 is a bit slow…
Unless need to be portable, I’d get a desktop and a so so laptop… if that’s an option.
Redjester,
I hope these questions might help you in determining which laptop is right for you:
What is your budget? $1,500?
What screen size are you comfortable with? 15.6?
What weight are you comfortable lugging around? <5 lbs?
What size Rhino models will you be working with? 100 MB+?
Another pc newb question. I’m looking at two p51 thinkpads, one has an Nvidia Quadro m2200 graphic card and the other with an Nvidia Quadro m2200m graphic card.
Will the slightly cheaper m2200m suit my rhino/grasshopper/vray needs or should I pony up and get the M2200 ?
All of the above. My budget is (ideally) sub $1800, but I want my complicated rhino models (& grasshopper & vray) to run smoothly as well.
I’ll wait to see what everyone here recommends and then plan to purchase my first ever pc later next week.
ThinkPad P52 is the best 15-inch laptop for CAD work because it has very powerful graphics card: Nvidia Quadro P3200. It will be available in late June 2018. (Nvidia Quadro P3200 has 1792 CUDA cores.) details: http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/the-new-thinkpad-p52/
Dell Precision 7530 is another 15-inch laptop which has NVIDIA Quadro P3200 graphics card and good cooling.
At that price point you are better off with a PC with a good gaming card. And something that has a good guarantee/support in your country. Dells and Lenovos are very reliable. Not familiar with the other brands.
Do you know the price they’ll be asking for that model/upgrade?
I do not know the price, but I know that you cannot afford it.
Lol, sorry I read the article after I typed that. In any case, you’re probably right. Probably not worth waiting for a laptop that’s likely out of my price range.
Any suggestions for a Lenovo & graphic card inside my price range of roughly $1800-$2100 after discounts, etc?
As I said before, I’m leaning towards getting a p51 thinkpad with an Nvidia Quadro m2200m graphics card, although if drastically better, I might opt to splurge on the Nvidia Quadro m2200 graphic card, instead.
Anyway, thanks for all the advice! You’ve all been extremely helpful!!
Redjester,
The P2000 is in the current generation of Nvidia Quadro GPU’s and is within your price point.
The M2200 is one generation old, and the M2000M is two generations old.
The lenovo P51s has the P500, which is also the current generation, but it is the entry level product in terms of performance. The Dell Precision 5530 (just came out) has the P1000 and P2000 options which are mid-market products in term of performance. You could definitely build out a Precision 5530 in the $1800 price range with a P1000 and have a decent amount of memory and a small capacity solid state drive, but what trade offs you take to make the budget are up to you (The $2100 budget would definitely be a nice upgrade to the $1800 variant, but then it becomes what you NEED versus want).
ThinkPad P52 price: $2,442.60 (temporarily out of stock)
source: https://www.connection.com/product/lenovo-topseller-thinkpad-p52-xeon-e-2176m-16gb-512gb-w10p-3yr/20m90010us/35723276
ThinkPad P52 price: $2,826.30 (temporarily out of stock)
source: https://www.connection.com/product/lenovo-topseller-thinkpad-p52-core-i7-16gb-512gb-w10p-3yr/20m9000dus/35723444
The integrated circuit technology has stagnated because integrated circuit fabricators cannot improve lithography beyond its current 14 nm limit. Latest Intel CPU, called Xeon, is not much faster than its older Core i7 CPU, but it makes so much heat that it is unsuitable for laptop computers. Average Xeon CPU makes about 130 W of heat. Average Core i7 CPU makes about 77 W of heat. Laptop BIOS generally throttles the CPU to 55 W to prevent overheating. If you want to buy powerful laptop, you have two choices: Core i7-8850H CPU + P3200 GPU or Xeon E-2176M CPU + P2000 GPU. The first choice is better because powerful GPU (P3200) improves overall performance more than powerful CPU (Xeon E-2176M).
________________________________________________________________
ThinkPad P52… display cover is still made of a very robust fiber-reinforced plastic material. The base - made of a magnesium/aluminum alloy surface material on top of a magnesium roll cage - is even sturdier than the display lid. Its rigidity was top notch, and we failed to discover any flex in the keyboard or palm rest area whatsoever. source: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-P52-i7-P1000-FHD-Workstation-Review.322974.0.html
1 Like