Hello to everyone,
I would like to ask if anyone of you out there is using gaming laptops for 3D modeling and what is your experience with them. For example, is anyone using Rhino on a Razer Blade Pro 14" or 17"? I am particularly interested about the graphic performance with the Nvidia GTX1060 and if there is any overheating problem, with the fan becoming audible.
Thanks
Luca
I have an MSI gaming laptop with a GTX965, fan noise is definitely audible and gets hot when gaming but not to bad when modelling in Rhino.
I think I’ll get a Dell precision or XPS next.
Hi Miles_Alex, may I ask why you think they will be better?
I use a gaming laptop as a small desktop replacement. Most of it´s time i use it as small home workstation with a ext. Dell 27". If i have an appointment with a client i remove the disp. port cable and the keyboard and i´m ready to go. It´s big and heavy, but in reality you go down to your car put it on the front seat and that´s all. 14" is to small. If it´s nice during summer time i can switch my home office to the outside in under 5 minutes. Then you will benefit so much from a 17" display. Also in other situations where no additional display is available.
I´m not sure about those ultra slim gaming laptops because of the heat managment especially if you do small render jobs.
My one with i7-4700MQ and GTX780M runs without problems in all situations, but looks like a tank and weight is about 4kg. If you more focused to 3d modeling and design you will not get any problems. If your daily business is rendering you better invest money in a desktop solution.
Thanks pu235,
This is exactly what I am trying to get to, after having used successfully a Macbook Pro 17" in a similar way for years, until it has become obviously not compatible with Rhino 6. Even without any geometry on, the Testmaxspeed shows significantly reduction of performance in comparison with Rhino 5. Only in the summer the fan of this Mac has been audible, but Rhino 5 has always worked beautifully. Unfortunately, Mac 17", which have still a good value on second hand market, are no longer in production and I will have to consider other brands, such as Razer/Msi/Asus/Dell or others. I am personally not interested in a gaming laptop for gaming, so I am trying to understand if their specs, particularly graphic cards, can be useful for 3D modeling and small renders in comparison with what are called mobile workstations. I accept the fact that during a render the fan may be audible, but when I model, which, make take days, having the fan always on, will be impossible to bear. A not less important factor, which is making me considering a Razer Blade Pro, is that aesthetically they seem to be great in professional environments (hiding the logo maybe), when the majority of gaming laptops, by definition, are designed of course with a less sober look in mind. My ideal laptop would have no brand at all shown, in a sort of Muji brandless and minimalistic kind of design, but I am probably too much of a dreamer!
I’m not really saying the Dell’s will be better but I have a few quality issue with the MSI I have.
An area of the screen is permanently blotchy, the battery life is shocking (20mins full charge) it does get noisy and very hot.
I do like the steel series keyboards they are the best. Performance wise it ticks all the boxes other than a bigger hard drive would of been nice.
I am aware the Razor is very good and will take a closer when I decide to change. Along with Rhino I use Solid Edge and Bricscad and the MSI has no problems.
Thanks. Please share your thoughts when you have the possibility of testing any Razer Pro. I have followed pretty much any review on Youtube on them. Specifications and quality seem to be superb. Earlier models are becoming quite affordable on second hand market. However, if the future is in VR (I am going to attend a Rhino VR meeting in London next week), starting with a Nvidia GTX1060 as the minimum spec, will give this VR minimum compatibility, which earlier model cannot give.
That´s exactly my point of view. No logos, no branding, industrial look. It´s a tool for my job. The branding outside doesn´t make me a more skilled worker.
I bought my in 2014, i think. MEDION - is a german brand with no image, but i compared all models up to my limit. At the end the best was the cheapest offer with some extra cool features (all parts are fully replaceable) . For me it´s a tool. This time i was addicted to the Nvidia cards, because of octane and the second point was a fast SSD partition and fullHD. Three years later i can still render some cool shots for a presentation or similar without problems- ok it´s more noise for that time. In my case absolutely no problem. It´s not my daily job.
Much users overerrate the hardware. It´s mostly like in rallye or downhill biking or surfing or skiing or anything else. (80% user, 20% material) There are also some other points- like special 24/7 support- that you only get from more expensive products. So there is also a reason for the other side.
Using Dell XPS 15 9560 with 4K screen GTX1050.
The fan does get audible, not sure how it compares to the Razer Blade or others…
Fan goes on just when Rhino is running, not just when rendering. But during render it gets a bit loud.
Af for the 4K, it may look nice for photos, but if doing stuff on the go, it eats up battery and probably impact to
performance.
I get around ~4-5hrs usage?
For the GTX1050, to do some rendering with CUDA needed SW like cycles, I feel I need more power.
I’d also wait for the 8th gen Intel chips as I’m sure that’ll get more battery life with more threads.
I think gaming PCs are good if you have AC around you and not carrying around too much.
I’m also interested how Razers are though, they seem to get better.
I am still a little bit confused in what it is all about the 4K, apart from being yet another trend. Have you noticed any significant difference when you do a rendering? I use Vray for the rare renderings I do and I would consider using Corona, not yet available for Rhino unfortunately. The quality is just amazing.
Regarding graphic cards, tomorrow there is a Rhino VR meeting in London, so I would like to ask the same question to people there.
If VR is certainly an interesting technology to show projects to clients in the future, however, it is unlikely that a designer brings his/her desktop to a meeting. Therefore I assume laptops of a certain level will have to support VR and be more and more powerful. Apparently the minimum to support VR is GTX1060, hence why I cannot see any choice of buying second hand laptops, even Razers, which don’t have it.
4K does make the resulting image look nice as there’s more pixels per inch, but on a 15inch it’s an overkill. macbook with retina does a good balance there.
But for the rendering process itself it doesn’t help. After all it’s just a monitor.
It’s more of a trend as you say, and I suppose the
panel makers rather make 4K panels than something that actually is more optimized for laptops (perhaps around 3K) just because it’ll sell more…
I guess for the VR 1060 maybe min, but should
check if 1060 on laptops are suffice…
I’ve been using the Razer Blade 14" for just over 4 months. It’s a lovely machine but I agree about the logo making it look a bit gamer! I mainly use it for when I’m working from home. I then connect it to a external display but do sometimes use it for short periods without (you quickly adapt). When I’m running Rhino in standard wireframe/shaded/ghosted views the fans never kick in but if I run a quick neon render you can hear it. It’s not too bad but there’s definitely some fan noise. I got the Razer as we use Octane and this gives me the ability to set up and run some simple renders away form the office. It has the ability to connect an external GPU if needed in the future and I can connect to our server to run network renders if necessary. It might even replace my desktop as I find myself working remotely more. I’ll try and run Holomark if I get a chance over the next few days.
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Hi Felttippen and many thanks for sharing your experience. May I ask what graphic card you have in it? When mentioning external GPU, do you mean the Razer Core?
Just surfed around and found a notebook from Gigabyte called Aero 15. looks interesting.
Never saw the real thing tho… GTX1060
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Indeed, also very nice design in my opinion!
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I have the GTX 1060 and yes the Razer Core is the eternal GPU I was thinking of but I don’t have one to be able to comment on it. What are you planning on using the 1060 for? GPU rendering?
I am planning to use one of these machines (currently in the choice list I have Razer Pro and Asus Rog), for architectural design, from 3D concept to planning, with occasional renderings and grasshopper use. Last week in London we had the first Rhino VR meeting and VR technology for architectural use seems to be promising indeed, also for the conceptual stage of the design. So having the 1060 as a start is absolutely crucial!
Does Razer Pro or Asus Rog have thunderbolt 3?
Below eGPU might also be an option.
GTX1080 version was just announced as well, but probably a bit pricy…
https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-AORUS-Gaming-Graphic-GV-N1070IXEB-8GD/dp/B073PYMG3G
For 569.99 + shipping fee depending on where you are.
In Japan now but getting from US amazon is about $100 cheaper than getting in dealers here.
Unfortunalty for my dell xps15 seems I’ll see a drop in the performance as thunderbolt only had 2 lanes…
Hey Folks,
I found this useful link for the users looking to get a a mobile workstation with an NVIDIA Quadro, I think these are a good selection of machines:
This link also should be updated and gives you metrics across several Quadro cards: