Is there a laptop or what is the best and most efficient laptop for 3D with low power consumption
Hi,
I am a 3D artist… and lately I have been asking myself the same question over and over again, because it is time to upgrade my old working laptop which is power hungry as hell and I would like to minimize on this aspect and to use a laptop that can be more eco-friendly and less power hungry to do my 3D animation work.
But I know… it really doesn’t make sense because anything that requires high-end graphics like 3D, be animation or modelling, etc. it requires higher power which translate at the end of the day to hungry power usage.
I know there might be really no way around this, but just dropping the question out here.
Is there a laptop or what is the best and most efficient laptop for 3D with low power consumption and as eco as possible.
Hopefully, some of you might have some ideas.
Thank you beforehand
Replies
That said, simply getting a newish laptop will probably give you significantly better performance at similar or lower power levels than your old laptop - depending on how old it is of course.
Going a bit deeper, the GPU is typically going to be the most power-hungry component. Assuming you want a discreet GPU, which you probably do if you're interested in 3D work, you have a couple different options.
You could go with a cheap-ish, low-powered GPU like the Nvidia 3050 or 3050Ti. These max out at 80w. But these are the slowest in the 30** line and have the least amount of video ram, so they aren't very good options for VRAM heavy applications like 3D painting. Though they are much more suitable for 3D work than laptops without discreet GPUs (ie: on-cpu Intel GPUs).
Another option is to get a higher-end GPU that is underpowered/underclocked. The 3060 and 3070 both come in 85w versions (rather than 130w+) and have 6GB and 8GB of VRAM respectively. The 85w 3070 would be my choice if I wanted an efficient GPU in a laptop. It can be a bit difficult to figure out exactly what GPU wattage a given laptop has, but the Asus F15 can be configured with the 85w versions of the 3060 and 3070. There are other laptops that come with these 85w GPUs if you want to dig into it more. See: https://laptopmedia.com/specs/?q=&hPP=20&p=0&dFR[gpu][0]=NVIDIA+GeForce+RTX+3070+(Laptop,+85W)&is_v=1 and https://laptopmedia.com/specs/?q=&hPP=20&p=0&dFR[gpu][0]=NVIDIA+GeForce+RTX+3060+(Laptop,+85W)&is_v=1
Keep in mind that the 85w 3070 is going to be slower than 130w 3060 - but if you want low power usage and will take advantage of the extra VRAM, it's still probably a good choice.
There's also a 90w version of the 3080, but you'll have to buy a laptop that is significantly more expensive to get that GPU vs one with a 3060 or 3070, it has the same 8GB VRAM as the 3070, and it's only marginally faster than the 85w 3070. So there isn't much reason to go for the underpowered 3080. There's a 100w (and various other wattage versions) 3080 that offers more of a boost over the 85w 3070, though.
Now, back to overall system power consumption, the M1 Macbook Air uses about 50w under full load for the entire system, and averages more like 20w during normal use. Compare that to a Windows laptop with a discreet GPU getting up to 80+ watts for just the GPU under full load, probably closer to 120w total. So again, if power usage is your primary concern an M1 Mac is a really good choice.
in general there is honestly no good reason to buy a 10th gen intel over a ryzen3 if you don't specifically need thunderbolt for something.
the omen wants more power because it has a more powerful GPU.
The only quadros worth using are the ones with lots of memory and if you need one of those you're not looking at a laptop.
Id get the omen
out of the box thinking... have you looked at an external GPU setup?
you're pretty much restricted to intel but it would allow you to get a much cheaper, less power hungry / heat intensive and thus quieter laptop and then plug it into a dedicated GPU in it's own enclosure when you actually need it for working.
thunderbolt is faster than a pci-e bus so theoretically you shouldnt lose any performance but I would certainly check some benchmarks before throwing money at it as a solution
They do get heavy at 17" but if you're not planning to carry it round all day that's not a big deal.
The main problem for long term use is ergonomics which are going to be shit regardless of how big it is.
It's a different option.
I don't think the extra 2" is worth paying more for unless it gets you a better machine. If you're planning to carry it in a case then I don't think it's a disadvantage either.
Honestly, if I travelled enough to warrant it I'd get a 15" thin&light, an external GPU, a portable second display and stay away from doing anything seriously CPU heavy.
At least that way i could sit in a cafe with just the laptop and do a bit of work if the mood took me - believe me, it's no fun trying to set up an RGB laden desktop replacement with 2 power supplies in a coffee shop (you also look like a complete prick)
Sort of related
We had a bunch of Alienware m15s with 3070s for testing and they were generally well liked by 3d artists (Maya, painter) but didn't go down so well with VFX and video people (as you'd expect)
there's no good reason an external GPU over thunderbolt would be heavily compromised, the connection has enough bandwidth to cope with pcie-3 speeds, I don't have personal experience but i do have a colleague who runs one with an XPS15 and is happy with the setup - he's a graphics programmer so you can assume he's paid attention.
my reasoning is that an eGPU setup would allow me to carry a lightweight machine around with me for less intensive stuff and then plug it into the proper GPU when i needed to do actual work rather than carry a 6-7kg laptop plus 4kg of PSU around in a massive bag so i can reply to emails in a coffee shop
• If you are eco conscious, then don't get a laptop and instead get yourself a nicely optimized desktop workstation with a low power graphics card.
• If you want to save money ... then don't get a laptop and instead get yourself a nicely optimized desktop workstation with a low power graphics card.