Off the shelf

[glorybound]

My laptop is down and I need an off the shelf temporary replacement. I have some options and my question is, is a desktop always faster than a laptop, even if the laptop has better specs? Same RAM, the same video, and the laptop is an i9, compared to the desktop’s i7. The price is about the same. I might be able to upgrade the RAM in the desktop.

[glorybound]

I found this on Facebook Marketplace

• Ryzen 9 5900x CPU
• 64gb VengeanceRGB Pro RAM
• Prime x570-Pro Motherboard
• Corsair H100i Platinum SE Cooler
• 2x 2tb 970evo plus
• 1200W HX 80+ Platinum PSU
• 3090FE GPU

$1500

[glorybound]

Or is this one better - same price

• Amd threadripper 16 core CPU (2950)
• ASRock 399X
• Consiar 128gb
• Nvidia 3080ti
• Samsung 1tb m.2
• Enermax water-cooler
• 1200w power supply

[glorybound]

I'm going with the first one. Although the CPU is less expensive and has fewer cores, it looks to run faster on all accounts than the second one. The GPU also has twice the RAM, and 4X the storage. With it being a PC, I can always add more RAM.

Facebook Marketplace is always sketchy, and he is giving off some red flags, saying things like, “my loss is your gain”, and lowering his price without me even questioning it.

[DanSHP]

My laptop is down and I need an off the shelf temporary replacement. I have some options and my question is, is a desktop always faster than a laptop, even if the laptop has better specs? Same RAM, the same video, and the laptop is an i9, compared to the desktop’s i7. The price is about the same. I might be able to upgrade the RAM in the desktop.

As some who switched to a laptop at home, generally no.

For example, a 4080 laptop GPU is probably more likely comparable to a 3080 desktop card. I could be wrong here but this is what I understand from looking this up online.

It's to do with power supply.

[glorybound]

I am up and running on the new machine, and it is going well. DELL is replacing the laptop, but it'll take 7-14 business days,

[DanSHP]

What happened to your laptop? What model is it?

[glorybound]

Alienware I7 - The keyboard stopped working, and in the process of troubleshooting, DELL had me reformat my hard drive about 5 times over a week's time. They came out and replaced the keyboard and trackpad, which didn't work. They came out again to replace the mini controller board, which again was a fail, and a third visit to replace the motherboard. Now, we still have issues with the keyboard, and we can't see the hard drive. I am not sure the keyboard ever worked, since I had an external keyboard the whole time. Since I was traveling, I needed the keyboard, but had I know it would have spiraled down so fast, I would have just traveled with an external keyboard. However, I dropped $5000 on this laptop, so a working keyboard would be nice.

[JezUK]

Bobby, out of interest do you render off your laptop or are you now rendering off the cloud? And what do you do for monitors with your laptop? (I've never found using a laptop for 3D work to be an enjoyable experience, just the sheer scale of everything, monitor, keyboard etc - plus I can't imagine laptops are built for heavy, everyday 3D rendering types of work, day in day out).

[glorybound]

I was rendering off of my Alienware i7 for two years. I have a Alienware 27 Gaming Monitor AW2721D, and with an external keyboard and mouse, there really isn't any difference from a desktop. I moved across the country, living in an RV for three months, so I needed something portable. It worked so well, I never took my desktop out of storage.

[DanSHP]

Bobby, out of interest do you render off your laptop or are you now rendering off the cloud? And what do you do for monitors with your laptop? (I've never found using a laptop for 3D work to be an enjoyable experience, just the sheer scale of everything, monitor, keyboard etc - plus I can't imagine laptops are built for heavy, everyday 3D rendering types of work, day in day out).

You get used to it. Large-ish screen + wireless keyboard/mouse is key. When I'm done with sitting at my desk, I can move to the couch and work too!

[glorybound]

My laptop only moves from my desk when I travel. I need to chill sometimes and move around. Even maybe to a coffee shop, the ocean, or even the couch . Now that I have a tower, I'll need to buy software for my laptop, which doubles my software expenses. This is what I was trying to avoid. Maybe I'll use my laptop for Photoshop, and project management.

[glorybound]

It looks like DELL is hooking me up with a replacement, better than my bricked one.