laptop buyin time again

I should add my work laptop has a dedicated video card that I haven't turned on in the 4+ years I've had it. The integrated graphics are plenty powerful (whatever was the Intel HD du jour from 2018) for 1 1920x1080 and 2 2560x1440 monitors, programming, Excel, and PDFs all open. The GPU doesn't even enable unless it detects a 3D application or you specifically tell it to enable.

I just have a hard time recommending a sleek and shiny Alienware gaming laptop when it's way overkill for 99% of people here and we still don't know how gauntenator intends to use it. For the vast majority of people, laptops can last much longer than they think so long as you keep it relatively clean and attempt a system wipe when it gets slow.

And my personal laptop is a high end gaming laptop (RTX 2080 and some 6 core Coffee Lake CPU). Unless I'm playing a video game or running Fusion360, I literally cannot tell the difference in perceived speed to my twice as old work laptop with a dedicated video card that never gets used.

JLand said:

Might I add that we still don't know the use case? There's a good chance gauntenator won't ever even enable his video card if he gets a dedicated one. I get the feeling specifications and recommendations are being thrown around without knowing if they're actually helpful.

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True. If this is a rig that will be used in the field most of the time then GPU wouldn't be a great idea. Back to my original statement.. You get more bang for your buck with a gaming laptop IMO.

Asus TUF series.

I went with the 17" screen, but the 15" would probably work fine. One of the few laptop lines that still have the RJ45 port.

I decided to go w/ the Dell G15 5511 out of the Dell outlet store.
It is an 11th gen i7 w/ a 11800H(scored 1463 on the Geekbench test)
M.2 (2 slots)
16 GB ram (for now. 2 slots)
360 hz NVIDIA RTX 3060 GPU

Out the door for $1,164.64 after tax.
And w/ the left over money I bought a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3.

Sounds like a sweet laptop! Don't forget to configure which programs you want the dedicated GPU to run via the Nvidia control panel, or else it'll only turn on for gaming and modeling software.

JLand said:

Sounds like a sweet laptop! Don't forget to configure which programs you want the dedicated GPU to run via the Nvidia control panel, or else it'll only turn on for gaming and modeling software.

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I once bricked a Samsung laptop by configuring the GPU to always run. he he
Hopefully this thing has better cooling.

ganutenator said:

I decided to go w/ the Dell G15 5511 out of the Dell outlet store.
It is an 11th gen i7 w/ a 11800H(scored 1463 on the Geekbench test)
M.2 (2 slots)
16 GB ram (for now. 2 slots)
360 hz NVIDIA RTX 3060 GPU

Out the door for $1,164.64 after tax.
And w/ the left over money I bought a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3.

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Sounds like a good choice, and the price seems like a great deal.

I did not know about GPU processor selection in NVidia control panel till now, I will have to read more about this.

celichi said:

All I can add, is make sure your Laptop has a built in RJ45 for Ethernet.

We had some laptops come in that required a dongle for Ethernet which was a pain.

Even though the images may show an RJ45, check the specs before you submit your order.

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I've found USB ethernet adapters to be less of a pain than built-in ones. The USB ones can be mounted directly to a VM, removing the need for bridging.

Helliana said:

I've found USB ethernet adapters to be less of a pain than built-in ones. The USB ones can be mounted directly to a VM, removing the need for bridging.

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That is a plus, but just to be specific, they are a pain when there are lost or left at home or in the hotel room.