Best CPUs and GPUs for laptops

[reptkeu]

Hi everyone,
I'm trying to find the best possible hardware setup for a laptop that's not too bulky (ie Macbook Pro 15 or Razer Blade 15).
I'm considering purchasing the Pro license for video, which makes the choice of CPU and GPU even more crucial than for still renders.
I have browsed the web in the past days, in order to find the best possible CPU and GPU for laptops, but I really struggle making sense of everything I found.
Has anyone done some research around this?

[reptkeu]

I'm surprised there isn't a response.
Would anyone recommend a specific GPU and CPU for a not-to-bulky laptop (like Macbook Pro or Razer Blade)?

[smalldogstudio]

Hi

sorry meant to reply the other day - I'm sorry, I dont't use a laptop - you'll always get more power/performance out of a full size machine with a desktop/workstation CPU and a monster graphics card (and big cooling setup). The key things you need to look for are, in simplistic terms;

GPU Memory - size and speed (scene data - textures, render data)
RT Cores (rendering)
CUDA cores (rendering)
Tensor cores (used for AI denoising)

Do some research on what is on offer from NVidia RTX 2000 in mobile - if you can get mobile versions of RTX then thats a good place to start IMHO - disclaimer I dont know much about mobile setups - as I said I run an AMD 3950X-16c and an RTX2060 6Gb - thinking of RTX3080 upgrade soon. Not sure when mobile versions of RTX 3xxx are due??

Macbook onboard graphics are going to stuggle - unless you go for one of those Blackmagic external GPU devices - a friend of mine recently got one and it does pretty well. At the end of the day everything is a trade off (power - size - weight - cost).

good luck with your search

Dave

[DriesV]

First things first. You have to ask yourself, if you see yourself using GPU Mode in KeyShot.
If the answer is "yes", then you can already factor out Apple products, as they do not support the NVIDIA GPUs that we rely on for GPU Mode.

For mobile workstations, NVIDIA has a nice overview with suggested models from partner laptop manufacturers.
Look for the 'Quadro Notebook Partners' section at the bottom of the page.
For each brand, you will get a few options for different screen sizes, and links to the relevant product pages.
I glanced over the various options that NVIDIA provides and they all seem solid.

As for specific CPUs and GPUs, you can get very beefy options in small form factors. E.g. Lenovo's ThinkPad P15 can be configured with a Intel Core i9-10980HK CPU and NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 GPU. It will be a very capable machine for KeyShot.

Dries

[DriesV]

You can also find laptops with mobile GeForce GPUs, and that will work with GPU Mode as well.
However, the highest end mobile GeForce GPU is RTX 2080 SUPER, which "only" has 8GB memory.

Dries