I’ve always wanted to learn about blender so I figured why not start with an affordable laptop and just make a few purple donuts and a few other newbie stuff. Found this one online for about $500 - MSI GF63 Thin 9SC-068 15.6" Intel Core i5-9300H, NVIDIA GeForce GTX1650, 8GB, 256GB NVMe NVMe SSD But I am not really sure if its specifications are strong enough for blender. I would like some suggestions from users here on blenderartist
It depends… surely enough for the some donuts… you may have also a look with the search feature:
https://blenderartists.org/search?q=laptop
…there are lots’ of opinions… and if you didn’t post this via mobile… then just start blending 
Thanks. You think the MSI is good enough to run blender for some beginner level work? The video card is 4gb. Would I experience lots of lagging?
Full specs below
| Standing screen display size | 15.6 Inches |
|---|---|
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Processor | 2.4 core_i5 |
| RAM | 8 SO-DIMM |
| Memory Speed | 2666 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 256 GB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 4 GB |
| Wireless Type | 2.4 GHz Radio Frequency |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 4 |
I don’t know much about lap top specs but it is usually allways better and more cost efficient to get a desktop. It is also easier to upgrade the GPU in case you decide to stick with 3d and do more than some beginner work.
So, unless you really need the mobility better get a desktop.
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It should let you make the odd donut or two but cycles rendering will hit a wall pretty fast with only 4GB of GPU RAM. Eevee would likely far a bit better, but still not great.
Another concern is the 8GB of system RAM, Windows 10/11 would somewhat use half of that, not leaving much left for everything else. It’s possible one could add another fairly cheap SO-DIMM, giving you 16GB which would be much better, but you’d really have to check the specs/manual of the exact model to be sure.
Even, so, for ‘learning’ about Blender, yeah it should work for what it is, but there are a couple of big issues.
- It’s a laptop, so expansion/upgrade options are very limited, to the point you are mostly spending $500 on a dead end.
- If you really get into Blender then anything past ‘learning’ is going to hit the hardware limits of said laptop pretty fast, at which point you are mostly stuffed, see point 1.
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All very valid points that should be considered. Also, if the budget is tight, I would suggest going with Linux instead of Windows. This will give you a couple of advantages.
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Some retailers offer laptops without Windows preinstalled. These machines are usually 100 dollars/euros cheaper. The saved money could buy you an extra stick of ram, or a larger SSD.
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Linux offers a significant boost in performance compared to Windows. This is especially noticeable on the lower end machines. You save a lot of RAM and SSD space as well. A modern distribution like Pop OS can run on 1.2 GB of ram. Windows can easily consume double that just idling.
Finally, if you can stretch the budget, get the laptop with an RTX card (2060/3050/3060). This tech is well worth the extra. The GPU would be my priority over all other components, as it will determine the longevity of the device. Extra RAM and SSD space can be added at a later stage.
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I think it’s more than enough to learn Blender, Blender only needs powerful computer when you deal with hunded of thousands of vertices or want to render in high resolution in Cycles, but you can learn everything without a lot of vertices and with low-resolution images, also Eevee is much faster than Cycles
I’m not a computer expert, all I can say is that I’ve bought a laptop HP Omen 15’ with an Nvidia 1660 ti, for 900 euros (see here), which is probably around 1000 $, and except small problems, I’m glad with it, it can manage Blender very well, except big files of courses but I don’t care for the moment, you don’t have to deal with big file to learn Blender, and I’ve also worked for some clients. For big files (millions of tris) of course it’s not enough.
If you just want to learn and don’t plan to manage millions of tris, a small computer with an Nvidia card is enough, you’ll learn all you need to know, and you’ll be able to work on bigger files with bigger computers later
edit: as Birdnamnam says it looks like some MSI with Nvidia are pretty cheap
edit 2: oh ok you’ve cited the same brand
Actually i’m playing arround with blender most of the time with my desktop 8GB i3-3220 iGPU only… (a used office desktop for ~55$ ) sometimes a Dual Core 2 with 6GB an older GTX 650… on linux debian 9…
Blender 3.5 doesn’t seem to work because of new libc… but i have to update to debian 10 or 11 anyway…
So the most needed equipment is…
…your passion…
…while you are learning blender… the equipment will progress… or you could get the actual one cheaper… and you also will experience which ways you wanna go and which part you wanna investe the most…
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( 
you also could omit blender here for a more general statement…)
Do you have an artstation portfolio where I can see some of your work?
no artstation but 2 youtube channels, Blender tutos here and personal channel here, and a website here
Your work is really impressive. Love the cartoon style animation.
@Okidoki @birdnamnam @joseph
So far I think I finally have my selection
https://www.arlt.com/Gaming/PCs-Notebooks/Gaming-Notebooks/MSI-Katana-GF66-11UG-809-Core-Black.html?utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=PSM&utm_source=geizhals this is 1199 euros
https://www.cyberport.de/?DEEP=1C26-CE5&APID=6 - 1099 euros.
In terms of performance which of these would be best?
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Thanks, the RTX 3070 seems faster from what I see? So if all the other specifications are about the same I guess you should go for this one
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You could check the comprehensive reviews of both. Personally, I would probably pay the extra for the 3070 and its 8 gigs of ram.
Do you plan to use an external monitor? Neither one of the laptops seem to have a screen that is particularly color accurate. Which may, or may not be an issue to you.
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The MSI with 3070 is better. But in the case of a desktop, is there any mini desktop thats powerful but within 1000 euros price range?
For the mini PC segment, I think your best bet is to look for Zotac, if you can get them in your region. They have a variety of configurations, bellow is just one example.
It seems MSI has some compact offerings as well.