What laptop to get

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Hi I’m on the lowest budget possible but I can’t go higher than that. I’m settling for a laptop should I go for a workstation or a gaming laptop, for blender

The workstation is a zbook with rtx Quadro 4000 with 8gb vram and 32gb ram, the laptop is a Rog with a 3060 6-8gb vram and 16gb ram.

Which should I go for?

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Welcome, williamc.

As someone who has used Blender on an RTX 3060 gaming laptop for the past 5 years, I would actually recommend using a desktop computer instead of a laptop–at least a decent pre-built mini-PC (probably from Geekom and with a dedicated GPU, ideally, if you want to do a lot of rendering in Eevee or at least have noticeably faster render times to the point where you don’t need to leave your computer on overnight for several nights to render an entire animation). The advantages, I’ve found, are numerous–

  • Non-portable hardware is simply cheaper compared to getting similar hardware in portable laptop or especially handheld PC form, plus even mini PCs have better cooling to ensure your current setup lasts at least a decade without dying, compared to how laptops are designed.
  • Laptops actually aren’t that great for 3D in general, I’ve learned the hard way. My current hardware can rip through Eevee renders and even the occasional simple Cycles render, sure, but the relatively small screen I have (14 inches) makes it hard to actually create and see that detail, sort of defeating the purpose of the extra power in both Blender and in playing video games. Also, I have all this extra stuff plugged into my laptop over the years–a three-button mouse (you can use the touchpad for Blender, but much slower than simply using a proper mouse), a drawing tablet, an external cooler, a back-up external SSD, etc. to make working in Blender on a laptop more feasible, which ultimately defeats the purpose of using a laptop over a desktop–portability. Don’t be fooled by websites like PCWorld or CreativeBloq telling you they found the best laptops for 3D artists–the raw rendering power and battery life of, say, a top-of-the-line Macbook M4 Max does not make up for the fact that working on a laptop is inherently less comfortable than a good desktop setup with a much larger monitor and a keyboard with the extra numpad keys that laptops usually don’t come with (especially important if you plan on using Blender’s default keymaps, as well as a Linux distro like Xfce where the Alt key used in the “Industry Standard” keymap setting actually conflicts with OS hotkey that resizes and moves windows in Xcfe).
  • Sort of related to the first point and second points, even if you take the absolute best care of your hardware, eventually after about 3-4 years the battery will die from being used so much (especially for intensive things like rendering) and, again, your laptop will just be a glorified desktop constantly connected to power anyway, defeating the purpose of having a laptop. I got lucky in that my laptop’s battery JUST died in the last couple of days, 5 whole years after I first bought it, but my point still stands. Skip the “battery anxiety” altogether and just get a desktop, again at least a mini-PC if you’re worried about how much electricity traditional PC towers consume.
  • The best, or worst thing about Blender, depending on who you ask, is that it is made for lower-end and older hardware in mind and therefore it is a waste of money to buy top-of-the-line hardware that Blender won’t use at all. It was only after about 3 years after I bought my ray-tracing compatible laptop that Blender finally added some sort of real-time ray-tracing features to Eevee, although once I found that turning on “Ray Tracing” in Eevee also works on my Steam Deck (albeit slower, obviously), Blender probably still isn’t using any “true” form of real time raytracing that makes Nvidia’s RTX cards necessary. Heck, while I would at least recommend a mini PC with a dedicated GPU in case you want to also play modern Steam games on that mini PC or use another software that DEFINITELY benefits from GPU acceleration (e.g. Unreal or Substance Painter), you could get away with using Blender solely on a CPU and integrated GPU, and in fact it’s probably better that you learn the hard way to optimize your scenes and animations for weaker hardware before “graduating” to more expensive hardware and GPUs. My last animation was a pain to work on because I didn’t optimize the poly counts before the final render enough. The Subdivision Surface modifier that keeps things low-poly in the Viewport and only increases poly counts at the final render by default is there for a reason, you know.

So yeah, just get a desktop–at least a good mini PC (ideally with 32 GB+ RAM while you still can–the “RAM-pocalypse” hasn’t quite hit pre-builts and mini PCs quite yet, though again, you can probably use the latest Blender with as little as 8 GB if you are mindful of optimizing before the final render and running Linux instead of Windows and Mac, using low-poly proxies for animation and such). It’s cheaper (think only spending hundreds instead of thousands), lasts longer with better cooling, more comfortable and even the best laptop batteries die after a few years and turn the laptops into glorified desktops anyway.

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Correct. Unless you just have to have a laptop for some particular reason, desktop is a better choice.

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I would say go with the desktop, it will give you much better performance. Just having the 32gb of RAM not 16 will help massively. What CPU are you looking at?

You could look to build a PC yourself, that way you can save money since you don’t have to pay a build fee.

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Look around for local computer stores. Get to know the proprietors. They always have equipment that they have taken on “trade-in,” and are looking to get rid of it “to a good home.” Yet, the equipment is every bit as powerful as ever it was, and a good store will provide at least a one-year warranty. They will install Linux on it for you, if you so desire.

There is, simply, so much “gently used” hardware out there, that it seems senseless not to use it (again).

Finally: for heat-dispersion reasons if nothing else, “desktop” might make much more sense. I find that I basically “cannot use Cycles” on my state-of-the-art (today …) MacBook Pro. It simply gets too hot (for my taste …), and I won’t risk breaking it. “EEVEE” fits the bill.

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I mean, yeah, that’s possible I guess… Personally I could definitely not use Blender with a CPU and integrated GPU! There are also so many people online who report various issues with them. Integrated GPUs are not meant for CG work. If one is serious about it, a proper powerful GPU is a must. It would certainly not be my recommendation to not get a discrete GPU for a PC for work with Blender. If you know that you are going to be doing simple modelling, fine, if you are starting to learn Blender in general… Just get an Nvidia GPU if you can. I think that advice about possibility of getting away with integrated GPU may lead to huge regret real fast. I think it’s important to keep in mind that if you want to work with CG, you want a powerful GPU. The circumstances and if it’s possible/practical is another thing, but it is certainly something to aim for.

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DO NOT GET A QUADRO FOR BLENDER.

They are not meant for performance, they are meant for reliability. I have had one, and it may seem like high powered hotness, but it is not.

A quadro is a tractor, a geforce is a sports car.

as for laptop vs desktop, I personally have done all of my work on laptops for the past 10 years, it’s not that big of a deal. yes, be mindful of your heat dissipation (I have two pieces of wood that hold my laptop 3/4" above the tabletop when I am using it so that it can breathe more easily). Also don’t rely on the battery. especially if you are rendering, you will run through your battery life very quickly. just think of it as a portable computer that needs to be plugged in for a more realistic experience.

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That is also very true! In addition to that before buying a GPU, it’s probably a good idea to see how it performs with Cycles rendering if that is relevant. There are Blender benchmarks. (that should also help to filter Quardo cards out real fast)

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