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Laptop for houdini


lyansart

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Hello guys, I wanted to ask for a suggestion for a good laptop. I won't work on Houdini everyday, so it's mainly for sometimes uses, and also be able to run it/simulate something (not too heavy). 
I know a workstation would be better, but I am travelling too much right now, would be impossible..

Dell 15.6'' ( this one cost 150 less)

  • Intel® Core™ i7-8750H Processor
  • RAM: 16 GB / Storage: 512 GB SSD
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB

Razer Blade 15.6"

  • Intel® Core™ i7-8750H Processor
  • RAM: 16 GB / Storage: 256 GB SSD
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB


I know the specs in the sidefx website says min GTX 1060, but maybe the 1050 ti will do fine as well. or not?
What do you think between those two? Or do you have any suggestions for around the same price? 

Thanks!

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Hi,

I have been using a MSI WS60 (old model) for a few years and honnestly, it works very well with Houdini, as long as you have minimum 16Go of RAM.

This summer I bought a HP Zbook X2 with 32Gb of RAM and 2Tb SSD, and it works super great, it is very portable, you have a screen that is a killer (its gamut is fantastic), and this is Wacom technology embedded, so perfect for sculpting as well... If you can afford it, go ahead.

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The top one seems totally adequate :)

I would only get the other one with the potentially better video card if either:

  • Plan on using GPU based renderers (redshift etc), as most of them are still CPU based, and current gen I7s are awesome I imagine 
  • You also want to play video games at higher settings.

But I would definitely suggest getting an extra external hard-drive if you pick the bottom one,
probably still for the top one as well, if you want to do a lot of caching for simulations and stuff.

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i would just say these laptops are probably just fine for learning purposes but if you plan to actually doing some work with it then know it will only be good for non-demanding stuff. both 16 gigs of ram and 512 gb storage will run out as nothing.

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I wouldn't get the Dell. I recently bought a MSI with the same GPU and Houdini crashed upon opening every time. Contacted Side Effects support and turns out the GTX 1050ti is not a supported GPU. Had to return the laptop.

Here's a link to the supported GPU's: https://www.sidefx.com/Support/system-requirements/supported-graphics-cards/

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  • 3 months later...

I own a Razer Blade with the same CPU and Ram but a 1070 Max-Q. Houdini runs great without any hiccups but obviously it's not the fastest at rendering. For GPU rendering I mostly use an eGPU or our render servers in the studio. If you still haven't bought a laptop you can now get a Razer Blade with a 2080 Max-Q. Coming from using MacBooks for years the Razer is also the sleekest Windows laptop I was able to find.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...
On 3/12/2019 at 5:55 PM, FlorianWeyh said:

A bit late and maybe also a bit out of the requested pricerange. But I got my full configured (64GB Ram/ RTX 2080 )  Octane VI just a week ago and I am very impressed with its performance.
( https://www.pcz.de/notebooks/octaneVI-17/ )

Hi,

I am considering the same unit. The specs are really nice. What are your impressions? How about performance for long renders? (like several h/frame), or long sims?

 

Best

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After all this time, and the reseach, it just got the cheaper basic one (min required specs) , because at the end of the day I won't be able to do any serious big work for houdini on a laptop, let's be honest :)

 

(or even if you do, the price it's so high, that is not worth it..)

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