Thoughts for home working laptop

[Galzzly]

Hi, I recently started a new job that will have some home working requirements & on call, but is bring your own device. I've asked my new colleagues what sort of spec their gear is that they run to try and get a bit of an idea as to what I should be looking at. Essentially, I've come up with this 15.6" Vyper setup:

Chassis & Display Vyper Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 45% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor 8300H (2.3GHz, 4.0GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM) 16GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.11st
1st M.2 SSD Drive 500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 2300MB/W)
Memory Card Reader Integrated 2 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC)

AC Adaptor 1 x 120W AC Adaptor
Battery Vyper Series 46WH Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING

Sound Card 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ WIRELESS-AC 1550 M.2 GAMING 802.11AC + BLUETOOTH 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options 1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.1 PORTS + 4 x USB 2.0 PORT


I wasn't sure whether to bother going for the i7 processor or stick with the default i5, from what I'm told, memory and disk is used more intensively.
I also looked at a similar spec Cosmos VII, but I had read a couple of posts that mentioned that temps were better on the Vyper.

I didn't include the OS on my original build, as I wasn't sure whether I wanted to throw Ubuntu on there (which is what I use in the office), or get Win10 installed.

Thoughts and advice all well appreciated.

 

[Tony1044]

Hi, I recently started a new job that will have some home working requirements & on call, but is bring your own device. I've asked my new colleagues what sort of spec their gear is that they run to try and get a bit of an idea as to what I should be looking at. Essentially, I've come up with this 15.6" Vyper setup:

Chassis & Display Vyper Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 45% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor 8300H (2.3GHz, 4.0GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM) 16GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.11st
1st M.2 SSD Drive 500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3400MB/R, 2300MB/W)
Memory Card Reader Integrated 2 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC)

AC Adaptor 1 x 120W AC Adaptor
Battery Vyper Series 46WH Lithium Ion Battery
Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING

Sound Card 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ WIRELESS-AC 1550 M.2 GAMING 802.11AC + BLUETOOTH 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options 1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.1 PORTS + 4 x USB 2.0 PORT


I wasn't sure whether to bother going for the i7 processor or stick with the default i5, from what I'm told, memory and disk is used more intensively.
I also looked at a similar spec Cosmos VII, but I had read a couple of posts that mentioned that temps were better on the Vyper.

I didn't include the OS on my original build, as I wasn't sure whether I wanted to throw Ubuntu on there (which is what I use in the office), or get Win10 installed.

Thoughts and advice all well appreciated.

It would help to know your budget and what your actual usage is going to be like? Just general office-type tasks, or anything that could be CPU intensive (would help answer things like your i5/i7 question).

 

[Galzzly]

It would help to know your budget and what your actual usage is going to be like? Just general office-type tasks, or anything that could be CPU intensive (would help answer things like your i5/i7 question).

Thanks for replying.

I'm trying to keep under £1k for the time being, with there being an option to upgrade in the future if/when funds become available.
Tasks are going to be predominantly parsing large log files (around 15GB at a time), spinning up some small virtual machines for testing, and calls/webex with customers. Hopefully that makes some sense.

 

[Tony1044]

What does your build come to in terms of price?

The only reason I ask is that there's a review model Vyper that is £600 ex VAT here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/configure-review/268/

Whilst it has what I would assume is a slower and lower capacity SSD (240GB) and only half the RAM at a slightly lower frequency, it does have a 6 core, 12-thread i7 vs the 4 core 8 thread in your model so I wonder if it might be better to opt for that and double the RAM and possibly add a large capacity HDD?

 

[Galzzly]

It comes to £977 (inc VAT), however there's no OS included on there to save a bit of money from that stand point. (or possibly £950 if I decide to go for the 250GB SSD with 2TB SSHD).

Funnily enough, I did look at that review model, and wondered whether that would be a good option - but I would potentially end up swapping most components available (8GB RAM added, swap the M.2 drive for faster IO, and add the larger capacity drive to it) - I'm not sure if, in the long run, it would end up costing me more - a quick search for the memory alone (and I mean very quick) adds £70-80 ish for the RAM alone, not including the M.2 drive. Only positive would be a potential ability to recoup cost from selling the included M.2 drive.

 

[Tony1044]

A 500GB 970pro is around £180. Add £70 for RAM and you are in the same area price wise. (Around £970 inc vat)

Pro: you get the more powerful CPU which will be handy for virtual machines.

Cons: slower ram and the faffing of sorting the bits out.

On the face of it, it's probably not worth the effort if you're only running a couple of VMs that aren't massively taxing.

Edit: don't waste your money on an SSHD. They only have a tiny cache and cache misses can actually make them slower than an HDD.