Laptop suggestions

SketchUp Computer Advice
1

Hi looking for some help my other half is a garden designer and is using sketchup and then rendering in fluidray which is a cpu based render she is using a hp envy which isnt really cutting it 5 hour plus rendering per scene.
i am looking at some other options and have found the dell xps 15 17 and i9 specs below will this do well in this scenario is the i9 worth the extra cost?

the first is £2398 the second £2799

Thanks

  • 12th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-12700H (24MB Cache, up to 4.7 GHz, 14 cores)

OR the

12th Generation Intel® Core™ i9-12900HK (24MB Cache, up to 5.0 GHz, 14 cores)

  • Operating System

Windows 11 Home, English, Dutch, French, German, Italian

  • Graphics Card

NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3050 Ti, 4 GB GDDR6, 45 W

  • Display

15.6", FHD+ 1920x1200, 60Hz, Non-Touch, Anti-Glare, 500 nit, InfinityEdge

  • Memory *

64 GB, 2 x 32 GB, DDR5, 4800 MHz, dual-channel

  • Hard Drive

1 TB, M.2, PCIe NVMe, SSD

  • Operating System

Windows 11 Home, English, Dutch, French, German, Italian

  • Graphics Card

NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3050 Ti, 4 GB GDDR6, 45 W

  • Display

15.6", FHD+ 1920x1200, 60Hz, Non-Touch, Anti-Glare, 500 nit, InfinityEdge

  • Memory *

64 GB, 2 x 32 GB, DDR5, 4800 MHz, dual-channel

  • Hard Drive

1 TB, M.2, PCIe NVMe, SSD

OR does anyone have any other suggestions for same budget ??

Been looking through so much stuff feels like my brain is about to go pop so any help greatly appreciated

Thanks

2

Maybe take a look at 5D Render, it cuts your rendering time from hours to minutes!
Need a RTX compatible card. Or TwinMotion render, but this need card with min 8 Gb.

2 Likes
3

The same goes for V-Ray. Try them and compare pricing etc.
The thing with GPU renderers is that you could perhaps get by with fewer CPU cores. SketchUp only uses one.
As to your alternatives, I think you can safely choose the cheaper one. The processors’ performance with Sketchup ought to be practically identical according to the PassMark benchmarks.

1 Like
4

ok thanks will do i know at present she wants to stick with fluidray but for the future need a more long term plan

5

Thanks i will give it a look and stick with the lower spec machine in that case

6

SketchUp yes, but Fluidray uses all!

7

She may find that addressing her workflow will help more than replacing the hardware.
Often we see landscape designers using massive amounts of 3d plants. Sometimes a single plant can be ‘larger’ than the rest of the model. They then spend thousands on a new machine only to find not much has changed.
Learning how to optimize your workflow to get the visuals you need as well as a workable model will save money and frustration.
It would be worth it for her to attach a model here for people to look at and offer tips. Who knows, she may be doing everything right and will benefit from new hardware, but on the other hand she may only need a few pointers to get things flowing better.

4 Likes
8

I’d skip Dell. They gave me nothing but trouble back in the day. They aren’t built all that great with pretty low end components.

I’d recommend the MSI G66 stealth.

1 Like