Differences between a workstation laptop and a gaming one?

kdonkov

Estimable
Jul 29, 2014
20
0
4,560
Hi everybody,

I am going to be studying in england this upcoming fall and i need a new laptop for myself for my studies. I will be working heavily with 3D software such as houdini, maya, after effects, photoshop combined with programming. At the same time i am a gamer which means i'd like to have the chance of playing games every now and then in my free time.

I want to be able to do all of the above without much difficulty, i don't mind having a bit lower render time but i would like to not have to sacrifice on my gaming performance and experience. I hate having laggy games.

My budget is about 1500 pouns which is around 2500 USD.

Can anybody help me and explain to me what's the difference between a workstation PC and a gaming one exactly and what are the benefits and drawback of each?

Also if anyone has any specific laptops in mind please don't hesitate to share.

I am open to the option of choosing my own laptop part by part on a website and then having the custom laptop shipped to me.
 
Solution
In practical terms:
workstation laptops cannot play games well at all
Gaming laptops can use 3D applications quite well, just not as well as a dedicated workstation card (like a quadro)
decent workstation cards are $3k+ by themselves, really heavy duty monsters. However for price to performance, you're gonna go with a gaming card today.
Now OP, you want this:http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/vortexIV-Elite/
you can have crossfired r9 M290X - which just means two together. Alongside an I7 quad core, 1080p screen 16GB of RAM (i'm assuming you need that for all your 3D applications, you can have 32GB for £120ish more) as well as £192 to spare on say an SSD for your games, a better HDD, a better wireless card, extra thermal paste and...
workstation = work
gaming = play.

Workstation laptops are built with engineering software and demanding programs in mind. Some might have decent GPUs but they are designed with rendering and modeling in mind (like a firepro card).

Gaming laptops are ment for gaming. The better ones will have two nvidia cards in SLI.

To try to get the best of both worlds you will want a laptop with i7 cpu and at least nvidia 870m.
 

kdonkov

Estimable
Jul 29, 2014
20
0
4,560


thank you for the answer. Do you have any brands in mind that are well known for build quality ? For example XMG, MSI, ASUS or anything like that? Should i spend time with them or are there better solutions?
 
In practical terms:
workstation laptops cannot play games well at all
Gaming laptops can use 3D applications quite well, just not as well as a dedicated workstation card (like a quadro)
decent workstation cards are $3k+ by themselves, really heavy duty monsters. However for price to performance, you're gonna go with a gaming card today.
Now OP, you want this:http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/vortexIV-Elite/
you can have crossfired r9 M290X - which just means two together. Alongside an I7 quad core, 1080p screen 16GB of RAM (i'm assuming you need that for all your 3D applications, you can have 32GB for £120ish more) as well as £192 to spare on say an SSD for your games, a better HDD, a better wireless card, extra thermal paste and whatever else you want.
Hope this helps
 
Solution