Looking for possible laptop recommendations

Hello everyone,

I am looking for a laptop that’s less than 2 grand Canadian, that is about 15 inch form factor (weight and size).

I will be coming from an Asus strix glv702vm (i7 7700HQ, 16gb ram, gtx 1060 6gb vram). I am looking for a laptop that is as powerful as my old laptop but smaller and/or lighter as I need to carry it around to school as well.

Use cases include:
-solidworks
-Matlab
-cfd simulation (for research)
-vm
-docker
-gaming/emulation (for emulators I’d like to be able to run some rcps3)
-video editing (like editing gaming clips, or editing simulation and animation exports)

I’m not good with laptop hardware but I’d like (if possible) to have minimum 16 gb ram (possible expansion, if not I’ll have to go higher tier 32gb), the gpu to have atleast 6gb vram. It be nice if I can charge with usb-c or atleast keep charge with usb-c so I can leave the brick at home or something). TB4 would be nice not a requirement (I know amd doesn’t have tb4). And I’m hoping the laptop can retain boost clock for prolonged 100% load for cfd.

Anything not possible on a laptop I’ll move to my x99 desktop and/or school cluster.

I am wondering if this is Feasible? Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!!

Edit: it be nice if it works with linux as well. Might dual boot

I would recommend a Lenovo T series Gen 3 AMD. You can get it in a 15 inch form factor. If you want a discreet GPU you can go with the Lenovo Legion 5 series. both at AMD Zen 3+ 6800U with 680m iGPU and can be had with 32GiB of RAM. I have an x13 Gen 3 AMD with 6850U and 32GiB RAM.

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I’ll look into it, so is mobile alderlake a no go for linux ?

I don’t know. I am an AMD shill and so far, for the last two mobile Zen releases, AMD has been eating Intel’s lunch. Basically if you want a better iGPU and better battery life with better performance per Watt, then AMD is the way to go. Once you start adding discrete GPUs, then it can be a toss up depending on your workload.

For the current 12 series Intel parts, there is a big issue with thermal throttling so you would need a larger laptop with a better cooling solution for Intel, at least with the Lenovo products.

You shouldn’t run into many issues. There are still improvements being made - like some earlier this month. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Linux-Classes-Of-Tasks-TD

AFAIK it’s not that Intel 12th gen runs hotter, it’s just that the desktop parts specifically were given lots of power headroom to get high clocks. In other news Zen 4 just released, and amd did exactly the same thing! On a laptop I’d expect both to run cool.

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Thermals/power eff. will be a stingy issue, to them newer Mobile Intel chips [Gen11+]
Ryzen 4000/5000 series, will be more efficient [+ likely 7000, whenever it releases]

Is the 6GB VRAM a necessity, or a nicety?
Anything nVIDIA Turing series [RTX 20__, GTX 1660_], would be 6GB(+)
nVIDIA MX450/550, are basically a throttled GTX1650 [+ limited to 2GB]
Few options for RDNA I/II series are visible, but they do make face time-time

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My ASUS Zenbook 14, has been a welcoming surprise overall [5500U, MX450]
Linux was a bit finicky, getting to install [Manjaro was the distro that took with ease]
Don’t ask about windows- I expunged that filth [W11], before it had chance to start
Multiple SKUs do exist, going up to Ryzen 9 tier
System Memory would be of a fixed value [either 8 or 16GB DDR4x]

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