Advice on workstation desktop vs workstation laptop?

apeironx · September 17, 2021, 19:24

Hello everybody,

I'm a software engineer who wants to get involve into mechanical design and biology and math with main focus on math. I'm planning on pursuing further studies on nonlinear dynamics and chaos applied to mechanical design, mathematical biology like drug design, tissues simulation, vaccine design, I have also interest in ML/AI, etc.

I'm still exploring areas whether I should study aero/astro, math, physics or computational theory/systems in a post-graduate degree either another masters from the one I have or a PhD.

I'm totally newbie to this fields so I need your advice.

I have two objectives: I want to buy a computer that is powerful enough to run any of those complex tasks without burning the processor after a couple of weeks and that fullfils the double purpose of being a gift to myself for reaching this long in life

.

So my question to start is:
For the long run:

are those hp z studio or fury book workstation worthy the money for the tasks I have in mind or are they just way too much more than what I need?
Will I have enough with one of those laptops either hp z book Fury or studio or lenovo thinkpad P15 gen 1 or will I have to buy desktop workstation anyways because laptop will not be enough for real complex tasks?.
If any of those laptop are enough:
1. In case my options are which one should I go for a Xeon? i9? i7?.
2. if my options are Ryzen 5 or Ryzen or threadripper, which one should I go?.
3. WHat about RAM memory how much is good enough?
4. What about video graphics cards?
5. What about SSD size? or combination with HDD size?
In the short term next 3-5 years and possibly post-graduated experience what would you recommend laptop workstation or desktop workstation?.

I will start with the following software:

https://compucell3d.org/

many of the open source solutions available because I would like to contribtue to one of those open source solutions.

and the market ones
https://www.autodesk.com/collections...?source=footer
https://www.autodesk.com/solutions/f...ement-analysis
https://www.ansys.com/
etc

These are the options of laptops I'm looking at:

https://www.insight.com/en_US/shop/p...2-GB-SSD---US/

https://www.cyberpuerta.mx/Computado...gles-Gris.html

https://www.cyberpuerta.mx/Computado...nol-Negro.html

The question is too broad because I have started on this topics and I have no idea jajaja

. Hopefully you can shed some light

Thanks for your feedback.

apeironx

mluckyw · October 1, 2021, 02:05

(Please take this with a grain of salt as I'm still an aeronautical engineering undergraduate student with internship experiences)

Personally I have only used ANSYS and solid works, most of the work rely on CPU and RAM heavy uses. My laptop only have core i5 and its doing most of the work fine but with extended time of one simulation of 100 or so iteration at around 8 hours. RAM itself, I found that 16 Gb is sufficient enough for the simple model that I use nowadays. Most of the software I used does not fully utilizes the video card, most of the time it's just sitting there waiting for me to launch games with it.

In my opinion personal workstation doesn't need to have crazy specs in mind, usually if the task is heavy enough and the companies/university is good enough they will lend their powerful PC. I mostly use my university PC only for the runs not making the mesh. PC will always be better performance wise and now to increase mobility you can do remote desktop to your machine from a laptop.

September 17, 2021, 19:24	Advice on workstation desktop vs workstation laptop?	#1
apeironx New Member Ulises Vega Join Date: Sep 2021 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Hello everybody, I'm a software engineer who wants to get involve into mechanical design and biology and math with main focus on math. I'm planning on pursuing further studies on nonlinear dynamics and chaos applied to mechanical design, mathematical biology like drug design, tissues simulation, vaccine design, I have also interest in ML/AI, etc. I'm still exploring areas whether I should study aero/astro, math, physics or computational theory/systems in a post-graduate degree either another masters from the one I have or a PhD. I'm totally newbie to this fields so I need your advice. I have two objectives: I want to buy a computer that is powerful enough to run any of those complex tasks without burning the processor after a couple of weeks and that fullfils the double purpose of being a gift to myself for reaching this long in life . So my question to start is: For the long run: are those hp z studio or fury book workstation worthy the money for the tasks I have in mind or are they just way too much more than what I need? Will I have enough with one of those laptops either hp z book Fury or studio or lenovo thinkpad P15 gen 1 or will I have to buy desktop workstation anyways because laptop will not be enough for real complex tasks?. If any of those laptop are enough: In case my options are which one should I go for a Xeon? i9? i7?. if my options are Ryzen 5 or Ryzen or threadripper, which one should I go?. WHat about RAM memory how much is good enough? What about video graphics cards? What about SSD size? or combination with HDD size? In the short term next 3-5 years and possibly post-graduated experience what would you recommend laptop workstation or desktop workstation?. I will start with the following software: https://compucell3d.org/ many of the open source solutions available because I would like to contribtue to one of those open source solutions. and the market ones https://www.autodesk.com/collections...?source=footer https://www.autodesk.com/solutions/f...ement-analysis https://www.ansys.com/ etc These are the options of laptops I'm looking at: https://www.insight.com/en_US/shop/p...2-GB-SSD---US/ https://www.cyberpuerta.mx/Computado...gles-Gris.html https://www.cyberpuerta.mx/Computado...nol-Negro.html The question is too broad because I have started on this topics and I have no idea jajaja . Hopefully you can shed some light Thanks for your feedback. apeironx

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October 1, 2021, 02:05		#2
mluckyw Member Chrowale Join Date: Sep 2021 Location: Bandung, Indonesia Posts: 59 Rep Power: 4	(Please take this with a grain of salt as I'm still an aeronautical engineering undergraduate student with internship experiences) Personally I have only used ANSYS and solid works, most of the work rely on CPU and RAM heavy uses. My laptop only have core i5 and its doing most of the work fine but with extended time of one simulation of 100 or so iteration at around 8 hours. RAM itself, I found that 16 Gb is sufficient enough for the simple model that I use nowadays. Most of the software I used does not fully utilizes the video card, most of the time it's just sitting there waiting for me to launch games with it. In my opinion personal workstation doesn't need to have crazy specs in mind, usually if the task is heavy enough and the companies/university is good enough they will lend their powerful PC. I mostly use my university PC only for the runs not making the mesh. PC will always be better performance wise and now to increase mobility you can do remote desktop to your machine from a laptop.