What laptop for Altium

[tszaboo]

The company I'm working for is forcing me to replace my desktop with a laptop. I am very happy with my i7 7700 + GTX 1050 setup. Now I have to switch for a laptop due to the global pandemic, and working from home. I am allowed to recommend a laptop, budget is around 2000 EUR (and probably having to deal with faces if it is above 1000).
Now, I've been a Thinkpad user since 2007, and I dont really want to change. But my latest (personal) laptop was an X220, a light oldschool Thinkpad, with proper keyboard. And I'm a trackpoint user, so I dont really want anything else. I also fly a lot (usually, not this year), so lightweight laptop would be nice. The X220 is 1500g in its current form.

Now, I've been looking around on Lenovo's website, and this is what I've come up with. I'm only going to list relevant laptops that have a chance of running Altium properly.

X1 Extreme: , 15", 2000 EUR, 1700g+, i7,  GTX 1650 MaxQ, Heavy power brick. It does the job according to specifications, probably still heavy and big.
P14s: 14", 2000 EUR, 1500g, i7, Quadro P520, Type C power. The graphics card is half the speed of the 1050. It is lighter and smaller than the X1 extreme. Seems to be very bad price/performance wise.
ThinkPad P43s: 14", 1650 EUR, 1500g, i7 (last gen), Quadro P520, Type C power.
ThinkPad T14s AMD Gen 1: 14", 1250g (wow, nice) Ryzen 7 integrated, Type C power. The Ryzen 7 integrated is probably half the speed of the GTX1050, maybe less. The CPU leaves i7 in the dust.

I'm kinda tempted by the T14s, but I'm not sure about the graphics performance. I've fired up Techpowerup GPU-Z, and started rotating/zooming in Altium in 3D. The GPU topped at 70% usage, and 1800MB memory usage. Lenovo probably also crippled the CPU, by configuring it to lower TDP rating, so the graphics card might be slower than expected.

ThinkPad T14 Gen 1: 14", 1800 EUR, 1500g, i7, MX330 : Just no. It is worse than the T14s AMD in every single way.
Razer Blade 13: 13.3", 1800 EUR, 1400g, i7  GTX 1650 Max-Q, 100W USB-C. I'm adding this as insult to injury.

It is apparently possible to make small/quick/light/high quality laptop, Lenovo just refuses to make one? The Thinkpads are only available with professional graphics cards with laughable performance, or integrated graphics. They seem to be focusing on making laptops with screens on the wrong side of the laptop, or I dont know what the hell is going on. Sorry about the rant, I am really looking for a solution here.

[free_electron]

amd has ghosting and rendering artifacts ...

i hope you are going to connect external monitors <- plural
so definitely get a machine stat supports USB-C with video relay or thunderbolt so you can hook up a docking station and have 3 screens.
This was my mistake buying a Ryzen laptop with AMD GPU for travel. it has USB3 but cannot transport video ! the whole usb 3 standard is a fucked up thing. there are too many flavors and depending on the machine certain things don't work. Pay attention to that !

Stick to a HP Z-book. and get something with very high end gaming graphics or go all out for a quadro card.
don't focus on number of cores. Raw memory bandwidth is more important. Altium is not that multithreaded/multicore aware anyway.

Lots of ram and high bandwidth. both cpu and gpu
the rest is not really relevant. yeah i hear you SSd is faster ... but when working with the design it lives in ram. saving is occasional ( autosave every 15 minutes ) . so don't bother if that takes 2 seconds or 4 seconds. you do not want to have a multiroute bus lag two meters behind your mouse cursor... and that is memory + cpu + gpu speed and bandwidth.

writing this from a 5 year old HP Z-book (3d gen) running Nexus 3.1.14 doing boards that are 10 layer and half a meter by 30 cm with thousands of components. works like a champ.

[tszaboo]

amd has ghosting and rendering artifacts ...

i hope you are going to connect external monitors <- plural
so definitely get a machine stat supports USB-C with video relay or thunderbolt so you can hook up a docking station and have 3 screens.
This was my mistake buying a Ryzen laptop with AMD GPU for travel. it has USB3 but cannot transport video ! the whole usb 3 standard is a fucked up thing. there are too many flavors and depending on the machine certain things don't work. Pay attention to that !

Stick to a HP Z-book. and get something with very high end gaming graphics or go all out for a quadro card.
don't focus on number of cores. Raw memory bandwidth is more important. Altium is not that multithreaded/multicore aware anyway.

Lots of ram and high bandwidth. both cpu and gpu
the rest is not really relevant. yeah i hear you SSd is faster ... but when working with the design it lives in ram. saving is occasional ( autosave every 15 minutes ) . so don't bother if that takes 2 seconds or 4 seconds. you do not want to have a multiroute bus lag two meters behind your mouse cursor... and that is memory + cpu + gpu speed and bandwidth.

writing this from a 5 year old HP Z-book (3d gen) running Nexus 3.1.14 doing boards that are 10 layer and half a meter by 30 cm with thousands of components. works like a champ.

Yeah, I'm keeping my 2x 2560x1440 monitors. Thunderbolt is intel only. But thats a good point, I wasnt paying attention to display outputs. I was assuming that I plug in USB-C power goes in and display comes out. Lenovo typically has docking stations for their laptops, but I'll double check it.
And yes, USB should really loose it's U from the name. We have a dozen quick charging standards, USB 3.0,3.1,3.1 gen 2 3.1 gen 1 power delivery, thunderbolt in USB connector, thunderbolt but less pci lanes than you think, and so on.
SSD speed definitely matters, due to the libraries. And in my experience, an i7 with 16 GB should be more than enough to handle the software without hiccups. Although, I've been using a desktop for the last years, and a desktop i7 has like 90W power budget, compared to the 20W in some laptops.
I'm also a bit worried of HP laptops. They seem to have a lot of quality issues.

[free_electron]

I'm also a bit worried of HP laptops. They seem to have a lot of quality issues.

Zbooks are workstations. they are not consumer or even business machines.

[olkipukki]

Now, I've been looking around on Lenovo's website, and this is what I've come up with. I'm only going to list relevant laptops that have a chance of running Altium properly.

Why P1 (Gen2) not in the list?

[tszaboo]

Now, I've been looking around on Lenovo's website, and this is what I've come up with. I'm only going to list relevant laptops that have a chance of running Altium properly.

Why P1 (Gen2) not in the list?

Good question. When I was browsing around, the first thing that pops up for the P1 is that it is out of the budget, and comes with a Xeon processor. But on closer look, it is possible to configure it with an i7 and a Quadro T1000, which is about a GTX 1650. There seems to be a deal on it now. So:
P1: 15" 2000 EUR, 1700g, i7 6 core, Quadro T1000. The size and weight is exactly the same as the X1 extreme, so it is probably be the same chassis, with better hardware. To make things harder, They discounted the X1 extreme as well. And a bunch of other things as well.

*And by better, I mean they have a slightly different firmware on the cpu and the graphics card.

[olkipukki]

P1: 15" 2000 EUR, 1700g, i7 6 core, Quadro T1000. The size and weight is exactly the same as the X1 extreme, so it is probably be the same chassis, with better hardware.

Do you mean 2K exclude VAT?
If so, 20QT007VMH (9850H, 32GB RAM, T2000, 1TB SSD) or similar configurations with Lenovo promotion should fit your budget, isn't?

[Ice-Tea]

As much as I love AMD, I wouldn't get a machine with integrated graphics only. Even if it works well today, the next release of Altium may raise the bar a bit and you're screwed.

In case you haven't considered that yet, you can get more oomph for your buck if you stop looking at bussiness machines per se. Mid range gaming laptops have the HW you need for less money. Some are F-Ugly but some are more understated and can be used in a bussiness environment. I recently bought the 17" version of this:

https://www.coolblue.be/nl/product/831063/lenovo-legion-y540-15irh-pg0-81sy0070mb-azerty.html#product-specifications

What I really like is that a lot of the connectivity is available at the back. Less desk clutter.

You can still go AMD if you want, but they are slow to hit the market. The Bravo 15 might be an option but I haven't been able to find them out in the wild. The 17" version can be found and is actually not terribly heavy:

https://www.tones.be/nl/article/132065

The reviews aren't happy about the screen, though. All of those are heavier than what you were looking at but that's the price you pay for copper: if you want the CPU and GPU being able to stretch their legs, it will cost some grams.

Major downside of gaming oriented machines: poor battery life. AMD machines have the potential to be better here, but it's never going to be great.

[olkipukki]

The 17" version can be found and is actually not terribly heavy:

Please take into account a charger weight too 

I still remember 'dark' days while carrying HP 17" and its brick-charger on frequent trips.
The powerful machine, but absolutely useless on a go - too big, too heavy...

[Ice-Tea]

The 17" version can be found and is actually not terribly heavy:

Please take into account a charger weight too 

I still remember 'dark' days while carrying HP 17" and its brick-charger on frequent trips.
The powerful machine, but absolutely useless on a go - too big, too heavy...

100% correct. Even though AMD has a leg up here as well it seems. This 17" machine has a 180W adapter (yikes!). The Lenovo I have now (i7/GTX260) comes with a 280W adapter (yikes²) which weighs 700g or so.

[Pseudobyte]

Lenovo makes some decent laptops in the P53 series for Altium. Granted I use an external GPU instead of the inbuilt T2000 quadro.

i7-9750H
16 GB RAM
NVME PCIE SSD

I should say that even when i am off dock the T2000 handles Altium just fine on a 1-2 1080p monitors.

The eGPU is really for the fact that I run dual 4k monitors at 60Hz.

The P53s are a bit heavy but way lighter than they look. 8/10 would recommend.

[tszaboo]

P1: 15" 2000 EUR, 1700g, i7 6 core, Quadro T1000. The size and weight is exactly the same as the X1 extreme, so it is probably be the same chassis, with better hardware.

Do you mean 2K exclude VAT?
If so, 20QT007VMH (9850H, 32GB RAM, T2000, 1TB SSD) or similar configurations with Lenovo promotion should fit your budget, isn't?

Yeah, honestly, I wasnt given a concrete budget. I only have a feel on how much could be accepted, based on our previous purchase for a Solidworks designer. Approving that was already like pulling a teeth for the management. So I aim lower.

As much as I love AMD, I wouldn't get a machine with integrated graphics only. Even if it works well today, the next release of Altium may raise the bar a bit and you're screwed.

In case you haven't considered that yet, you can get more oomph for your buck if you stop looking at bussiness machines per se. Mid range gaming laptops have the HW you need for less money. Some are F-Ugly but some are more understated and can be used in a bussiness environment. I recently bought the 17" version of this:

https://www.coolblue.be/nl/product/831063/lenovo-legion-y540-15irh-pg0-81sy0070mb-azerty.html#product-specifications

What I really like is that a lot of the connectivity is available at the back. Less desk clutter.

You can still go AMD if you want, but they are slow to hit the market. The Bravo 15 might be an option but I haven't been able to find them out in the wild. The 17" version can be found and is actually not terribly heavy:

https://www.tones.be/nl/article/132065

The reviews aren't happy about the screen, though. All of those are heavier than what you were looking at but that's the price you pay for copper: if you want the CPU and GPU being able to stretch their legs, it will cost some grams.

Major downside of gaming oriented machines: poor battery life. AMD machines have the potential to be better here, but it's never going to be great.

The recommended system was changed 3 years ago, they went from GT640 to GTX1060. A while ago, nVidia mobile chipsets are the same as desktop, only lower frequency. Based on my quick test, a 1050 is enough for V20.1
I dont really want a gaming laptop, it would be quite difficult to go to serious meetings with it, and they also lacking in the ergonomics and creature comforts. For example a docking station or crappy keyboard, lack of trackpoint.

I'm also a bit worried of HP laptops. They seem to have a lot of quality issues.

Zbooks are workstations. they are not consumer or even business machines.

Well, maybe. I was using a Z420 desktop some years ago, no complaints.

I think I'm going to request the P1 and see how it goes. If that doesnt go through, then a P53, which is not thin and light but cheaper. And buy another laptop for personal use (and flying).

[olkipukki]

Yeah, honestly, I wasnt given a concrete budget. I only have a feel on how much could be accepted, based on our previous purchase for a Solidworks designer. Approving that was already like pulling a teeth for the management. So I aim lower.

Do you mean SOLIDWORKS?
Well, should be easy to convince a management and justify a new laptop - you pay same each and every year for the subscription
Actually, whatever SOLIDWORKS or Altium, cost 100 here or there less   

I think I'm going to request the P1 and see how it goes. If that doesnt go through, then a P53, which is not thin and light but cheaper. And buy another laptop for personal use (and flying).

Why not eGPU for a stationary WFH?
The laptop would in a closed state anyway and sooner or later fans kick off after a continuous work...

[alexwhittemore]

Now, I'm not SUGGESTING this is what you do, but I ran Altium on my Surface Pro 4 with a wee dual core i7 for like two years, which worked out just fine. And keep in mind, until AD18 Altium couldn't even ADDRESS greater than 4GB of RAM. Speaking as someone who regularly loaded a 24" long 18 layer design, which crashed AD17 50% of the time, on both a full scale workstation and a MacBookPro from 2014 running Parallels - you're overthinking the power you "need" here by a huge margin.

Focus less on "the most power I can jam into a laptop form factor" and more on "what reasonably-powerful laptop won't be a pain in my ass or shit the bed every 5 minutes." My last full-time employer forced me to buy a Dell Precision 7540 or something like that instead of a SurfaceBook because "that's what engineers use." As olkipukki wisely pointed out, the power brick for that thing weighs more than the entire SurfaceBook.

I promise you, I was not more productive for the extra TDP. I DID need better noise cancelling headphones to deal with the fan noise, though.

[tszaboo]

So I got a Lenovo X1 Extreme. The first one I had to send back, and it took ages to get the replacement. It's the local Dutch company who is handling support. The official lenovo representative actually asked us to write a complaint, because they want to get rid of them...
Anyway, it is a nice laptop, absolutely hate the keyboard, but they dont make good keyboards anymore.
Altium is running fine, except it was a pain in the butt to find the settings to use the dedicated GPU. Anyone wondering, the settings is not in the nvidia control panel but in windows settings. Zooming an moving in 3D with a fairly simple board with about 200 components loads the GPU up to 30%. Thunderbolt dock works, I have 2 extra screen connected to it.
It has USB charging, but the HP dock at work seems to be the problem. Every now ant then the screens flicker, and charging stops for like 2 seconds. So I have to carry the charger around. Too bad.