Recommend me a compact desktop PC or laptop for gaming & animation
February 1, 2021 10:09 PM Subscribe
When I search for these things the results get clogged with PC building enthusiasts and advertisement-articles. I'm looking for a genuine opinion on a good PC, workstation or laptop that is pre-built and can handle gaming and occasional 3D animation in Blender, and preferably in a compact case.
I know it's popular for people to build their own PCs or have space for upgrades but I don't have time or interest in that. My current PC is from Digital Storm. It serves me fine for now, but I'm finding that I'm having to move homes frequently and it has been such a pain to lug around hoping nothing gets damaged. I'm wondering if someone could recommend me either a small PC or a laptop. For budget, preferably under $2000.
I know it's popular for people to build their own PCs or have space for upgrades but I don't have time or interest in that. My current PC is from Digital Storm. It serves me fine for now, but I'm finding that I'm having to move homes frequently and it has been such a pain to lug around hoping nothing gets damaged. I'm wondering if someone could recommend me either a small PC or a laptop. For budget, preferably under $2000.
Best answer: I do light gaming (think Borderlands 3) and a fair amount of 3d rendering on top of regular pc usage. I opted for the Lenovo P15 workstation as I also need to be semi-mobile. Most of the time it sits in its USB-c dock, but when I need to work on the go, I can. The selling points for me were the 16gb graphics card, the expandable RAM up to 128gb, and even the possibility to swap out the graphics card if necessary.
Here is the exact model I purchased. Don't focus solely on the price, there are deals around to lower the cost. I got this just before the end of the year for ~$2500.
posted by wile e at 12:05 AM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
Here is the exact model I purchased. Don't focus solely on the price, there are deals around to lower the cost. I got this just before the end of the year for ~$2500.
posted by wile e at 12:05 AM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
In the prebuilt world, a lot depends on the balance between value in the raw hardware and how well you're being taken care of. And of course, nobody knows what balance is right for you except for you.
I suggest watching a recent set of videos from Linus Tech Tips where they had one of their staffers order a ~$1500 gaming rig from several online stores and they evaluated the sales experience, the actual machine, and tech support. Part 1, mostly about the buying experience, is here. The tl;dr is that they got the best hardware-per-dollar from ibuypower and hp.
On the laptop side, there seems to be a consensus that the Eluktronics rp-15 has the best hardware-per-dollar right now (unless you find something on a weird sale).
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:18 AM on February 2, 2021
I suggest watching a recent set of videos from Linus Tech Tips where they had one of their staffers order a ~$1500 gaming rig from several online stores and they evaluated the sales experience, the actual machine, and tech support. Part 1, mostly about the buying experience, is here. The tl;dr is that they got the best hardware-per-dollar from ibuypower and hp.
On the laptop side, there seems to be a consensus that the Eluktronics rp-15 has the best hardware-per-dollar right now (unless you find something on a weird sale).
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:18 AM on February 2, 2021
Best answer: I do animation for a living (from home lately) and some occasional gaming. I built my own PC (and it's enormous) but my backup (from the Before Times when I might need to do work on vacation) is a Dell Precision workstation laptop. It can handle After Effects, Photoshop, Maya, Flash/Animate, basically anything I've thrown at it. I bought it several years ago refurbished (2017) and it's held up better than other laptops I've had in the past -- my impression is that their workstation models are more solidly built than their XPS/gaming models. For animation prioritize processor core speed and amount of RAM more than video card or number of cores -though for $2000 you should be able to do pretty well on all specs.
This one for example, if you are OK with refurbished, has a 5.1 GHz processor and 32 GB of RAM. I know you can get better specs for the same price if you choose one of the consumer models instead, but I do think you lose out on durability/longevity.
posted by matcha action at 9:50 AM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
This one for example, if you are OK with refurbished, has a 5.1 GHz processor and 32 GB of RAM. I know you can get better specs for the same price if you choose one of the consumer models instead, but I do think you lose out on durability/longevity.
posted by matcha action at 9:50 AM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
I do annimation with After Effects and also projection mapping on my home computer. I don't game. My computer is a Surface Studio. It's been great! Bonus it doesn't take up a lot of room on my desk and works great for other digital art creation.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 11:52 AM on February 2, 2021
posted by WalkerWestridge at 11:52 AM on February 2, 2021
Best answer: The problem mainly is the smaller the case is, the harder it is to find the right power supply to feed the monster video cards in them nowadays. Some of the video cards nowadays, the big NVIDIA cards, requires TWO power supply plugs to be fed! That pretty much means 500-800W power supplies, and those don't fit into compact cases, or those that do, cost upwards of 4k! (Something like the Corsair One)
This isn't really true any more - there's power supplies in the SFX form factor available up to even 1000W. I have a 600W one in my own self-built compact gaming PC - which is half the size, and less than half the cost, of a Corsair One.
There's way more options for compact machines than there used to be - just relatively few companies doing prebuilt units.
Some prebuilt smaller options in the $2000 range that might be worth looking at would include:
- Zotac, particularly their Magnus range which are impressively tiny. They've just announced the Magnus One which packs an i7-10700 and RTX 3070 into an 8.3 litre case for $1900!
- The Maingear Turbo range - customisable prebuilt options in a 19 litre case, starting at about $1400.
- Helium Mercury - a tall but very narrow design, various options starting at just under $2000.
- Origin Chronos - fairly generic standard mini-ITX builds in that price range.
posted by automatronic at 2:15 PM on February 2, 2021
This isn't really true any more - there's power supplies in the SFX form factor available up to even 1000W. I have a 600W one in my own self-built compact gaming PC - which is half the size, and less than half the cost, of a Corsair One.
There's way more options for compact machines than there used to be - just relatively few companies doing prebuilt units.
Some prebuilt smaller options in the $2000 range that might be worth looking at would include:
- Zotac, particularly their Magnus range which are impressively tiny. They've just announced the Magnus One which packs an i7-10700 and RTX 3070 into an 8.3 litre case for $1900!
- The Maingear Turbo range - customisable prebuilt options in a 19 litre case, starting at about $1400.
- Helium Mercury - a tall but very narrow design, various options starting at just under $2000.
- Origin Chronos - fairly generic standard mini-ITX builds in that price range.
posted by automatronic at 2:15 PM on February 2, 2021
This thread is closed to new comments.
Most online vendors that offer custom PC will have a small(er) case option. SkyTechGaming.com has the half-height tower case option, should be half the size of your full tower Digital Storm. If you play with the Ryzen 5 config you can probably keep it under 2K.
posted by kschang at 11:08 PM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]