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The primary reason to get a laptop (well reasons) are portability and space; other than that, waste of money.
I've bought and used asus for years to render, before the latest IRAY became so memory intensive. It worked fine. I'd do at least 32 gig of ram though. 16 is just not enough.
If the GPU only has 4GB of VRAM, then 16GB of RAM will be OK, because it would be pretty hard to build a scene that fits the GPU and yet exceed the RAM. And RAM is the easiest thing to upgrade later on. You can upgrade RAM with your eyes closed.
If you do a GPU that has 8GB or more, then it becomes more sensible to upgrade the RAM to 32. This appears to be a budget build (since we are talking about 1650's and 1660's which are budget level GPUs), so the money on that memory can be better spend elsewhere. Just keep it in mind for the future.
Perhaps make sure the machine is capable of 32GB of RAM, so if it is ever needed, the option is there to upgrade it. But I would put that money in the GPU first.
The GPU is first priority.
The second priority is the GPU.
And the third priority, in case anyone missed the first 2, is the GPU. In Iray you get nowhere without it.
You can literally slap a 2060 in a 15 year old junk Core 2 Duo and it will render as fast as a 2060 in a brand new machine.
I've heard very good comments about Asus, that means it's a good equipment. And yes, I'll consider the laptop cooling too. It's probably I decide for a laptop, because I've not found a desktop with the requirements I need. I appreciate so much your advices, guys. Thank you so much!
I've done virtually everything on a laptop for the last 18+ years. During that time I've also had 2 desktops, and have probably spent less than two months on them (other than rendering animations and processing photogrammetry which one was purchased for). I need the portability of a laptop to take my work/demos to meetings, but even without that need I would probably still use a laptop more. With the laptop I can spend time working on the computer while being with my wife in the living room and "watching" TV. I simply don't like working on the computer at home in another room, away from the family. If I am like anyone else in the world, I would say that for some people a desktop simply isn't practical.
Sadly, like too many products it depneds on the specific item. Also when it was manufacturer. I have a HP 15C that stills works fine.
I would say that as users of Daz Studio we don't really represent the norm to begin with. This is niche stuff, and few people possess a computer capable of this 3D hobby or work at all. For some people, their desktop may be their living space. That is what I used to do. My desktop used to be plugged into a 60" TV. I sat on my couch with my wireless mouse on the arm and wireless keyboard in hand. When people watched my TV, I switched to a laptop...but the laptop didn't run Daz, it streamed my desktop instead.
That's another option, BTW. For the sky high price of a laptop, you can buy a much more powerful desktop AND a cheap laptop and use the cheap laptop to stream the desktop to where ever you want in your home. So you can have both power and portability at the same time. I used Daz Studio over a stream for several years, so I can confirm it is very possible to do it. If you travel outside the home, then it becomes a little less viable. But around the home there is no issue at all. And even when away from home I had few issues streaming my desktop about 200 miles to a second home. If the internet is dependable from both locations it can work. For an in home network, having a set up for AC band WIFI helps a lot. You can even stream to tablets and phones if you want. Android will support a mouse, just plug and play. You can plug and play a keyboard, too, if you want. I have used a mouse on my Amazon Fire tablet while streaming my desktop. Its actually a decent experience. Consider this...you can pinch zoom the screen on a tablet or touchscreen laptop, which is quite handy, though Daz Studio does not support any touch controls, you can pinch zoom the entire screen to see stuff up close.
We bought a house recently and I changed things around a bit so I stream less these days. But I still have the ability to do so and sometimes still use it. Its very convenient to just open up my phone and take a peak at an on going render to see how it looks or if it has finished. And if it has I can go ahead and save it, all from my phone. Sometimes I'm not even home when I do that.
Yep...
Using a 4 year old setup, MSI X99A SLI Plus, i7-5820K@3.3GHz. Had 32GB on it and a 4GB GTX 960
Upgraded the system today with 64GB and a 8GB RTX 2070 Super - No other changes.
A scene that took previously 10.5 hours to render, finished in 25 minutes...
I guess, I don't need to upgrade anything else this year.
It's all hugely subjective to individual lifestyle. My hubs and I both spend most of our time in my office...him on his desktop and me on mine. When I'm working, I'm still in my office, but on my work computer. He works during the day in another room, but then comes into the office when his day is done. I have the capabilities to flip my computer over onto my big TV in the living room via HDMI cable run through the walls, but I honestly find it uncomfortabl as all hell to do anything more than console game on the couch. Trying to type and my back just *nope*.
I suppose if we had human children it'd be different...our fur-babies just come into the office with us. It's like a kitty flop-house wherever we go, haha.
Like I said in my post previously, the only two reasons to consider a laptop is portability and size.
Nice. Odds are you didn't really need the extra RAM, but it certainly never hurts. The 2070 Super is a champ.
Decided to get more RAM as GPU-Z reported both, the GPU memory and system memory at 100% used while rendering. Now it shows both at around 75%
The extra RAM also made the system a lot more responsive.
Studio is a RAM hog, I've had it use over 32GB all on its own. I use a 6GB 980ti.
So to conclude the issue, your GPU is the most important piece of hardware with regard to Iray rendering speed. And we all want rendering speed don't we.
A good new GPU dropped into an older rig with an older CPU and MB will do quite fine in my experience, with the latest GPU drivers installed.
Collectively we have our fingers crossed with the RTX 3000x, or whatever they'll call them, to prove that point. I can't see any sane person upgrading their hardware for a few months until NVIDIA releases their new GPUs. Add some more sys RAM, it never hurts, but hold off on buying a GPU for the time being.
I would agree, providing that the system can support it.
Whilst dropping a titan in said old relic would see an increase in render speed, the system may not support it - if not for all scenes then for some. So a better option in that case might be a 2080ti and some PC upgrades.
I've held off upgrading for years; glad I did, I get more from Blender; it certainly wouldn't suite everyone, but it does suit me - and I never run out of GPU RAM.
If Iray is your preferred rendering medium, for whatever reason, then certainly getting the best card you can afford will get you the best results.
On Acer, since they're bashed so much: I've had a couple of Acers in my life and think they are very very good, at making cheap laptops.
For a $1000 laptop I wouldn't even bother to check their webpage, but on a $400 budget, I don't see anyone beating them at their game. A bit like Kia cars of the past; not something anyone lusts for, but if a BMW isn't on the menu, the Kia gets the job done.
I just upgrraded my motherboard, processor and memory getting ready for the NVidia RTX 3000 series cards since they are supposed to be PCI 4.0. Upgraded from an Intel I5 4670K on a Gigabyte Gaming 7 MB with 16 GB of Patriot DDR3 to an AMD Ryzen 3700X on a Gigabyte Aorus Pro WIFI MB with 32 GB of G.Skill DDR4 3600 memory. I retained my EVGA GTX 1070 8GB, my EVGA 1200 watt PSU and my drives.
To the origional OP, unless you absolutely positively have to have portability and the money to purchase a desktop replaacement high end laptop, definatgely go desktop just for the upgradability. A core system can last a long time with storage, memory, and GPU upgrades. I also reccomending getting the most poweerful power supply you can afford in case you ever decide to run multiple vodeo cards to up uyour Cuda core count.
My current system has been upgraded so many times, only the system name is the same. I replaced my Corsair HWX1000 PSU late last year with an EVGA SuperNova 1200 watt Platinum PSU simply because the Corsair was almost 12 years old and I was worried it might fail soon. I am planning on running two RTX series GPUs and wanted enough power to run two high end cards (or a couple of Quadro cards if I ever win the lottery). My last core build (CPU, MB & Ram) lasted 5+ years and I plan on this on lasting hopefully as long. That build had 3 cards on it. a 2GB GTX 860, a 4GB GTX 960, and my current 8GB GTX 1070. Have upgraded stroage several times and currently have a Samsung EVO 860 SSD and a pair of WD Blue 2TB drives in raid 1 (=cloud storage) and getting ready to upgrade to 4TB sopinning disks after the GPU upgrade. I also finally retired my Cooler Master CM690 case after 15 years of service for a new Cooler Master H500P Mesh White case.
My system is on it's third Cooler Master Case (I just like them), fifth Gigabyte motherboard (I like having the dual bois's from my stupid overclocking days, Saved me severtal time when I did something stupid) and myriad AMD and Intel processors over the years and at one time had over 8TB of spinning disks (9 hard drives of varying sizes incluicing a raid 0 stripped array).and have gone from WIndows XP to WIndows 7 Ulitimate and now on WIN 10 Pro (it was a free upgrade).
Again to the OP, unless all you can get is a laptop, try get or build a desktop ewith some upgradeability. But if all you can get is a laptop, be sure it has an GTX 10 seried or RTX 20 series or better NVidia GPU and try to find one that shares system memory with the GPU chip then put the most memory in it you can afford. Not sure if they still do that because I haven't bought a laptop in years.