Laptop for Architecture student

[wiredimage]

I'm looking for a sensibly priced laptop which will be suitable for an Architecture degree student.
Course minimum spec is:

• at least 16 GB of RAM
• 15" screen or bigger
• A dedicated graphics card of at least 2GB
• An i5 processor or greater

Being a longtime Apple user returning to the PC world after a decade away is a bewildering confusion of acronyms and random characters as model names!
I'm looking for something that is going to last more than a single year of the course...
Does anyone have some solid performers (Make + model) and some anything above X is a waste of ££ pointers to share?

 

[Scrutinize]

I'm assuming budget puts the professional workstations out of reach. Currently what I would spec is £3k upwards.

So, you need a 100%sRGB 500 nits or higher screen at 2.8k/3k, helpful if touchscreen too, ideally a Core Ultra 7 or AMD equivalent and the absolute must have is the GeForce 5050/5060 for Nvidia Studio (even if low power variant). This is going to be in the £1.5k to £2.2k range.

It's not worth going lower spec than that for architecture.

I would look at 14 inch for portability with an external monitor but 15/16 ok.

If budget is tight a gaming laptop is a surprisingly good compromise at whatever size is best offer. Lenovo LOQ would be in the sub £1.5k range or Asus TUF. There are some relative random bargains about so depending on brand and sale you can get higher specs cheaper.

AMD GPUs are no good for some of the software like Revit so you'll have to avoid the integrated AMD models like the 395.

Overall prices are pretty painful at the moment on late 25' to current gen.

Ones to avoid are the Intel Core (non ultra variants). There are some bargain Intel i7 HX CPU equipped machines too with current gen GeForce RTX cards in. Specs are all over the place due to crazy pricing on memory and availability.

16GB memory will be fine really although 32GB preferable.

 

[ninjag]

I've got 16GB and it's apparently the fast CSODIMM type, but when using just Lightroom it get used up and wish I had 32GB. I would imagine architecture software to be more RAM hungry and as 16GB machines will come with x2 8GB sticks, then to later upgrade to 32GB could be expensive if there's only 2 memory slots.


This looks decent, fast processor and it has 100% sRGB colour accuracy:

Gigabyte Aero X16 NVIDIA RTX 5070 32GB 16" QHD+ 165Hz AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Gaming Laptop​

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/gigabyte-aero-x16-nvidia-rtx-5070-32gb-16-qhd-165hz-amd-ryzen-ai-9-hx-370-gaming-laptop/LAP-GIG-05471.html