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Gigabyte Aero 15 vs MSI Creator 15 (2020)

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waneka

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Hey!

I need some expert advice!

I do: 3D Animation, 3D World building, VFX, Video Editing (shooting 4k but mostly editing FHD), Rendering (Eevee, Cycles, Octane, Arnold, VRay), 3D Modelling and Sculpting.

Background story: I had MacBook Pros for the past 10 years of my life and always loved them. Now that 3D has gotten more serious in my work, last year I decided on switching to Windows. I got a Lenovo Legion Y540, i7-9750H 6-Core, GTX1660Ti, 16GB RAM, FHD IPS matt (144Hz) and was more than underwhelmed by the terrible plastic feel, the missing brilliance I knew from Retina displays and I thought it would be faster and snappier in the Viewport and on complex scenes. Also, the motherboard, speakers and audio interface went down after only 4 weeks of usage and had to be replaced. I leave the OS out of it because, as an Apple User, yes, Windows feels just incredibly impractical. But I knew I needed to give me some time so make the switch.
After 2 months I was done with it and sold it. I went back to Mac. I got a 16inch Macbook Pro 2019, i7 6-Core, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB, 32GB RAM. I did not realise, that GPU Rendering will not yet be possible with AMD and who knows when it will. This is a huge problem. Apart from this I like it but right now I'm working on quite complex scenes in Blender and C4D and its way slower than I expected. Sometimes I have to sit there and wait. So I am selling it to my Graphic Designer friend.
Sad story, definitely my mistake by not researching enough. But I feel like its not the easiest task searching for the right laptop when you do very complex things and cannot just build your own because you have to focus on mobility.

Now to my question: I was planning on configuring my own laptop with PCSpecialist, but now I nailed it down to two machines that fit my expectations:
Intel i7-10875H, RTX 2070 Super, no matt display and metal or aluminium chassis below 2700 Euros.
Gigabyte Aero 15 and MSI Creator 15 2020, which just came out.
For both I would upgrade to 32GB RAM. The MSI Creator is 200 Euros above the AERO but has a 1TB SSD which I would need to upgrade in the AERO.

I am happy about any advice on the better option. After these failed laptop attempts, losing nerves and money, I want to finally arrive somewhere.
Thanks a lot! :)
 
Jerry James

Jerry James

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Hey Waneka, do you absolutely need a laptop, or is a desktop an option at all? Since you already have a portable machine in the MacBook Pro 2019, I'd recommend building a PC if it all possible.

As for the two laptops, I'd go with the Creator 15. They're pretty similar, but the faster networking and newer Bluetooth connectivity on the Creator 15 tip the scales in its favor.
 
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waneka

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Hey Jerry,


I sold the MacBook Pro because whenever I have complex scenes it’s too slow. I cannot work with the AMD graphics card so everything has to be done with CPU. Also I cannot do GPU rendering with it. It’s kind of a waste for the Radeon 5500 8GB graphics if I cannot do 3D rendering with it.

Unfortunately I cannot have a desktop PC because I am very mobile, sometimes I am not home for months and have to have something with me during that time. I cannot constantly travel with a desktop pc. In another forum, people told me not to get such a powerful laptop because it won’t be able to sustain that power due to thermal issues. Because I read a lot of positive reviews on the thermals of the Aero 15, the question now is if one of these to options make sense and if so which is better:

Option 1: getting the Aero 15 i7-10875H with 32GB RAM and RTX2070 Super and doing everything on that one

Option 2: getting a cheaper Aero 15 with the same 8-core processor but less expensive graphics when working on the scenes and animations and plugging in a eGPU with the new RTX30XX whenever I am rendering. Basically having a portable GPU render machine with me.

What do you think?
 
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Ah, I see. Understandable.

Laptops will usually throttle on very long render tasks, but yeah, the Aero seems to have good reviews overall. We haven't tested either of those models ourselves so we can't say for how long it can sustain boost clocks before hitting thermal limits.

An eGPU sounds like the way to go from the two options you mentioned, especially because it gives you more flexibility and upgradability. However, I'm not sure about any bottlenecks on eGPU performance as I haven't used them. Maybe @Alex Glawion could weigh in about this?
 
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waneka

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thank you!! sounds really good. the last question I have is: do you think that waiting on the tiger lake h series in q1 2021 is worth it with this set up? With this set up, I guess it makes sense to focus on the fastest cpu since it won't be upgradable in a laptop but I am looking for a new laptop for almost a year now and it never seems the "right" time to buy anything because there is always something waiting around the corner. but waiting on it would mean I would need to rent a laptop from October on. I'm not sure if that's worth it.
 
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waneka

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right now I am looking at the GIGABYTE AERO 15 15,6" UHD OLED Display, Intel i7-10875H, RTX 2060 for animation, modelling and editing, which is 2100 Euro in Germany and then combining it with an eGPU with the RTX30XX series when it comes out, for rendering. Should be a decent set up in my opinion.
 
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right now I am looking at the GIGABYTE AERO 15 15,6" UHD OLED Display, Intel i7-10875H, RTX 2060 for animation, modelling and editing, which is 2100 Euro in Germany and then combining it with an eGPU with the RTX30XX series when it comes out, for rendering. Should be a decent set up in my opinion.

I agree. If your workload isn't that CPU-bound, waiting for Tiger Lake will be one long wait for not too much gain. Once the processor is officially launched, laptop models can take months to show up in stock in many regions.
 
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waneka

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I agree. If your workload isn't that CPU-bound, waiting for Tiger Lake will be one long wait for not too much gain. Once the processor is officially launched, laptop models can take months to show up in stock in many regions.
thank you for all the help!
 
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Will McGrath

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thank you for all the help!

hey! I’m in a very similar position. So which laptop did you decide to go for and do you already have it? Would like to buy a laptop this month for the same workload. And did you consider an external keyboard, mouse and monitor?
cheers!
 
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stephane

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i would go for a descent laptop and build a good desktop with a lot of CUDA at home wich you access when your need to make render .
i use teamviver to make it wake on lan . Do the render in a dropbox in a way that you beat any laptop . switch off the desktop when it's done . that's it !
 
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waneka

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hey! I’m in a very similar position. So which laptop did you decide to go for and do you already have it? Would like to buy a laptop this month for the same workload. And did you consider an external keyboard, mouse and monitor?
cheers!
Hey Will! I still haven't decided. I am really annoyed by the Tiger Lake Cpu announcement and RTX 30XX series, since I just feel like making a really bad decision in buying a laptop right now. But the latest that I really really have to have one is December for a bigger commission. Now that MSI announced the Stealth 15M I was first going for this one, then realised it has only 4 cores. To me it just doesn't make sense to spend so much money on a okay laptop and a okay pc built which I only have in my studio where I am working only 50% of the time instead of combining the money into a single tool that I have access to 24/7. I don't really know what "decent" laptop for animation means. I have a budget of around 2600€. If I can get a good combination of the two I am super happy about suggestions.

The only thing I really want is: having a machine for making animations in a snappy viewport. If I have a huge animation to render I can still send it to a render farm, or render it only when I have access to the desktop in my studio. My 16inch MacBook Pro is playing my animations in 3fps and I can only see it properly after rendering, so you can imagine all the nerves that I lost.
Still favouring the AERO 15 OLED with i7-10875 and rtx 2070 super.
What did you decide on?
 
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