Gaming Laptops for Data Science. The Goods and the Bads
--
You are about to start a Deep Learning but wondering which machine might be best for you. It’s offcourse a human nature everyone wants the best for them. But hey let me tell you something, what do you really want to buy a latpop or machine, is it really for a training a deep learning network? Ask yourself deep, do you really need that expensive, just to search how to train neural network or best project for beginners or really want to build a Real life Jarvis within a month. There will be two scenario if you are really want to build a Jarvis within a month, then you might need a heavy gaming machine, these are Pro Users or if you just want to classify some dog vs cats are about to learn deep Learning then you are Dummy User. For the Pros, I always recommend you to build a heavy Gaming Machine, purchasing a Gaming laptop isn’t fine because you will be continuously training your model for longer hours or might be days.
Before starting, just know what type of user are you? Dummy or PRO
Trending AI Articles:
1. MS or Startup Job — Which way to go to build a career in Deep Learning?
2. TOP 100 medium articles related with Artificial Intelligence
3. Neural networks for algorithmic trading. Multimodal and multitask deep learning
4. Back-Propagation is very simple. Who made it Complicated ?
But why wouldn’t a gaming laptop not be fit for you?
Most of the gaming laptops are heavy or bulky which will certainly won’t hold you for long, you will require to pullup your charger every 3 hours or so. And even if it’s light, there will not be enough space for cooling the system. If you really travel a lot and the bulky laptop doesn’t bother you, then there are plenty of gaming laptops that can do the job for you.
But, the best piece of advice is just to build a gaming PC instead of buying a heavy gaming laptop.
Let’s dig this more, the Truth of deep learning is it requires a lot of time to train heavy models. Probably days, running your laptop for days with plugging your charger, that’s really not a healthy thing for your laptop. Certainly over time your laptop will reduce its battery life.
But I don’t have that budget to build a 3000$ Gaming PC , what should I do?
Probably, you might have heard about cloud servers.
The best thing about the Internet is you can rent a high-end server that is running a high-end GPU and CPU, for a cheaper price.
The truth: It’s best for training a large number of models that consume a huge amount of time. But for learning purposes this is not the best practice as you have to frequently train newer models so it’s might go beyond your budget, and after each training, you have to turn off the server cause unnecessarily it might cost in some case
Are there any alternative methods, beyond Servers or Gaming PC?
Yes, there is a way. You can buy an eGPU to train your models. eGPU is cheap and comes around 300$ but certainly, you have to buy a high-end Graphics Card to increase your training speed. It will be best practice if you already have a good system (laptop or Macbook) to run up in an eGPU.
The truth: It won’t run as much as good as high-end Gaming Rig, but yes it will make your work done. Thunderbolt 3 has bandwidth limitations that do not allow eGPUs to do what their dedicated internal brethren accomplish. Latency issues abound due to Thunderbolt 3 lacking a connection directly to the CPU, whereas a GPU plugged in directly to a motherboard doesn’t experience these latency issues. If you are Mac users just keep in mind, NVIDIA will not offer you a reliable driver to run its Graphics Card. But it’s possible to do that. Check this for more
No, I want to buy a Gaming Laptops!
Yes, Gaming Laptops will run as almost as Gaming PCs. Before falling into bad gaming laptops just don’t forget to check this out:
- What’s is the thermal performance of the particular laptop?
- Does it gives you 4+ hours of battery life, if you want to plug you charger 24/7 you may skip this.
- Does it power throttle ? or Thermal throttle?
- What is gaming performance of your laptop?
- And finally, how long can it game?
And, yes if your laptops passes this test, then you are good to go!
Some of the awesome laptops I will recommend you by Brands
I am giving the priority to only to budget laptops that can be bought under 1300$ or less
DELL
Dell G Series are always better over Alienware Series as it’s cheap and best for budget-friendly users.
More than $1000
- DELL G7
Less than $1000
- DELL G3 or G5
HP
More than $ 1000
- HP OMEN 15
Less than $100
- HP Pavillion Gaming Laptop ( this might have thermal issues, please check Mathew Moniz videos for that )
Lenovo
More than $1000
- Lenovo Legion y740, y730, y720
Less than $1000
- Lenovo Legion y540, y530 , y520
If you want to know about this machine, you can ping me in Twitter or Ask me Quora
ASUS
More than $1000
- ASUS ROG Zephyrus G
Less than $1000
- ASUS TUF Series
ACER
More than $1000
- ACER Helios 300 (2019) Model
Less than $1000
- ACER Predator Helios 300 (2018,2017) But keep in mind, this thing doesn’t provide better thermal cooling
This is a shortlist, there are still many brands I couldn’t cover. Anyways now you have an idea and things to check on the laptop before you buy. If I forgot to mention your laptop you can mention with goods and bads.
Offcourse you can go beyond $1500 for Razer or Alienware or some expensive ROG series, the better the graphics card the lesser the time to train the model.
Conclusion
If you can really afford these you can buy them. Or the best advise would just buy a simple laptop that gives you the best battery life. And build a Gaming PC, just to train your model or investing in an eGPU is also a good choice.
Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !
