Laptop Recommendation for Financial engineering grad student

Get something from Amazon for under $600. Minimum 4GB of RAM and a non-integrated video card and you're set. You will not crunch tons of data period. Don't burn through your budget. It's fine to have a computer that allows you to make some coffee while you run grid search on an ANN. It's a grad program. Any heavy-lifting will be in a lab, and almost nothing in class will be process intense.

Here's one example: Amazon.com: HP 14" Touchscreen Home and Business Laptop Ryzen 3-3200U, 8GB RAM, 128GB M.2 SSD, Dual-Core up to 3.50 GHz, Vega 3 Graphics, RJ-45, USB-C, 4K Output HDMI, Bluetooth, Webcam, 1366x768, Win 10: hp: Computers & Accessories

Mac is a waste of money. Lenovo will break on you.
 
If anyone is still reading, try ASUS TUF Gaming A15. I am gonna order it soon. The configuration I will be going for is Ryzen 7 4800H,16Gb RAM, 512Gb SSD and graphics card RTX2060 6Gb. I am getting it for 97,900 Rubles. This is around $1271.

I see a better configuration of the same product on Amazon. Amazon.com: ASUS TUF VR Ready Gaming Laptop, 15.6" IPS FHD, AMD Ryzen 7-4800H Octa-Core up to 4.20 GHz, NVIDIA RTX 2060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, RGB Backlit KB, RJ-45 Ethernet, Win 10: Computers & Accessories
 
I would go for Lenovo and the latest INTEL TIGER LAKE, hopefully this will be launched this month. What do you think?
 
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ExSan, On a desktop for me,is 64Gb >> 128 Gb memory is better?
And 16 cores?

I'm not exactly sure about GPUs .. one thing is I am not prepared to use is C++ dialects on the GPU.
 
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Daniel Duffy said:
ExSan, On a desktop for me,is 64Gb >> 128 Gb memory is better?
And 16 cores?

I'm not exactly sure about GPUs .. one thing is I am not prepared to use is C++ dialects on the GPU.
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I was wondering how does an excecutable program use the cores of the CPU.

Lets say I have two execuatables programA.exe and programB.exe and I launch them at the same time, both of them have been coded to last for let's say 10 min, dummy for loops, do they use a single core? multiple core??? is there an instruction in C/C++ to hook an excecutable to a core in order not to share it with other programs and cope all of its atention to the loaded/runing program?

I have no idea how the CPU handles C/C++ executables.

My platform ExSan uses Dinamic Memory Allocation, so for my purposes the best is DDR5(even better DDR6). I do not care much about hard disk/SSD
 
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I am using an i3 - 4th generation laptop (i3-4005U with 8GB RAM, SSD and with OS as Ubuntu). I have been using it for some time and I don't see any major problem. My decision to buy a later generation i5 or i7 with 16GB RAM depends purely on academic need during the MFe. If I can avoid buying a newer laptop I will avoid it.

If anyone can comment on the areas / subjects / courses where the i3 (8gb ram) laptop won't be good enough and I would be left regretting "I wish I had a i5 /16GB laptop!".

Thank you.
 
Daniel Duffy said:
ExSan, On a desktop for me,is 64Gb >> 128 Gb memory is better?
And 16 cores?

I'm not exactly sure about GPUs .. one thing is I am not prepared to use is C++ dialects on the GPU.
Click to expand...
I would go for 1Tb/Mem 32Gb/RAM
For multi threading programming the number of threads should be less or equal to the number of cores, 16 cores I think it is good enough
 
Buy a computer for yourself. Go with 16GB or RAM if you can, for yourself, not your program. Anything good enough for yourself will be good enough for your program. When you graduate and get a job, you can upgrade if needed. You will not be running ridiculous levels of Mote Carlo simulations to solve a homework question. It's school. It's theoretical. Buy something normal and it will be good enough. Pick your favorite, research paper from a graduating MFE student. Did they need a Xeon processor to do their calculations, or did they download tick data from a school provided Bloomberg terminal?


Do a processor comparison on PassMark. If you have a computer more than 5 years old, see if you can get a processor that scores double or more your current processor. Then, instead of going for drive space, prioritize a solid state drive. The end.

For example, here is your i3-4005U from 2014, versus a 2020 processor by AMD.

Here is a list of best value CPUs on the market
www.cpubenchmark.net

PassMark CPU Value Chart - Performance / Price of available CPUs

PassMark Software - CPU Benchmarks - Over 1 million CPUs and 1,000 models benchmarked and compared in graph form, updated daily!
www.cpubenchmark.net

CPU first. RAM second. Hard drive third. Save money overall.

You don't need 1 terabyte of hd space -> stop downloading movies. if you make videos, leave them on an ad card or upload them somewhere and delete.
You don't need 32 gb of ram -> unless you plan to be a stream on multiple platforms, at once, while mining crypto, and rendering volatility surfaces.
You need to stick to a budget -> Save your cash to have a 90 day no-panic period post graduation, that you can buffer into allowing you to search for a job like a sane person not a desperate one.
 
MichaelLewis said:
This would be a fun project. I’ve never built my own machine - does it come with directions :)
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I did it a couple of times years ago. Most of the time will be spent researching online on which parts to buy (case, motherboard, PSU, graphic card, memory sticks, etc). Putting them together is fun and it could be a weekend project.
You could spend a premium to have this one prebuilt and ready to ship for you.
Just keep in mind that the moment you fire up this baby, something better is just announced :)
 
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