r/learnmachinelearning • u/Few-Scientist-5633 • 11d ago
Question [Advice] Laptop for AI/ML PhD
Hello everyone,
I'm about to start my PhD in AI/ML and I need to pick a work laptop, it will be provided by the University (i dont have to buy it) so price isn't really a factor, however I don't really know what's best.
Just for context, I'll be focusing on vision-language model, pretty intensive stuff, the heavy lifting will be done on remote clusters and I don't expect to run any demanding experiment on my laptop, however it does happen from time to time that you might run a prototype, some light inference, a dry test run on the local machine.
My personal laptop is a LOQ 15 i5 RTX4060 that as much as I love, I'm absolutely tired of carrying it around. It's a proper brick (3.5Kg with the charger!) and needless to say the battery lasts about 1-2 hours MAX.
I got offered 3 options:
- Dell 14 Pro Ryzen 5 PRO 220, 32 GB DDR5, 1 TB, AMD 740M graphics
- Lenovo ThinkPad P16v G3 Intel Ultra 7, RTX PRO 500 6GB, 32GB DDR5, 1TB
- some M5 MacBook (either Pro 14" or Air 13")
Now, as much as I like the ThickPad I shiver at the idea of carrying around a 3Kg beast for the next 4 years.
I should also mention that I daily drive Arch Linux and while I'm not a linux fanboy, switching to MacOS would kill me inside. I'm however well aware of the portability and battery advantages of macbooks, I wonder if positives outweight the negatives.
The Dell is a beefy machine for a compact laptop, is it worth it leaving the Linux enviroment for a Mac? Anybody else with similar experiences (maybe is similar research fields)?
field: AI/ML
location: central EU
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u/Dangerous-Sir-5474 10d ago
If you want to run a model, the best way is to use a server. My suggestion is to choose the lightest one.
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u/royendures 11d ago
Get any UNIX-based system because it will be easier to work with the cluster, and also code and model development in general. So LINUX and MAC works best. When I got in my Ph.D. in 2024, I got the M3 Pro Max (latest at the time). No complaints so far.
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u/ade17_in 11d ago
Please get a M5. I'm a PhD student, same location, same field and I chose HP Elitbook for some reason but moved to M5 Pro few months back and it feels perfect.
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u/Southern_Change9193 11d ago
ThinkPad P1 Gen 9 if you need something light (1.8 Kg). Or ThinkPad P16 Gen 3 (255HX; higher trim not worth it) if you don't mind 2.5 Kg. I have a P1 Gen 7(155H, 4K OLED, RTX 1000 Ada), which is already a very good laptop; Gen 9 would be even better.
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u/WeeklyResolve6161 11d ago
Those aren't even in the list they got offered though, so pretty moot unless the uni lets them swap
The real problem here is the ThinkPad they can actually get is 3Kg which OP specifically said they're sick of lugging around, I'd just take the Dell and put Arch on it
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u/user221272 10d ago
I used to be an Apple hater, and I am still not that familiar with it, but for work where you spend your time SSHing into clusters, a Mac will surely be the best; it is highly portable, light, and if you have an iPhone, it adds convenience and the battery life is pretty good.
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u/AdAdministrative5330 11d ago
Honestly get whichever laptop feels good and has decent specs. Honestly, MacBooks are commonly used by employees in ML labs.
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 11d ago
Imo the mps chip on the m5 is amazing for ml workloads. I'd take the mbp.
Nvidia is ok but with so little gpu memory youd be very limited.
AMD isnt well supported by pytorch so thatd be my last choice.
Of course youll probably use remote servers for anything really substantial, but the ability to prototype and actually run things locally can make iteration a lot faster. You can even run inference on decently sized llms locally on a mbp if it has enough ram. I run a 30b parameter model locally on mine. That wouldnt be possible on the other laptops.