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A laptop good for coding will not be the best laptop for machine learning. Unlike coding, in machine learning, you have to train different models. For the uninitiated, a model is a mathematical representation of a real-world process. Your brain does this all the time. If you want to catch a ball, your brain will do all the calculations required and tell your entire body to position itself in the best way to catch the ball. And through training, you get better at it. A model is just like that, it goes through multiple rounds of training which involves solving complex mathematical equations to better make predictions. They make it easier and faster for computers to get smart. People rely on GPUs for machine learning because they excel at parallel processing, which makes it easy for the system to handle large datasets. In short, they make it easier and faster for us to make smart models. Although a lot of data scientists are now using the Cloud to train models instead of doing them locally. But still, some want a powerful machine to train models natively. So these high-performance ML laptops are mainly for them.
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The MSI Sword 15 A12VF is a gaming laptop that you can get your hands on for under Rs 95,000. It is a 15.6-inch laptop made out of hardshell polycarbonate with 23mm thickness. Meaning it can handle heat from the CPU and the GPU pretty well. It comes with a white-coloured theme, which looks good and matches the blue colour keyboard backlight. In terms of actual hardware, you’re getting a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12650H, a 10-core and 16-thread, CPU, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, the minimum requirement for CUDA compatibility, and 16GB DDR5 RAM running in quad-channel mode. My recommendation would be to upgrade the RAM to 32GB quad-channel for better performance in Machine Learning frameworks.
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The Dell G15 is another great choice for a machine-learning laptop in 2024. You can easily pick one up for a little more than Rs 1 lakh and for that price, you’re getting a pretty powerful machine. It features an AMD Ryzen 7 6800H, an 8-core and 16-thread, APU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM and a whooping 140W TGP. The 15.6-inch laptop is also quite beefy at 27mm thick and includes a pretty powerful air-cooling system, which is crucial to keep the laptop cool while training Machine Learning models for long. The laptop also weighs in at 2.51 kg and the heavy weight also reflects in the laptop’s high build quality. The Dell G15-5525 also comes with 16GB DDR5 RAM, which is user-upgradable, in quad-channel mode, and 1TB SSD as well.
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I highly recommend the HP Omen 16-xf0059AX because of its patented Tempest cooling technology. Sure, your laptop will make a ton of noise when spinning at max speed but you won’t have to worry about thermal throttling as much. Powered by the AMD Ryzen 7840HS, featuring 8 cores, 16 threads, and Ryzen AI, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM and 115W TGP. The Omen 16 also gets user-expandable 16GB DDR5 RAM running at 5600MHz and 512GB SSD. The relatively bigger 16-inch chassis also has a 23mm thickness, meaning there’s plenty of room inside the chassis for heat dissipation for sustained performance during ultra-long workflows.
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The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro is probably the most affordable RTX 4070 laptop on this list. The laptop GPU features 8GB GDDR6 VRAM with 140W and is paired with an AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX, an 8-core, 16-thread APU with a 5.1GHz boost clock, and 35MB superfast L3 cache. In addition to that, it comes with 16GB DDR5 RAM, which should be at least 32GB in my opinion, and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD. In terms of cooling, the laptop has a larger intake and exhaust vent for better airflow. Moreover, a 240Hz QHD+ display with 500 nits is also present, which won’t help much when it comes to machine learning, but it’s still there in case you want to play eSports titles.
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Nothing beats physics. If you have more room in your time, the better cooled it’ll be, provided the cooling fans remain functional. With that said, we have the HP Omen 17, a big, powerful, 17-inch gaming laptop with pretty powerful internals. Starting with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 with 12GB GDDR6 VRAM and a super high 175W TGP and an Intel Core i9-13900HX, featuring 24 cores and 32 threads. At this point, the specs are reaching desktop-level numbers. Moreover, the laptop comes with 32GB DDR5 RAM and 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD. The 17-inch laptop is also 27mm thick which is plenty enough to create better airflow and gets HP Omen’s tempest cooling tech as well.
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As probably one of the biggest and most powerful laptops on the market, the Dell Alienware m18 R1 powers itself using an Intel Core i9-13980HX CPU, a whopping 64GB DDR5 RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 with 16GB GDDR6 VRAM and 175W TGP. The laptop further goes more extravagant by featuring a CherryMX low-profile mechanical keyboard and per key Alien-FX lightning. With its humongous size, powerful internals, and a comprehensive cooling system featuring – 7-heat pipes, a bigger vapour chamber, and four fans – the Dell Alienware m18 R1 easily becomes one of the best data processing laptops in the Indian market. Suitable for running LLMs and any Machine Learning software framework, ranging from Pytorch to TensorFlow.
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Although ARM-based processors are generally more power-efficient than their x86 counterparts, the powerful M3 Max SoC still produces significant heat and demands more power. This means that a 16-inch MacBook chassis is necessary to provide enough space for it to operate at full capacity, allowing it to fully “stretch its legs.” This is why I do not recommend the M3 Max SoC in a 14-inch form factor. As for the 16-inch M3 Max Apple MacBook Pro, it can be used for Machine Learning and also Deep Learning. The laptop comes with 48GB LPDDR5 unified RAM, which is non-upgradable but has super low latency, and 1TB SSD.
