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Laptop recommendations for MSc in Science & AI (image & video datasets)

  • 01-12-2025 10:43AM
    #1
    PatMurphy021987
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 76 ✭✭


    My wife is starting a Master’s in Science and Artificial Intelligence in January, and I need to get her a Christmas present.

    She plans to work with datasets that include images and video, so I’m conscious she’ll probably need something with a decent amount of power (CPU, RAM, GPU,), rather than just a basic student laptop.

    Could anyone recommend:

    What minimum and ideal specs she should be aiming for (CPU, RAM, GPU), and

    Any specific laptop models you’d recommend (ideally with links) that have worked well for similar AI / data science workloads?

    Many thanks in advance for any advice!



Comments

  • #2
    ricimaki
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 829 ✭✭✭ricimaki


    What's your budget?

    Does it have to be a laptop? In general, for this kind of workload, you'd get much better performance from a desktop. Laptops with decent specs needed for this (mid/high end gaming or workstation laptops) will be large, heavy, noisy, have bad battery life, and large power adapters.

    Having said that, laptops with shared system/VRAM could be good, as video RAM is very important for AI.

    An example desktop would be the framework desktop - it is AMD, so maybe not as well supported as Nvidia GPUs for AI, but shared system/VRAM and overall good specs for the price. It's also fairly compact.

    https://frame.work/ie/en/products/desktop-diy-amd-aimax300/configuration/new



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