Best desktop replacement workstation (P775 v.s. P870TM-R (v.s. Area51M v.s. WT75))

Hi,

I am wondering what is the best desktop replacement laptop I can get to house an 8-core 9900K.
The system is used for coding (CPU & GPU development), compilation, simulations, rendering, some gaming and graphics / video editing, mostly running Linux.

Right now I have a Clevo P775DM3-G with 6700K and GTX1080 (delidded and with LM).
My main point is the faster CPU and a quiet system (right now I am running a custom Linux tool to control my fans, and for normal work I undervolt and downclock slightly), I could upgrade to the RTX2080, but that is not strictly necessary.

After a lot of reading and thinking, it appears I have the following options:

• Keep the P775DM3 and apply the firmware and hardware mod to plug in the 9900K (definitely cheapest, but I wonder if the cooling will be sufficient, and it has the danger of bricking my production system).
• Get a new P775TM with the 9900K officially supported. I am wondering whether the cooling actually improved with the TM generation. Overall, doesn't seem to make much sense to me, as the model is practically the same as I already have, even if I go for the RTX2080.
• Instead go for the P870TM-R from hidevolution, which has the better chassis, better cooling, and also RTX2080. Probably worth the higher price over the P775TM. I could even make use of 3rd M2 slot, 2nd ethernet and 2nd thunderbolt. I don't care at all for SLI (best use case I'd have is at some point plug in a Radeon VII in the second MXM slot for testing, although unlike to become available). Does anyone have experience how much better the P870 cooling is over the P775, in particular what concerns the CPU?
• There is also the Area51M and the MSI WT75, which can hold desktop CPUs. Seems they are somewhat better quality, but I think they are less expandable than the P870TM-R (e.g. 5 drives) at a similar price, so I'd probably stick with the clevo. In particular, since I know that I can control the clevo fans in the way I like. Getting a 4K screen might be an issue as well.

Also, I am wondering what will be the benefit of the RTX2080. As far as I have seen, the mobile version is limited to 150W v.s. 190W for the GTX1080, which will compensate its better efficiency. So it's only marginally faster, and a bit cooler. Perhaps better to keep the old GPU and perhaps get a Thunderbolt enclosure with an RTX2080TI, as that would make a difference.

In general, I am a bit disappointed that there are no laptop's like the 570WM with HEDT CPUs anymore. I'd love to put a Skylake-X or Threadripper in the laptop. Unfortunately, I didn't hear any rumors in that way for quite some time. So I guess it doesn't make much sense to wait?

That said, I am thankful for any thoughts or advice.

 

I can only speek for p775tm1-g with 9900k. Working in Houdini, arnold, redshift and reality capture.
Downgraded cpu a bit to x3.7 on all cores, rest are stock multipliers. Also undervolted of course and set the limit to 95 watts. But still super smooth and fast for a laptop, can’t complain. Temperatures are great but the system is far from quiet even with custom fan control

 

If you can use the ports the p870 series chassis is a beast. HEDT has gone haywire in terms of power requirements and cost to develop along with the sheer size of the socket. Even then the 9900k holds it's own with the lower core count models too.

 

If any of your work requires a Quadro then WT75 might be your best bet.

Otherwise I'd try and upgrade the P775DM3 with the 9900K.

P870TM-R has lots of expandability and cooling a single 2080 or 1080 will be much better than the P775.

CPU will still run on the hotter side but should be a bit better than P775.

For something like Radeon VII testing or any desktop GPU for that matter, the Area-51M will do the best with its Graphics Amplifier.

 

Has it been confirmed that the modded GPU heatsink in the P870TM-R is a vapor chamber though? That’s what I’m curious about.

 

Maybe @Donald@HIDevolution or @Johnksss can answer that

 

Nothing yet that I have seen.

 

Thanks for the answers.
I do not need to run any Quadro card, and for external graphics: Alienware Amplifier is also only 4 PCIe lanes, so for bandwidth-hungry applications it's not really suited, and for tests, I can just use any Thunderbolt 3 chassis.
What concerns HEDT, I do not really understand the problem with the power consumption. P870 series can cool 2 GPUs at 200W + CPU, so HEDT CPU at 200W should be feasible (although without SLI probably). Also, 2080TI instead of SLI would make sense in my opinion.
@Vernoux : Which custom fan control do you use? I have 6700K instead of 9900K which drains less power, but at least while the CPU is not under full full load, the system is pretty quiet. I let the CPU go to up to 70 deg before I spin up the fans loudly. (Of course this is at your own risk - actually temperature monitoring for the voltage regulators and chipset would be helpful, as reducing the fan speed does have more effects besides CPU/GPU temps.)

 

Yes, it is a modded Vapor Chamber.

 

Awesome :]

 

Obsidian-pc Fan Control (sadly only for windows). Loads in Houdini not constantly low or high, cpu and gpu loads change back and forth too often and quickly because of its specific nature so fans needs to be at 40% all the time before cpu or gpu goes up to 75 degrees on very high and long load. Otherwise the chassis and all internal components will heat up. Also Clevo’s blowers themselves are crappy as hell

 

I think you underestimate the Graphics Amp. It will definitely perform better than a TB3 enclosure. There was a thread somewhere showing a comparison between three methods and amplifier performed the best.

My Titan X (Pascal) was matching desktops easily when used with an external display: https://www.3dmark.com/fs/13653218

As for why no HEDT, things have changed a lot. A HEDT processor can easily exceed 500+W of power when overclocked these days. Cooling something like that and providing power would be hard.

Clevo is limited to 2x330W ac adapters officially although we do have a 780w eurocom psu now.

 

FYI

 

https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/13653218/fs/5018944

Here was my 4870hq and titan x Maxwell.

 

I didn’t watch the whole videos just the graph. I don’t know if he used external or internal display but AMP wins most of the time. at 1440p+ amp wins almost always.

When I had the AMP i was running 4K res so for me there was probably no bottleneck.

Good to see TB3 getting better though.

 

More time per frame will help hide any latencies so higher resolutions do suffer less.