3D Modeling/Rendering... Go SP4 or SBook?

[itgogitrev]

Long time lurker on these forums, but I'm at a crossroads with a decision for a second workstation. I'm hoping that a few people here will chime in and point me in the right direction.

I use AutoCAD and 3DS Max on a daily basis at work to render out static interior environments. I also do animations but I have a truckasaurus of a workstation for those. What I'm really looking for is a pared-down, more portable version of my office machine... kinda like having a good camera phone when I don't have my DSLR.

I'm currently looking at an i7/8Gb-RAM/256Gb SP4 to work off of. This will be used in conjunction with the typical Adobe CC PS, Ill, InD, and LR with the possibility of some AfterEffects thrown in too. Here's my main questions:

• First things first, am I better off with an SBook with a dGPU?
• If a SP4 is okay, am I okay with a i7/8Gb-RAM/256Gb SP4, or should I consider a i7/16Gb-RAM/256Gb SP4 instead?

Ideally, either choice will be hooked up to a dock of some sort to allow dual monitors (non-4K for performance reasons), a keyboard with a dedicated 10-key, and a mouse. The perfect answer to this would be an SP4 with a dGPU in the actual tablet (not the keyboard), but we don't live in a perfect world.

Anyways, please tell me your experiences! Thanks in advance!

 

[Edgar_BCN]

I would recommend take a look at the taskbar within your current laptop/workstation and check how many RAM are you using with all of these programs.

And also check if Intel Iris is supported for hardware acceleration, at least Adobe suite only give support from 2015 version.

 

[lightman]

I'm using my spro4 with modo and it works great! The only thing it has a problem with is the advanced viewport in modo which is more like a pbr viewport. The regular viewports work fine. I have the i5 8 gig ram model which is ok for me as it's not my main workstation. I'm using it more for taking to clients and making changes to files when I'm away from the office. I'm not really doing any rendering with it more modeling and scene setup. I wouldn't expect it to replace my workstation even if I had the i7 model.
I looked at the SB but it was to big for me, I wanted something light and portable but fast.
I figured the i7 would eat the battery, it's bad enough with the i5.

 

[radicalnegative1]

I've been using SolidWorks on my SP4 i5/8/256 with an external ultrawide. It does pretty well, even with large assemblies. Feather mode becomes a necessary feature once you get into super complex stuff though - as expected.