X1E Gen 3 vs Gen 4 vs other?

[awebber]

Trying to help someone choose a new notebook. Among other things, they're going to be doing CAD work for a 3D printer (so fairly simple, but maybe more complex over time). Battery life is not critical, they'll usually be on AC power and an external display.

They're leaning towards a machine with Nvidia graphics, but is Intel Iris Xe good enough? Among the former, the choices with any sort of realistic delivery come down to X1E3 at C$2399 or C$2699, or X1E4 at C$4679. The Gen 4 has newer CPU, probably better GPU, lower resolution screen, and another C$2K. I'm thinking they are better to get the Gen 3, either i7 and 512 GB for C$2399 or i9 and 1 TB for C$2699. Does that sound reasonable or is it all overkill? They were already shopping for a new notebook, the 3D printing is a new thing.

And are there other reasonable options? In today's environment, the only other option with ship date of <1mo and <C$3000 is an X1C9 (i5 11th). If they should go for 32 GB RAM, the only choices are an X1C9 and an X1N2, both pushing C$5000 (ironically that's what I paid for each of my first 2 IBM Thinkpads, how the world has changed).

Thanks.

[mikemex]

Is there a reason to choose a laptop instead of a desktop?

[awebber]

Ability to carry it around.

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[H-Atkinson]

I'd wait for the gen5 to come out before buying anything. The gen3 is basically the guts of the gen2 jammed into a new chassis which trades an ethernet port for a little more rigidity. The gen4 gets a notable spec bump and an all-new chassis (which is pretty cool for the breathable keyboard), but loses out on WWAN and a 2nd M.2 slot if you get a higher wattage GPU. The gen5 should address this along with a meaningful jump in performance and efficiency thanks to Alder Lake. Even if you don't care about any of that, the gen5 coming out will lower the value of the gen4s substantially, and the gen3s a little.

[awebber]

Thanks, those are good points.

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