Quark

I hadn't thought about a second monitor for traveling and that looks like a great idea. Thank you

TBH I have yet to understand pricing on ultra-high-end notebooks that can come out to $15k (like Precision 7000 series) but the specs on paper can end up slower than a fast gaming laptop. Is it something about build quality, cooling, durability, harsh environments? Or maybe they send 5 engineers onsite by helicopter when it needs service? (kidding about the last one). Maybe a buyer of those could explain the difference in value. I agree. There is a price disadvantage for buying RAM, SSD, etc. pre-installed from the Mfr and the difference vs installing aftermarket can get pretty big. I don't mind adding drives or RAM at all. Do you find CPU thermal paste a little fiddly to work with?

I had been looking at DELL precision 7000 series as "workstation" laptops and happened to be on 50% clearance. I went through configuration tool and specified options for memory and storage that I thought would be similar to the way I'd equip a CLEVO X170 or MSI GT77, and the Precision came out as $15000. (I think graphics memory on the config I tried was 6 GB vs 16GB on the 3080 or 8 GB on the 3070.) Even at 50% clearance discount it was still $7500 USD. I said "ouch", too far above budget even with 50% discount in effect. I'll look at the ThinkPad before deciding what to do ... thank you!

I'm new here and found my way to this area; here is a summary and replies to the list of questions for "which laptop should I buy." I am interested to learn what you think. Summary: I bring work on some travel (maybe it is 10 to 20% travel). Some tasks are compute intensive and can use plenty of physical memory. A lot of tasks are easier for me with larger screen real-estate (in office I like a second monitor). I seem to use plenty of storage. There is low priority on games but sometimes bought gaming notebooks just for performance. I don't think display speed is highest priority (because games would be rare or none) but I would really like good color gamut for sometimes working with images. I don't want a hobby in making custom modifications: I want a powerful machine for cranking out work instead of diverting time into the machine itself. I want at least 4 or 5 years of service even when some travel miles have been put on it, so build quality really matters and my preference is toward cooler and bulkier instead of thin / throttled / hot. I would be extremely unhappy with a notebook that fell apart in 2 years. Lately I have started to think maybe 64GB max memory is going to be too small during the next 4-5 yrs; not sure but I am getting leery about designs with max 64GB.

I have been considering making new purchase right now of X170KM-G or Titan GT77 i9-12900HX and have yet to feel completely good about either choice where it is between "end of the road" or slimmer design (and I don't like thinner if it means hotter, throttled, etc.) As someone who already has X170KM-G would you feel comfortable to make a comparison between the two or maybe would you say not to buy anything for right now?

Honestly I have been considering to buy into X170 right now. But I wonder about waiting maybe is a better idea. And then there is MSI Gt77 titan that could try to take away the money while I wait for successor to X170. Is there realistically nothing as a very good decision to buy today?