what's Nvidia Optimus???

[rawbutter]

My wife wants me to build her an augmented reality sandbox to use in her high school earth science classes. When I look at the plans posted by the people who designed the thing, I'm fairly certain I can pull it off. It's just a sandbox with a Kinect and a projector mounted on top facing down, and a computer underneath running the software. I can definitely do the carpentry part and hook up the computer bits, and even though the computer needs Linux and custom software to run the AR projection, I'm fairly comfortable with that part.

What's confusing me, however, is picking out a computer to run the program. The best computers at her school aren't nearly powerful enough (it's a public school, so the computers are as basic as they come), and I've personally never bought a high end computer before. I like my personal computers to be thin, portable, and cheap, but sadly they won't work for this. This page of the plan points out certain computer specs. It says my minimum requirements are an Intel i5 or i7, 3 GHz processor, 4 GB RAM, 20 GB hard drive and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card. And I'm not sure how best to go about looking for something like this. Obviously cheaper is better, since this computer will ONLY be used for this sandbox. No sense getting a top-of-the-line model for something that will sit in a closet for most of its life.

This all seems simple enough, but the instructions also point out that the computer should NOT have Nvidia Optimus, and that's what's tripping me up. I'm not sure I understand which Nvidia graphic cards have Optimus and which ones don't. Or...is it the computer that has Optimus, and not the card? I don't get it.

I'm also wondering if I should buy something new with an Nvidia card already installed, like this thing. Or....should I buy a used computer and a separate graphics card and install it myself. I've never built my own PC, but I have changed hard drives before and done a few simple things like that, so I'm unsure how intimidated I should be with installing a graphics card.

This used laptop also seems to have all the necessary specs, but again, not sure if it has Optimus or not.

[Curly2k3]

It's basically a switcher between GPU and onboard graphics for power management. Anything with a dedicated GPU can, in theory, be set to only run from the GPU.

[rawbutter]

Thanks. But now I have more questions. What's a dedicated CPU, and how do I know if a computer has one?

[fullofpaint]

G as in graphics PU not CPU.

Most motherboards comes with a basic graphics card built in, but they're extremely limited, basically for the initial setup. The separate graphics card (the 1060) is what you want to do all the work.

Optimus is really meant more for laptops, where when you're just browsing the net, you can use the onboard discrete graphics for better battery life, but when you want to fire photoshop up it will automatically switch over to the dedicated graphics card. But like Curly said it should have a switch to set to GPU only and in a desktop it's really not an issue at all.

[rawbutter]

Okay. That makes sense. So do all laptops do this GPU switch thing? Is the trick just not to buy a laptop and stick to a desktop model?

[Seajay]

In a laptops specs it will list a GTX or RTX and/or HD or RX with xxxx series of numbers, in addition this component will have listing for memory.
This is different from just onboard or CPU available graphics that lists the CPU + a video component.

It isn't always made clear to most consumers unfortunately.

If the spec is a 1060 or better dedicated GPU then a laptop version is considered a step down in performance. So a GTX 1060 physical card would equate to a GTX 1070 Mobile (laptop) version in most cases. What this means is that a laptop GTX 1060 might not be enough, as it's performance is closer to a 1050 due to power restrictions and limitations placed on it to run in a laptop.

With that super confusing (cause it is) description out of the way, you will be hard pressed to find an affordable offering in today's market.

The 1060 is a old family of video cards. We are now in the 3000 series for Nvidia, and soon to be 4000. I would expect then that a 3060 mobile version would be more than capable of driving the rendering. For AMD a 6600 would do the same. I'm unfamiliar with this setup though so I don't know if a NVidia card would be better than an AMD card, it really depends on the programming. Nvidia has more market share in compute applications though.

In short... any modern laptop/desktop with a RTX3060 or RX6600 should do what you want.

EDIT: uhh that pre-built is so overpriced it hurts my insides.

If you are going for a Desktop build, get a RTX3060 or RX6600. Don't buy anything previous generations, they are all 6+ years old at this point in terms of technology and you will be paying the same or near same money.

Used market is horrendous.

This PC should easily be $500 in a normal market.

[rawbutter]

Affordable isn't as important as avoiding headaches. We can afford a $500 PC or even a $1200 laptop. I just don't want to buy the wrong thing and then have to go through the hassle of returning it. Especially if I have to return it AFTER I build the whole rig and install all the software and then realize the computer isn't powerful enough to do the thing.

[Seajay]

Definitely. Unfortunately I'm completely unfamiliar with this usage so I don't have a good idea performance wise. However if a 1060 is the recommended GPU then a current generation rtx3060 or rx6600 will be much better and do what you need. The technology improvements have progressed a great deal.

Alternatively if the output is specifically task related Rendering and AI compute you could look at a Nvidia Quadro card. These are work station cards designed for compute and rendering tasks, rather than pushing graphics and frame rates. With linux you would need to do a bit of setup but a Quadro card could give you more control.

If you just need a plug n play option though stick with a rtx3060 or rx6600.

It doesn't look like the CPU has much demand at all. I'd go for the recommended core amount with the best priced option.

[rawbutter]

That helps. I was thinking about getting this model, but it has a Quadro p620, and I wasn't sure if that was better than a 1060. (Numbers are hard.) Sounds like it should be good, though?

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/workstations/thinkstation-p-tiny/thinkstation-p340-tiny/30dfcto1wwus1

Although...someone else mentioned that I should be able to plug my monitor directly into the card. Not sure if the "tiny" desktop models allow something like that. There doesn't seem to be that many ports on the back.

[Curly2k3]

Sorry, haven't been back on since my initial response.

The technology in question is really a non-issue with a desktop that has a dedicated graphics card, assuming you're plugging your display cable into the graphics card itself, not the HDMI or display port on the motherboards io itself.

On laptops, you can generally disable the function of that switcher in the bios. There are exceptions to this that I've seen, but anything that advertises a high refresh rate panel or literally any laptop that advertised gsync for the panel will be able to disable on board graphics (Intel hd, iris, whatever) and only use the GPU for processing. That's what you'll want by the sounds of it.

With that said and out of the way, 20 series or newer will get you additional ai and rendering cores (tensor and rtx) to better process the complex work loads she may be creating. Best buy had a great option for around $800 yesterday, I'm not sure if that's still available or not currently, but it has a rtx3060 which would likely be more than capable.

If it's running Linux and is primarily ai focused, it might be worth looking into compatibility with something like an Nvidia Jetson Nano or similar that's really well suited for similar machine learning and like work tasks even.