Seeking low-cost quad core laptop with 32GB RAM capability

Kieron139

Hi,

Need some advice on a laptop. I need a quad core laptop capable of taking 32gb Ram. Initially 16gb will suffice, but I plan to run several VMs and at some point I may need to add more RAM.

I’m aware 16GB RAM modules are super expensive!... so right now I can only afford a laptop that is capable of taking 32g not one that come’s with 32gb ram. I will have to save up for the additional RAM. Also I already have a 500GB SSD (in my current laptop) that I can re-use.

Oh my budget is £400-£500(max)… I know that’s not much but I would be looking for a used one on eBay, and don’t mind an older model.

One last requirement, being a student, I need one that’s quite portable (ie 14” screensize or less) . It will be used for my studies so not bothered if it’s not a gaming laptop.

So in summary, I need suggestions of affordable quad core laptops, CPU 2.4GHz or above, capable of taking 32gb Ram, and that the screen size is 14” or below (ideally 12” or 13”)… what I will do then is keep an eye out on eBay for any used ones

Thanks.

Neil_Jones

Personally I would say if you need to run multiple VMs any laptop will probably struggle. Most laptops won't hold 16Gb of memory never mind 32gb, indeed at that price point you'd be doing well to get at least 8Gb as standard.

Note that not all laptops have ports for standard SSD drives, particularly those that come with SSDs already as they tend to be the smaller (physical) size M2 drives which are expensive to upgrade.

Depending on the need for virtual machines (dare I ask?) a desktop would be far more capable but will obviously take up more room.

rincage

I bought a Lenovo T460 with an i7 CPU and 16GB ram recently from ebay. I found 32gb of memory on ebay too. Sold the 16gb. So all-in the expense was just over £500.

lewishardwick

You might need to go for a custom build, which will blow out your budget.

If these are general VM and nothing too CPU heavy, you're more likely to suffer disk latency.

A desktop is a far better option. If you need to access it on the road, perhaps AWS or Azure would be better options?

onomatopoeia99

With that RAM requirement, are you planning to run several VMs simultaneously? To be honest if you are you're better off getting an old workstation with dual Xeons and using that then spending less on a laptop to carry around.


e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Precision-T5400-2x-Xeon-2-66GHz-20GB-RAM-Nvidia-FX580-512MB-550GB-Win10/302892809058?hash=item4685d17b62:g:lYYAAOSwjuFbpVvU

Our office server is lower spec than what I've linked there and has approx 8 VMs running most days in 16GB of RAM. They are mostly debian VMs, but one is server 2012R2 and a couple are Windows 10. That's on ESXi, so a bare metal rather than hosted hypervisor.



Or do you have a specific need to run multiple VMs on the machine you take to lectures?

System

You're looking at Corporate and workstation grade laptops so you're looking at Lenovo Thinkpad T series and Dell Precision. Your best bet is to buy a refurbished one from those selling refurbished ex-corporate laptops on Ebay.