Deciding between rtx 2060 laptop and m1 macbook air for deep learning

Submitted by gokul113 t3_xsjrws in deeplearning

Hello. I got the option to get either the MSI GF65 thin or the m1 macbook air at the same price.

Specs:

MSI GF65, RTX 2060 6GB VRAM, i5 9th gen , 500 GB SSD

M1 Macbook air 2020, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD

I'm slightly leaning towards the M1 because of the better battery life, and MSI laptops don't have a great reputation for it. But I'm not sure how it performs when it comes to deep learning tasks.

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elbiot t1_iql92sm wrote

Neither. Just plan to ssh into an aws instance if you're going to have a laptop. I bought a used gaming desktop with a 3060 (12GB vram) and otherwise great specs for like 900 bucks and I ssh into it from my 6 year old laptop.

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C0demunkee t1_iqmvl3d wrote

same idea but a bit more work: I got a tesla M40 (24gb vram) for $175 on ebay and it runs all the models no problem

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TheLoneKid t1_iqkykmz wrote

You don't want an M1 yet. I have one and it has been a pain. Not everything is supported on that architecture yet.

If you are doing anything large, you will be running on the cloud anyways.

Also, make sure you get an Nvidia GPU over AMD, since Cuda doesn't run on AMD.

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TheLoneKid t1_iqkyrjm wrote

That being said. I would really recommend using unix/Linux over windows

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buxdehudeUNICORN t1_iqlbz9x wrote

😄😄 deep learning on a Mac good one what are you training linear regression?

Like the person above already said anything bigger is always train on a VM somewhere aws ,azure or so on.

For doing minimal small experiments in notebooks with dataset excerpts you could consider running them locally but then again I would rather go with a Dell XPS in comparison to the Mac.

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Karyo_Ten t1_iqnb0i2 wrote

Neither.

Mac M1 for deep learning? No nvidia GPU, no deep learning, and before people pull pitchforks about PyTorch and Tensorflow supporting M1, it's a pain and many ecosystem packages only support Cuda. And recompiling everything is a time sink.

The RTX 2060 is a bit of a bummer when 3060 12GB is a clean upgrade for not much more, 6GB is getting small these days, and you didn't mention the RAM? 16GB minimum just to have our browser, VScode, and Discord/Slack or whatever you use to communicate and then your model.

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jk_xz t1_iqn3wh8 wrote

Some RTX 3060 laptops are coming down with their prices. Regardless, I wouldn't recommend the Macbook Air with 8GB ram. Tried to use it for deep learning last year, and the RAM bites hard. One visual studio code instance and several chrome tabs would make it freezing.

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