I'm asking your help for a new PC/laptop for work.
My needs are:
no gaming (lack of time, maybe GTA 6 when it will come, but I'm not a gamer, just to try it, and not at full resolution);
rust programming development (management software, not videogames), with builds that are VERY slow, even the development ones;
multi monitor, at least 3 24" 4K or 2 2K + 1 4K; so I think I will need a good GPU;
I prefer at least 64GB (but maybe more) for RAM and the fastest possible available today;
the same for the HDD (the fastest possible, I don't care if SSD or other technologies);
I will use both Linux and Windows, both at the same time or not (it depends on the project I'm working on); so hardware should be compatible with Linux too (and I know is a little nightmare).
I'm unsure about portability because I would like a laptop but I'm terrified of the noise it could make during the build phase every time I save a file and it has to rebuild the project. I also think that in a desktop PC case I can mount more powerful parts like the CPU. Or am I wrong?
is there a fanless but still powerful laptop (not Apple)?
can I find a laptop with powerful CPU (like the Intel i9 14900KS or Ryzen counterpart)?
I don't need to be able to upgrade the laptop every year, I will buy another one when this one breaks. That is to say that I don't need it to be disassembled like the frame.work laptops or similar;
for the laptop I am open to any possible screen size from 15" and up. Less than 15" no;
when in the office or at home I would like to work with laptop closed using external monitors, keyboard and mouse; so it should be cooled down with lid closed too;
I would like to avoid high temperature, so I need a laptop with good cooling system too;
no budget limit (but this doesn't mean I'm going to waste money for features or functionality that I don't need).
Love the fact you are asking this in a Rust users forum. For laptops, I've been using HP's EliteBook series for the past 8 years or so (always OpenSUSE as OS), which I can recommend on the lower end of your desired performance spectrum. Otherwise I've heard and seen good things from the Dell notebooks, I guess you want to have a look at the XPS and Precision series.
Just to put things into perspective, the fastest CPU for cold compiling a typical large Rust project is the AMD 7995WX, which costs 11,000 USD. You probably don't need or want that unless money is seriously not a concern.
For reasonably priced CPUs there's the AMD 9950X or the Intel 14900KS that you mentioned. Rust also heavily benefits from having the fastest RAM the CPU can handle, especially for incremental builds and rust-analyzer.
I'm not as familiar with laptop CPUs but newer, more cores, and faster RAM will be good there as well. Performance-oriented laptops usually have a quiet mode that runs the fans slower at the expense of some performance. And most performance-oriented laptops are built to cool both the CPU and GPU, so a CPU-only workload like Rust probably won't generate that much heat.
The only other comparable CPUs are Apple's, but they won't run Windows.
You don't need a powerful GPU to support many monitors displaying desktop content. Any dedicated GPU made within the last 6 years with enough display connectors will do it. This should also be able to launch GTA6, although right now, no one knows what that game will require. For laptops, they have technical limitations on the number of monitors you can have, so watch for that. And you'll most likely want or need a USB-C hub to plug all or some of your monitors and USB devices into.
There's also a bunch of things that are indirectly related:
You can get a cheap laptop and SSH into a more capable desktop or server to do the compiling.
There's distributed build and cache systems that also lessen the demands on your computer.
Are you using WSL? A Windows VM inside Linux? This shouldn't matter for which computer to buy but is worth testing to find which offers the best performance.
A fast SSD will be helpful for almost everything the computer does except compiling Rust, since Rust workloads usually load all files into RAM and keep them there for the rest of the day.
Here's some benchmarks of code compilation I found, although keep in mind the AMD 9000 series just released so it's not included.
I'm unsure about portability because I would like a laptop but I'm terrified of the noise it could make during the build phase every time I save a file and it has to rebuild the project.
One option is to have a workstation and use a laptop as remote interface to it, that way the laptop does not have to be so beefy to compile Rust. It just has to be powerful enough to run the IDE, browser, office tools.
I have setup dynamic DNS and wireguard on my home router so I can tunnel from anywhere into my machine at home and use the remote development features of IDEs. Remote desktop via RDP also works reasonably well on the same continent (assuming fast internet), it's less pleasant across continents.
I will use both Linux and Windows, both at the same time or not (it depends on the project I'm working on); so hardware should be compatible with Linux too (and I know is a little nightmare).
I have not dual-booted in years. I'd use either linux host + windows in KVM/QEMU or windows host + WSL, depending on how often I need windows, the latter is more streamlined but means windows has the driver's seat.
The only reason to dualboot that I can think of would be to avoid the pain of GPU virtualization.
the same for the HDD (the fastest possible, I don't care if SSD or other technologies);
An NVMe SSD is what you want for speed.
no budget limit (but this doesn't mean I'm going to waste money for features or functionality that I don't need).
If you're serious about that: Threadripper workstation + laptop for remote dev.
That's a top-of-the-line Pro model, with those you tend to see huge price increases for modest performance improvements. Picking the non-Pro 7980X drops the price in half. I don't know how much the loss in memory bandwidth would hurt compiler workloads though.
A fast SSD will be helpful for almost everything the computer does except compiling Rust, since Rust workloads usually load all files into RAM and keep them there for the rest of the day.
Caches can be cold. When compiling large projects with debug info the amount of intermediate files can be huge so having writeback not clog the system can be great. Profiling or loading memory dumps can require a lot of IO or even cause swapping.
>99% of CPU cycles may be served from caches and ram. But the human cares about wall-time, not cpu-time. And wall-time can be dominated by those "infrequent" but slow things. At those times you'll be grateful for fast IO.
