gaming laptop for occassionall hash cracking

[janusz]

Hello. 
I'm new to the subject and just making first steps to get the right hardware. 


I have some issues concerning choosing right laptop for hash cracking. 
Choosing laptop is a priority because I'm not planning to make cracking rig and tunnel to it remotely. Considering portability i've found few 14 inch gaming ones which could meet ocassional hash cracking. I've found MSI phantom pro and Aero 14 both with gtx 1060. As my laptop would also be used in office tasks it should last long on battey. For now I have no idea which one to choose. Any experience with these two would be appreciated.

But recently I've found some nice ultrabooks like 13inch big and with thunderbolt 3 port. I also consider such installation with external GPU but didn't found much info about performance on net or any reviews how does it behave. Are there any issues in such installation? Or should I go for gaming 14 inch laptop. In this case I have bussinees class hardware which can do the job.

Another question is if I can connect to MSI phantom pro with thunderbolt another nvidia GPU but eg different model 1080 and can hashcat use both internal and external GPU at same time for cracking?

Waiting for some advise.
Thanks.

[Mangix]

I don't think anyone's tested such a configuration. Thunderbolt is equivalent to a pcie x4 I believe so cracking fast hashes may suffer. Other than that, should work.

As a fun aside, I recently benchmarked hashcat on a laptop with two 1080s. Was worried that this was going to melt.

[epixoip]

Cracking on a laptop (especially an Ultrabook!) is a horrible idea. They are not capable of dissipating the heat of any component running with any significant load for any duration of time (not even most "gaming" laptops, as gaming workloads are rather bursty.) Ultrabooks are an even worse idea, since they aren't intended for anything other than light computing (and also don't usually have discrete GPUs.)

Maybe you've never taken a laptop apart and seen what the thermal capabilities are like, but most all laptops share a single thermal zone and cooling solution for both the CPU and the GPU. You usually either have one or two heatpipes that runs from the CPU to the GPU and are cooled by one shitty heatsink and one shitty fan, or two heatpipes that are connected to both the CPU and GPU, which are cooled by two shitty heatsinks and two shitty fans, or one heatpipe for the CPU and one or two heatpipes for the GPU that are cooled by one shitty heatsink and one shitty fan. 

Some high-end laptops have more than one heatpipe and heatsink. The MSI Phantom Pro you mentioned has a total of five heatpipes, three heatsinks, and two fans. But it is all still shared by both the CPU and the GPU. In this image you can see how there is a fan for the CPU and a fan for the GPU, but the CPU fan has only one heatsink which is shared by both the CPU and the GPU, and the GPU fan has one heatsink dedicated to the GPU, and the other heatsink is shared by the GPU and the chipset. While this is certainly better than most laptops, it's still woefully insufficient for dealing with ALU-bound compute workloads. 

The only laptop I've found that's even remotely suitable for occasional hash cracking is the Clevo P650SE (and newer variants since that model is like 2 years old now.) It has the best cooling solution I've seen in a laptop to date (two heatpipes and a dedicated heatsink & fan for CPU, three heatpipes and two dedicated heatsink & fans for GPU), and it actually handles hashcat pretty damn well (you can read more about it in this thread.) But it's still a laptop, and I still wouldn't use it for everyday cracking.

[janusz]

Cracking on a laptop (especially an Ultrabook!) is a horrible idea. They are not capable of dissipating the heat of any component running with any significant load for any duration of time (not even most "gaming" laptops, as gaming workloads are rather bursty.) Ultrabooks are an even worse idea, since they aren't intended for anything other than light computing (and also don't usually have discrete GPUs.)

Maybe you've never taken a laptop apart and seen what the thermal capabilities are like, but most all laptops share a single thermal zone and cooling solution for both the CPU and the GPU. You usually either have one or two heatpipes that runs from the CPU to the GPU and are cooled by one shitty heatsink and one shitty fan, or two heatpipes that are connected to both the CPU and GPU, which are cooled by two shitty heatsinks and two shitty fans, or one heatpipe for the CPU and one or two heatpipes for the GPU that are cooled by one shitty heatsink and one shitty fan. 

Some high-end laptops have more than one heatpipe and heatsink. The MSI Phantom Pro you mentioned has a total of five heatpipes, three heatsinks, and two fans. But it is all still shared by both the CPU and the GPU. In this image you can see how there is a fan for the CPU and a fan for the GPU, but the CPU fan has only one heatsink which is shared by both the CPU and the GPU, and the GPU fan has one heatsink dedicated to the GPU, and the other heatsink is shared by the GPU and the chipset. While this is certainly better than most laptops, it's still woefully insufficient for dealing with ALU-bound compute workloads. 

The only laptop I've found that's even remotely suitable for occasional hash cracking is the Clevo P650SE (and newer variants since that model is like 2 years old now.) It has the best cooling solution I've seen in a laptop to date (two heatpipes and a dedicated heatsink & fan for CPU, three heatpipes and two dedicated heatsink & fans for GPU), and it actually handles hashcat pretty damn well (you can read more about it in this thread.) But it's still a laptop, and I still wouldn't use it for everyday cracking.

Thanks for your replies. Regarding ultrabook use I was thinking about using it with conjunction with external GPU connected through Thunderbolt. Recently I've found also other possibility such as connecting eGPU through PCIe but couldn't find any comparision between Thunderbolt and PCIe so don't know which one to choose. In case of PCIie I would need to find compatible ultrabook(portability and batterry time as most important factors). I was thinking about Thunderbolt standart becausse I assume newest means most efficient/best solution.