Hi Alina,
Not what you like to hear but your laptop actually has the wrong brand of GPU. It’s a bit sad but there’s currently quite a monopoly for Nvidia cards if you want software (not only KeyShot) running with the fastest GPU acceleration. There is some software which also uses the AMD GPUs and GPU part of Apple’s Mx processors but it’s minimal.
An eGPU can help but I think the enclosures are way overpriced for what you basically get. It’s more interesting to buy a little PC desktop with a Nvidia GPU and use that PC for your heavy render work. That of course only works if you render using the GPU, which might be new for you but is much faster than rendering using a CPU. There are a few limitations with GPU renders so before you think about it it’s good to check if your scenes are fit for GPU renders.
Weather it’s a CPU or GPU render, laptops are always slower than their desktop counterparts. If mobility is really needed, you could also consider a laptop with a Nvidia GPU. It’s just way more expensive if you compare it with a desktop with same speed. It’s also more sensitive for high temperatures like you might have noticed and having a laptop cooled a bit extra does help to make it throttle speeds less.
I’ve also a Lenovo 2-in-1 Yoga laptop, it’s an oldie with a 1050 Nvidia GPU and I’m happy that’s not my daily work machine. It’s really a nice laptop but it will never beat my desktop. It can be handy though if I’ve to do some stuff on location but for heavy work I really prefer a desktop.
In the end it’s a matter of personal preferences but there’s not much you can do to make your Lenovo quicker I think. I ran sometimes a little software package which made mine throttle less (so at higher temperatures) but it’s not a real medicine for faster speeds.
It’s always good to keep your scenes tidy and clean whatever computer you use. I’ve a 4090+3090 Nvidia GPU in my desktop but still try to keep my scenes tidy. Saves myself confusion and makes working on a scene less time consuming. While using CPU the amount of triangles has a huge impact and I always try to keep that number low if it’s possible.
If you don’t have experience with GPU renders you may send me a KSP file (using PM) and I can render it for you at a GPU so you get an idea of the speed compared to CPU renders.
