hi,

I'm a VFX student and have used Maya and Arnold but I'm going to learn Houdini as am familiar with node based software like Nuke. I would like to create CG /Effects assets for my final project.

I would like to purchase a new workstation/laptop, I was looking into either a laptop:

Intel® Core™ i7-6820HK Processor (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache, Dynamically Overclocked up to 4.1GHz)
* http://www.dell.com/uk/p/alienware-17-laptop/pd?oc=n00aw17r410&model_id=alienware-17-laptop [dell.com]

or desktop
Intel® Core™ i7-7700K Processor (4-Cores, 8MB Cache, Turbo Boost 2.0, Overclocked up to 4.4GHz)
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/alienware-aurora-r6-desktop/pd?oc=d00awr604&model_id=alienware-aurora-r6-desktop [dell.com]

Both have Nvidia GTX 1080.

or should I look into workstation with more processors like a XEON?
How much RAM would you recommend?

thanks in advance!

Either would suffice, if you want mobility then a laptop with alot of ram will be required. It depends some have one or the other, some have both; although expensive to maintain a desktop and purchase a expensive laptop depending on your budget.