[danpalmer]

I'd pick a brand that is good for what you want, then find a machine that meets that spec.

Most brands conflate "high spec" with "gaming", which is the opposite of what you need. I'd recommend looking at the business lines from Lenovo and Dell, and at the Microsoft laptop range.

Lenovo Thinkpads – good quality, business focused (read: less GPU, more CPU/RAM), Dell – pain to buy from, shitty sales, but I've heard great warranties and support for business customers, Microsoft – no bullshit, pretty much guaranteed to be great for Windows if that's what you want.

All my cards on the table, I'd just buy a Mac, likely a 14" MBP, but that's because I like macOS and the CPUs are very good at the moment. However if you're running Linux/Windows this is not a good option.

[vlangber]

I haven't found any good laptops from Dell, Lenovo or Microsoft that combined the features I want. I want a "desktop-replacement" CPU, good cooling and without GPU. There are quite a few gaming laptops that fit the bill, except the unnecessary GPU and high price (and ugly styling).

[danpalmer]

If you want a desktop replacement CPU I'm afraid the price is going to be high whatever you find as it will be a specialist machine. I'd expect $2500 and upwards.

Those 3 companies are probably the closest you're likely to find for high-spec non-gaming machines.

The only other thing I can think of is the Framework laptop. CPU is a laptop CPU but a good one, 32GB RAM, great expansion and repairability, ~$2600 on pre-order. Intel only though for now I believe.