Editing Laptop

[junct]

When i built my desktop about 5 years ago, laptops just weren't up-to-scratch for video editing, especially for basic effects. Has that shifted?

I'm way out of date with any tech knowledge - i self-taught myself for months to understand what kind of parts I needed for my desktop last time out. Software and Hardware is years past that.

I sold my desktop when I moved countries, and now will be moving a lot over the next couple of years. Therefor a laptop is just far more practical.

I haven't set myself a budget currently, I just want to get an idea of whats around.

I typically edit in Premier pro with some dabbling in After Effects. I am considering moving over to DaVinci at some point. I do the odd project in Avid, when required. My license is currently expired as that hasn't been required for a long while.

Things I value:

• Portability
• A reliable enough screen for low-level colour work (I don't do a lot, but would like to improve - for serious gigs this'll likely be outsourced)
• Able to handle 4k h264 easily (I shoot on a gh4 currently, but I edit other gigs as well, so the gh4 is the bare minimum of quality of footage coming in).
• Able to handle light after effects work (bit of titling, bit of rotoscope, bit of masking - I'm not a VFX dude, but do tend to do little touchups on most projects)
• I prefer windows as it's most familiar to me, dislike Apple's philosophy, and prefer the price/performance ratio. But if there was a justifiable reason, I'm not going to get hung up on brand bias.

1) What sort of specs do I need to be looking at?
2) How do people handle footage, scratch disks, etc with laptops and not having a number of internal hdds?
3) Any particular model recommendations?

[morgan_moore]

I know little.

Bought a Dell 'gaming' laptop for $900
i7 seemed to be an important thing.

its OK for FS7 stuff in resolve.

[Darren Levine]

In general, gaming laptops are a good direction to look for video editing because many regular laptops have only basic graphics. Many effects used in adobe benefit greatly from a powerful graphics chip.

Both AMD and nvidia will work, but at this time nvidia is still a safer bet. Noticeable benefits start at about the 1050ti, but a 1060 6gb is where you would really like to be. some laptops can have higher tier gfx chips, but add a significant premium..

16gb ram minimum, and be sure to have 2 sticks to be in dual channel mode

CPUs.... sure the latest and greatest is preferred, but to simplify things just stick to a cpu which scores 10k or better on passmark.

hard drive, ssd for sure, even better is dual setup, 1 ssd 1 spinner

i got in on the walmart overpowered 15+ deal, 800 bucks for a setup hard to find near that price elsewhere. still out of stock. the 17+ is still available at 999. they're a bargain brand, but a lot of power for the money.

the msi g63 is a good choice to look at as well.

[junct]

Thank you, the target specs are a very useful reference point.

[Milan O.]

I have a desktop PC (Dell, 10 core Xeon with Titan X GPU) but now need a laptop for editing at a clients office but also for file transfers when shooting. I spent a lot of time reading reviews, tests and benchmarks last week and decided to order an MSI GS65 laptop with an RTX 2080 max-q GPU. It seems like having a high-end GPU doesn't make as much of a difference in Premiere as it does in Resolve (which I prefer to use nowadays). The RTX cards seem better in Resolve than GTX according to tests by https://www.pugetsystems.com/ (although they tested desktop GPU:s).

I'm considering changing my order to an MSI GS75, since it has room for three M.2 SSD's instead of two on the GS65, but I guess two drives will be enough (has to be bought separately) since both models also have a Thunderbolt 3 port. The screen seems to be improved on this years model too, but you can probably find last years GS65 for a much better price, but you'll need to install an additional HD and more RAM since it mostly comes with 16 GB RAM, or buy a 2019 model with RTX 2060 or 2070 GPU:s which will probably perform better than GTX 1070, but cost less than the one equipped with an RTX 2080.

[Ned Kelly]

I'm reposting this here as it may be more appropriate.


Quote Originally Posted by paulears View Post
"The GTX 1060 is not on the official list - so you lose it's onboard processing as Premiere won't use it."

Quote Originally Posted by deltoidjohn View Post
"I though they supported all CUDA cards now since a few versions ago, making the "official list" moot?
my GTX1060 is working just fine with Premiere."

I'm updating my laptop and deciding between 2 machines. One has GTX 1060 card, the other has RTX 2060 card. And I edit with Premiere Pro.
@Paulears is correct about GTX 1060 not being on the Official Requirements list, I checked last night (the 1080Ti is) and Adobe forums tell many stories about the 1060 card( and others) not being recognised by PP.

The RTX 2060, although supposedly being good for gaming, has according to VK at Personal View, lost video features and isn't as good as what 10xx series cards are for video.

Some people on forums are having success with RTX1060 and PP, such as @deltoidjohn, so I'm wondering if anyone is can throw some light on this problem please and help me decide.
I would like to edit with 4K eventually, but mainly 1080p until I upgrade to a 4k camera.

Here are the laptops I'm looking at;

https://www.centrecom.com.au/asus-gl...-gaming-laptop

https://www.centrecom.com.au/acer-pr...-gaming-laptop

Thanks in advance if anyone can help throw some light on my delima.

EDIT: Maybe this link to Adobe blog may explain problems with PP recognising some GPU's.

https://theblog.adobe.com/important-...d-apple-metal/

[david1pittman]

I do my editing on my XPS 15 9560. It works on my 4k footage.

[junct]

Howdy doody, popping back into this, these are the options I've narrowed down to a couple of refurbed Dell XPS 9570s which have great screens and are very portable VS a couple of Scan 3xs systems (bulkier but better performance/price ratios)
Without going into too much detail, it boils down to:

1050ti 4gb w i7 8750h (cheapest)
vs 1060 6gB i7 8750h (another £100 ish)
vs 2060 6gb i7 8750h (another £200ish)
vs 1050ti 4gb w i9 8950h (another £350ish).

So I can push budget for any of these options, but I'm a little unsure where the balance between the graphic cards and CPUs lie for my needs?