Tech Gurus - Computer Advice Please!

malibu_adam

malibu_adam

Yes.
Hey guys! I am in the market for a new laptop. I just have fell out of the loop when it comes to technology. I left the IT world nearly 10 years ago and man have things changed. LOL...

I am looking for a laptop, a nice middle ground that will perform well.

Things I will be doing on the laptop:

Photoshop and Illustrator Graphics
Adobe Aftereffects Motion graphics
Adobe Premier Video Editing
Random Multimedia stuff.

Anyone have a good laptop they would recommend? I looked at the MacBook Pro, but $3,500 for the setup I spec'd out seems a little steep for me.

Or, if you think I can get that stuff done without upgrading the MacBook pro standard options... that is also an option.
 
malibu_adam

malibu_adam

Yes.
Small promo videos... ranging from 1 minute to maybe 15 minutes long. Shot with a canon 7d, GoPro7.... random motion graphics for intros and transitions... does that help?
 
Climber

Climber

Well-known member
For starts, given that you'll be doing photo and video editing, I'd go for the i7 chip. More expensive, but well worth it.

You'll need plenty of memory, but you can upgrade most of the i7 based laptops for more memory, if you want to save some $$$.

I would absolutely go with a SSD drive, you'll need at least a 512meg one, they've come down in price quite a bit over the last year or so. I LOVE the 5 second from turn-on to log-in with SSD's!

I was a Dell man for years, but have been impressed with the HP over the last several years, more bang for the buck.

I'd go with a smaller 14 in monitor to keep the size down, but I'd get a 24-26 inch monitor to hook up to it at home.

My :2cents
 
yumdumpster

yumdumpster

Well-known member
Climber said:
For starts, given that you'll be doing photo and video editing, I'd go for the i7 chip. More expensive, but well worth it.

You'll need plenty of memory, but you can upgrade most of the i7 based laptops for more memory, if you want to save some $$$.

I would absolutely go with a SSD drive, you'll need at least a 512meg one, they've come down in price quite a bit over the last year or so. I LOVE the 5 second from turn-on to log-in with SSD's!

I was a Dell man for years, but have been impressed with the HP over the last several years, more bang for the buck.

I'd go with a smaller 14 in monitor to keep the size down, but I'd get a 24-26 inch monitor to hook up to it at home.

My :2cents
Click to expand...

4900hs crushes even the i9's in multithreaded workloads.

OP

I have been keeping my eye on this one, it ticks a lot of boxes for me.

Small ish form factor, light-ish at 3.6lbs, decent display, decent GPU, and probably the fastest laptop CPU on the market today. I only wish it came in black.


https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-r...b-ssd-moonlight-white/6403816.p?skuId=6403816
 
mikev

mikev

»»───knee───►
Hella overkill.

Get the one Yumdumpster linked for 1350. I'll charge you $500 for my advice, you're still like 500 under budget. :teeth
 
auntiebling

auntiebling

megalomaniacal troglodyte
Staff member
malibu_adam said:
I'd say staying below $2400 if possible
Click to expand...
one of my professors in college mentioned the 2nd most famous computer law, next to the one about transistor density doubling every XX years (morh's law?) is that the computer you want is always $3k
 
malibu_adam

malibu_adam

Yes.
yumdumpster said:
4900hs crushes even the i9's in multithreaded workloads.

OP

I have been keeping my eye on this one, it ticks a lot of boxes for me.

Small ish form factor, light-ish at 3.6lbs, decent display, decent GPU, and probably the fastest laptop CPU on the market today. I only wish it came in black.


https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-r...b-ssd-moonlight-white/6403816.p?skuId=6403816
Click to expand...

I know back in the day I used to lean toward Intel processors over Celeron or AMD... have they improved greatly? Would the 2.3GHz and 16 gigs of RAM be sufficient for what I do?

I've never really heard of ASUS.

My current setup is this:
Intel Core i7-8700T 2.4 GHz 16 GB ram...

Thanks for the input guys!
 
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mikev

mikev

»»───knee───►
AMD is currently kicking the shit out of Intel in the laptop/mobile processor world.
 
yumdumpster

yumdumpster

Well-known member
malibu_adam said:
I'd say staying below $2400 if possible
Click to expand...

I dont see any point in spending more than 1500 unless you want a desktop replacement or a MBP.

malibu_adam said:
I know back in the day I used to lean toward Intel processors over Celeron or AMD... have they improved greatly? Would the 2.3GHz and 16 gigs of RAM be sufficient for what I do?

My current setup is this:
Intel Core i7-8700T 2.4 GHz 16 GB ram...

Thanks for the input guys!
Click to expand...

AMD is absolutely spanking Intel right now on multithreaded workloads.

Also Intel is only like Generation 5 of their 14nm architecture, they have been stuck in a rut since like 2015. They have a slight advantage with single threaded applications and gaming but not enough to justify the additional cost and heat that they usually run. Also due to being on a smaller processing node the AMD processors actually have superior battery life and run cooler than their intel counterparts.

Ignore clockspeed, its really only a marketing gimmick now, IPC is more important, and in any event both the I7 and the Ryzen will turbo far higher than their advertised clock speeds for short durations.

mikev said:
AMD is currently kicking the shit out of Intel in the laptop/mobile processor world.
Click to expand...

Shit just in the consumer space in general. I built a new desktop a year ago and for the first time Ever I am running AMD. I went Q6600 -> 2500K -> 2700K -> 3570K -> 6700K -> Ryzen 9 3900X
 
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T

TylerW

Agitator
Apple's industrial design is second to none, and if you need that, I get it. It also wins points with clients if you plan on bringing this computer to meetings with them.

If those don't matter to you, don't buy Apple. the price/performance offering just doesn't exist.

Does it need to be a laptop? Video editing leans on the CPU, GPU and memory HARD, and all of these are compromised on laptops vs desktops, mostly due to thermal concerns. My video editing laptop is an embarrassing chonker gaming laptop, because it can actually breathe - it needs to.

If you can, I'd wait for the 3xxx series nVidia hardware. It's going to be a pretty massive performance leap on the 2xxx series. Not sure what the roadmap is for making mobile versions of those GPUs
 
K

ksandvik

abracadabra
Any MacbookPro, new old up to 6 years old, could easily do video editing with no big issues, unless you want to edit live 4k in eight streams at the same time for a Hollywood movie production.

Just get 16G RAM.
 
yumdumpster

yumdumpster

Well-known member
ksandvik said:
Any MacbookPro, new old up to 6 years old, could easily do video editing with no big issues, unless you want to edit live 4k in eight streams at the same time for a Hollywood movie production.

Just get 16G RAM.
Click to expand...

You need at least a 2016+ MBP in order to handle HEVC media recorded on Go Pros.

I personally couldn't recommend one to anyone who wasn't A: A Developer, or B: Super concerned about aesthetics. The Value Proposition is just awful.
 
K

ksandvik

abracadabra
Yes, especially as Final Cut Pro costs far less than other competitors. Why the need for 4k/60 HEVC for GoPro recordings?
 
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