Advice : decent laptop requirements ?

tokumeino said:

My current latop becomes almost unuseable for photo and casual video editing ; I need to change.

As far as photography is concerned, I want to get able to use the AI denoise enhancements and that the LR UI gets decently snappy.

What are the required base components for 26MP RAW files ?

• If Intel CPU, I won't buy a "U" processor again ; "H" is a must but do I need a i7 ?
• If AMD, what is the "H" counterpart ?
• Would 16GB RAM be enough ?
• I guess that the GPU should have at least 8GB dedicated VRAM, am I right ?
• I guess that the AI processing requires special instructions. Which RTX processors are optimized to deal with such instructions ?

For video, I can use camera proxies and the final rendering may be a nightly process. evertheless, I'll use 4:2:2 10b 4K footage. Is there somethong I should know before bying a laptop ?

Click to expand...

Which generation U processor are you currently using? They had a big jump in performance with the 8th gen when they went from dual to quad core CPUs so it'll give a bit more context on your starting point.

For i5/i7 the big improvement will be with longer processes like imports/exports, things where the CPU is pegged at 100% for minutes or longer are where you'd notice it but for most cases it wouldn't be game changing between the 2. And for quick lightly threaded tasks like when you're actively editing something in Lightroom they should be really similar.

16GB is enough for now in many cases but if you intend to keep this computer for awhile I'd go 32GB especially if it's no upgradable.

I'd say 8GB of VRAM is a safe spot since so many cards released in the past few years have it so there's incentive to not require more. And you really don't want to find yourself in a situation where you get a lower spec card and then they decide you need 8GB of VRAM and now can't use those features you want.

Any RTX card will be, they all have the AI tensor cores.

Laptop CPUs are a pain right now so I might miss some things but these are some of the basics:

Intel P would also work, it's basically an H with a lower power limit to let it work in smaller devices but you get the cores of an H VS the smaller U series.

The first part with AMD is easy, they copied the U/H model names, the only difference is the new Intel P is an HS in AMD. But everything else is a bit more complicated since they have CPUs from Zen 2 to 4 under the 7000 series, this link has a table which lays out the naming scheme:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1871...-7000-cpus-unveiled-zen-4-phoenix-takes-point

Most computers you look at will probably be Zen3(+) & 4. It stinks that it's this confusing because the Zen 4 laptop CPUs seem to be really good.

tokumeino said:

My current latop becomes almost unuseable for photo and casual video editing ; I need to change.

As far as photography is concerned, I want to get able to use the AI denoise enhancements and that the LR UI gets decently snappy.

What are the required base components for 26MP RAW files ?

• If Intel CPU, I won't buy a "U" processor again ; "H" is a must but do I need a i7 ?
• If AMD, what is the "H" counterpart ?
• Would 16GB RAM be enough ?
• I guess that the GPU should have at least 8GB dedicated VRAM, am I right ?
• I guess that the AI processing requires special instructions. Which RTX processors are optimized to deal with such instructions ?

For video, I can use camera proxies and the final rendering may be a nightly process. evertheless, I'll use 4:2:2 10b 4K footage. Is there somethong I should know before bying a laptop ?

Click to expand...

In addition to what's already been said, unless you require extreme portability I suggest buying a relatively large laptop. A larger laptop has more room for its CPU/GPU cooler, a larger battery, bigger screen, and may be more likely to have user-replaceable/expandable memory and storage. Reading detailed tech and user reviews of your 'finalist' laptop possibilities can be useful in revealing problems that don't show up in a spec sheet.

tokumeino said:

My current latop becomes almost unuseable for photo and casual video editing ; I need to change.

As far as photography is concerned, I want to get able to use the AI denoise enhancements and that the LR UI gets decently snappy.

What are the required base components for 26MP RAW files ?

• If Intel CPU, I won't buy a "U" processor again ; "H" is a must but do I need a i7 ?
• If AMD, what is the "H" counterpart ?
• Would 16GB RAM be enough ?
• I guess that the GPU should have at least 8GB dedicated VRAM, am I right ?
• I guess that the AI processing requires special instructions. Which RTX processors are optimized to deal with such instructions ?

For video, I can use camera proxies and the final rendering may be a nightly process. evertheless, I'll use 4:2:2 10b 4K footage. Is there somethong I should know before bying a laptop ?

Click to expand...

It's unlikely you can specify these exact requirements for any laptop you find for purchase.

(AMD has Ryzen 5 7 9 just like Intel, and HX kind of like Intel K. We went with AMD on our last laptop simply because Asus made it with AMD.)

Another approach would be to look at Notebookcheck.net ratings and go from there. I strongly advise you to ignore Consumer Reports. Video processing will require a good GPU. Gaming laptops are often a better value than multimedia laptops.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Best-Multimedia-Notebooks.98608.0.html

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Best-Gaming-Notebooks.98628.0.html

If you want to use the latest “AI” denoising in LR be aware that you will need to have a compatible GPU. https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/system-requirements.html

CAcreeks said:

CAcreeks said:

[...]

Click to expand...

Another approach would be to look at Notebookcheck.net ratings and go from there. I strongly advise you to ignore Consumer Reports. Video processing will require a good GPU. Gaming laptops are often a better value than multimedia laptops.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll try that. The laptop will remain in my house (I just don't have room for a desktop PC) so it does not have to be thin. I'll check gaming laptops with good fans as also suggested by @Austinian.

tokumeino said:

CAcreeks said:

tokumeino said:

[...]

Click to expand...

Another approach would be to look at Notebookcheck.net ratings and go from there. I strongly advise you to ignore Consumer Reports. Video processing will require a good GPU. Gaming laptops are often a better value than multimedia laptops.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll try that. The laptop will remain in my house (I just don't have room for a desktop PC) so it does not have to be thin. I'll check gaming laptops with good fans as also suggested by @Austinian.

Click to expand...

Gaming laptops are a good bet for demanding work; one thing I'd watch out for is that some gaming screens are oriented toward fast response and high frame rate vs. the color gamut and accuracy we need for photo/video work. Notebookcheck reviews are indeed very good for providing those details.

CBR1100XX said:

tokumeino said:

My current latop becomes almost unuseable for photo and casual video editing ; I need to change.

As far as photography is concerned, I want to get able to use the AI denoise enhancements and that the LR UI gets decently snappy.

What are the required base components for 26MP RAW files ?

• If Intel CPU, I won't buy a "U" processor again ; "H" is a must but do I need a i7 ?
• If AMD, what is the "H" counterpart ?
• Would 16GB RAM be enough ?
• I guess that the GPU should have at least 8GB dedicated VRAM, am I right ?
• I guess that the AI processing requires special instructions. Which RTX processors are optimized to deal with such instructions ?

For video, I can use camera proxies and the final rendering may be a nightly process. evertheless, I'll use 4:2:2 10b 4K footage. Is there somethong I should know before bying a laptop ?

Click to expand...

Which generation U processor are you currently using? They had a big jump in performance with the 8th gen when they went from dual to quad core CPUs so it'll give a bit more context on your starting point.

For i5/i7 the big improvement will be with longer processes like imports/exports, things where the CPU is pegged at 100% for minutes or longer are where you'd notice it but for most cases it wouldn't be game changing between the 2. And for quick lightly threaded tasks like when you're actively editing something in Lightroom they should be really similar.

16GB is enough for now in many cases but if you intend to keep this computer for awhile I'd go 32GB especially if it's no upgradable.

I'd say 8GB of VRAM is a safe spot since so many cards released in the past few years have it so there's incentive to not require more. And you really don't want to find yourself in a situation where you get a lower spec card and then they decide you need 8GB of VRAM and now can't use those features you want.

Any RTX card will be, they all have the AI tensor cores.

Laptop CPUs are a pain right now so I might miss some things but these are some of the basics:

Intel P would also work, it's basically an H with a lower power limit to let it work in smaller devices but you get the cores of an H VS the smaller U series.

The first part with AMD is easy, they copied the U/H model names, the only difference is the new Intel P is an HS in AMD. But everything else is a bit more complicated since they have CPUs from Zen 2 to 4 under the 7000 series, this link has a table which lays out the naming scheme:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1871...-7000-cpus-unveiled-zen-4-phoenix-takes-point

Most computers you look at will probably be Zen3(+) & 4. It stinks that it's this confusing because the Zen 4 laptop CPUs seem to be really good.

Click to expand...

Mine is a 4 years old i7-8565U with a Geforce MX150 driving a 4K screen. It does throttle after 10s of heavy use due to a poor ventilation. I'll definitely look at non-slim laptops so as to allow for a better heat dissipation.

tokumeino said:

CBR1100XX said:

tokumeino said:

My current latop becomes almost unuseable for photo and casual video editing ; I need to change.

As far as photography is concerned, I want to get able to use the AI denoise enhancements and that the LR UI gets decently snappy.

What are the required base components for 26MP RAW files ?

• If Intel CPU, I won't buy a "U" processor again ; "H" is a must but do I need a i7 ?
• If AMD, what is the "H" counterpart ?
• Would 16GB RAM be enough ?
• I guess that the GPU should have at least 8GB dedicated VRAM, am I right ?
• I guess that the AI processing requires special instructions. Which RTX processors are optimized to deal with such instructions ?

For video, I can use camera proxies and the final rendering may be a nightly process. evertheless, I'll use 4:2:2 10b 4K footage. Is there somethong I should know before bying a laptop ?

Click to expand...

Which generation U processor are you currently using? They had a big jump in performance with the 8th gen when they went from dual to quad core CPUs so it'll give a bit more context on your starting point.

For i5/i7 the big improvement will be with longer processes like imports/exports, things where the CPU is pegged at 100% for minutes or longer are where you'd notice it but for most cases it wouldn't be game changing between the 2. And for quick lightly threaded tasks like when you're actively editing something in Lightroom they should be really similar.

16GB is enough for now in many cases but if you intend to keep this computer for awhile I'd go 32GB especially if it's no upgradable.

I'd say 8GB of VRAM is a safe spot since so many cards released in the past few years have it so there's incentive to not require more. And you really don't want to find yourself in a situation where you get a lower spec card and then they decide you need 8GB of VRAM and now can't use those features you want.

Any RTX card will be, they all have the AI tensor cores.

Laptop CPUs are a pain right now so I might miss some things but these are some of the basics:

Intel P would also work, it's basically an H with a lower power limit to let it work in smaller devices but you get the cores of an H VS the smaller U series.

The first part with AMD is easy, they copied the U/H model names, the only difference is the new Intel P is an HS in AMD. But everything else is a bit more complicated since they have CPUs from Zen 2 to 4 under the 7000 series, this link has a table which lays out the naming scheme:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1871...-7000-cpus-unveiled-zen-4-phoenix-takes-point

Most computers you look at will probably be Zen3(+) & 4. It stinks that it's this confusing because the Zen 4 laptop CPUs seem to be really good.

Click to expand...

Mine is a 4 years old i7-8565U with a Geforce MX150 driving a 4K screen. It does throttle after 10s of heavy use due to a poor ventilation. I'll definitely look at non-slim laptops so as to allow for a better heat dissipation.

Click to expand...

Good move, you're going to be really happy with any modern CPU next to that one.

Is that 4k screen the laptop's or a separate monitor? I know that you have a constrained space but if it is a monitor or you could make room for one would make shopping for a gaming laptop a lot easier. As has been mentioned the screens aren't optimized for content creation so you often need to really dig into the specs, and sometimes there's multiple displays offered on a single model.

When I had a situation like that I bought a 15" gaming laptop myself and got a little stand to bring it to the same height as my 25" monitor so I got the bonus of a second display.

For a smaller footprint I've also used the stand under the monitor and just had it over the laptop's screen though the economics of that might not be for everyone especially if it's a 17" laptop that you get.

tokumeino said:

The laptop will remain in my house (I just don't have room for a desktop PC) so it does not have to be thin. I'll check gaming laptops with good fans

Click to expand...

Really? How many sq ft do you live in? You are sacrificing a lot by buying a laptop if you want a decent GPU. And the PC can be tucked in somewhere else. All you need on your desk is the monitor and keyboard.

CBR1100XX said:

tokumeino said:

Mine is a 4 years old i7-8565U with a Geforce MX150 driving a 4K screen. It does throttle after 10s of heavy use due to a poor ventilation. I'll definitely look at non-slim laptops so as to allow for a better heat dissipation.

Click to expand...

Good move, you're going to be really happy with any modern CPU next to that one.

Is that 4k screen the laptop's or a separate monitor? I know that you have a constrained space but if it is a monitor or you could make room for one would make shopping for a gaming laptop a lot easier. As has been mentioned the screens aren't optimized for content creation so you often need to really dig into the specs, and sometimes there's multiple displays offered on a single model.

Click to expand...

Both Acer Predator Helios 18 and Asus ROG Strix 17 have 100% DCI-P3 in the base model.

(supposedly, according to manufacturer specs)

Chris Noble said:

tokumeino said:

The laptop will remain in my house (I just don't have room for a desktop PC) so it does not have to be thin. I'll check gaming laptops with good fans

Click to expand...

Really? How many sq ft do you live in? You are sacrificing a lot by buying a laptop if you want a decent GPU. And the PC can be tucked in somewhere else. All you need on your desk is the monitor and keyboard.

Click to expand...

I'm not living in a house but in a 90m2 apartment in Paris, France, and I don't have a spare room so I would need to add a small desk in my living room, which would ruin the decoration. Plus I find screen ugly and I don't want one in my appartement (I don't have a TV, typically).

Thanks for your help, I'm currently narrowing down my choice. Depending on the screen options and price opportunities, it should be an Acer Predator Helios 16, an Asus ROG Strix G16 or a Lenovo Legion Pro 5.

For the screen, I'll value a 1440p like resolution (1600 max and 1200 min) and Display P3 Coverage. Sometimes, specsheets reference HDR400 : how does it relate to P3 ?

About RTX4060 vs RTX4070 for image processing (not gaming) : provided 8Gb VRAM, is the step up only incremental, with like 20% faster, or are there qualitative differences like more hardware-optimised functions ? With LR Classic or CC, I'd like to edit 26MP NR-optimized heavy DNGs and be able to easily navigate/zoom in pictures with a couple of brush masks : would both offer enough comfort ? I don't care that much about rendering or bulk tasks, but rather focus on useability.

EDIT about P3 coverage : wouldn't be 100% sRGB enough ? As I would output video in Rec.709 and pictures in sRGB anyway, is there an important reason to go far past sRGB ?

If your whole workflow is sRGB then no it'll be fine.

The things I would look into though are brightness (350 nits I find it's good for your average room but if you have direct sunlight you would want something brighter)

Contrast ratio (around 1100:1 or more is good, you want to stay away from displays with lower than 1000:1)

And color accuracy (this one you can fix yourself though with various tools, but ideally it'll have an sRGB mode. Displays with wider gamuts will sometimes stretch the colors basically meaning that what you see will be more saturated than it actually is)

Edit: another annoying thing with these types of purchases is that the display specs are usually very vague and don't line up to actual measured values. So for the above stats I gave you're going to want to find a review that actually tests it out.

tokumeino said:

Thanks for your help, I'm currently narrowing down my choice. Depending on the screen options and price opportunities, it should be an Acer Predator Helios 16, an Asus ROG Strix G16 or a Lenovo Legion Pro 5.

For the screen, I'll value a 1440p like resolution (1600 max and 1200 min) and Display P3 Coverage. Sometimes, specsheets reference HDR400 : how does it relate to P3 ?

Click to expand...

That would be important for HDR, which is beyond my knowledge and not frequently discussed on DPreview, except for HDR in still photos (different from that spec).

tokumeino said:

About RTX4060 vs RTX4070 for image processing (not gaming) :

Click to expand...

Laptop RTX 4070 is about 8% faster than the 4060 but would run a little hotter. Probably doesn't matter, one way or the other. Check your software for GPU memory requirements.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

tokumeino said:

EDIT about P3 coverage : wouldn't be 100% sRGB enough ? As I would output video in Rec.709 and pictures in sRGB anyway, is there an important reason to go far past sRGB ?

Click to expand...

You said "video" in your top post, so DCI-P3 coverage would be better than mere sRGB.

tokumeino said:

Chris Noble said:

tokumeino said:

The laptop will remain in my house (I just don't have room for a desktop PC) so it does not have to be thin. I'll check gaming laptops with good fans

Click to expand...

Really? How many sq ft do you live in? You are sacrificing a lot by buying a laptop if you want a decent GPU. And the PC can be tucked in somewhere else. All you need on your desk is the monitor and keyboard.

Click to expand...

I'm not living in a house but in a 90m2 apartment in Paris, France, and I don't have a spare room so I would need to add a small desk in my living room, which would ruin the decoration. Plus I find screen ugly and I don't want one in my appartement (I don't have a TV, typically).

Click to expand...

I use an external monitor in my 31m2 Paris apartment, but I'm only there once in a while. And I have one of those super-thin TVs that hangs on a wall. À chacun son goût!

tokumeino said:

Thanks. I'll try that. The laptop will remain in my house (I just don't have room for a desktop PC) so it does not have to be thin. I'll check gaming laptops with good fans as also suggested by @Austinian.

Click to expand...

My laptop is over 10 years old and still delivering great service. The feature I like most is...

It can support two disk drives. One is M.2 and the other SATA but that's less important.

With the current focus on "slim" not many models have this ability but it gives tons of flexibility over the long term.

A good number of laptops on sale are configured with a 500GB SSD which is great for a system drive. But if you're doing a lot of photo or video work that's not going to be sufficient over time. Much better if you have a slot for a second 1, 2 or 4 TB drive.

CAcreeks said:

EDIT about P3 coverage : wouldn't be 100% sRGB enough ? As I would output video in Rec.709 and pictures in sRGB anyway, is there an important reason to go far past sRGB ?

You said "video" in your top post, so DCI-P3 coverage would be better than mere sRGB.

Click to expand...

Regarding video, beeing color blind (yes I am, unfortunately) and already relying a quite a number of automated policies, I'm unsure if displaying HDR would serve me that much, provided I can have HDR under the hood. My eyes probably don't see much more than 60% sRBG anyway ;-)

Following advices here, I've read many https://www.notebookcheck.net/ reviews and I'm currently hesitating between two decently rated laptops :

• Predator Helios 16 https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-...ming-laptop-with-many-strengths.734586.0.html (full DCI-P3 coverage, i7, RTX4060, 16GB) for 2000€ VAT in
• Legion 5 https://www.notebookcheck.net/Ryzen...on-Pro-5-16-Gen-8-laptop-review.717942.0.html (full sRGB coverage, Ryzen 7, RTX4070 32GB) for 1750€ VAT in

Be the screen, I would happily save 250€ and get 32GB RAM by buying the Lenovo.

tokumeino said:

My current latop becomes almost unuseable for photo and casual video editing ; I need to change.

As far as photography is concerned, I want to get able to use the AI denoise enhancements and that the LR UI gets decently snappy.

What are the required base components for 26MP RAW files ?

• If Intel CPU, I won't buy a "U" processor again ; "H" is a must but do I need a i7 ?
• If AMD, what is the "H" counterpart ?
• Would 16GB RAM be enough ?
• I guess that the GPU should have at least 8GB dedicated VRAM, am I right ?
• I guess that the AI processing requires special instructions. Which RTX processors are optimized to deal with such instructions ?

For video, I can use camera proxies and the final rendering may be a nightly process. evertheless, I'll use 4:2:2 10b 4K footage. Is there somethong I should know before bying a laptop ?

Click to expand...

Possibly a mobile Nvidia GPU to help the Ai along, or the MacBook Air 15" is an interesting option.

Also don't buy a laptop that annoys you, here's a list of more ergonomic stuff to consider:

(1) If you're choosing a screen size less than 13" think carefully as it gets quite limiting.
(2) If you're buying a screen size that's 17" or more think carefully as it is more a desktop replacement with limited portability.
(3) Type on the keyboard, a lot, you're stuck with it so make sure you are comfortable with it. Look at the size of the space-bar, enter and backspace keys. Look for missing keys (e.g. if no separate numeric keypad are they available as Fn keys. Look to see where PgUp, PgDn, Home and End are - might be Fn keys on the Arrow keys -are you okay with that. A backlit keyboard can be very useful.
(4) Use the trackpad a lot, see what you think. For example I hate the ones that have a rough surface as I think my finger will tire of them. Also are there left/right mouse buttons or is it tapping the pad only and how do you feel about that?
(5) Check the screen for resolution and generally how much you like/dislike it. You're stuck with that too. Consider a touch-screen. For PCs some programs don't play nice with ultra-high-res screens so if you are going 4k check your key software. Also for photographic use see if it's good for colour reproduction (e.g. all of sRGB, or even more) and for games look at response time.
(6) Try to check for noise level - very hard in a shop but can quickly get annoying.
(7) Also see how hot it's running assuming it was doing a demo before you arrived.
The last two items can be checked in reviews on notebookcheck.net, which is good for screen brightness too.
(8) If you're a gamer or photo editor check the graphics chip drivers, as notebooks often need graphics drivers customised by the notebook manufacturer, and they stop doing updates really quickly after they've sold it to you (plus Nvidia Studio drivers - no chance). If you must have a external GPU notebook for gaming/photography try to see if the generic Nvidia/AMD notebook drivers can be used on it.
(9) There's no perfect Notebook (just like cameras), it's a trade-off. Performance especially comes at the expense of noise/heat/weight/cost in varying measures.
(10) SSDs help with boot times, so are generally worth having. However you need room for all your data so a mechanical disk may be better than a small SSD. "NVMe" SSDs are the best type.
(11) Read the review for how long you can keep it in sleep mode, for some notebooks it isn't long and a dead battery annoys.
(12) Make sure you have/get an external drive to back it up onto.
(13) If you will use it via a Wireless connection a lot, to connect to other things at home/work (rather than the internet), then 802.11ax is well worth having, but you need an additional speed spec and notebooks tend to be at the lower end:
(14) Bluetooth 5+, maybe with LE is worth having as numerous things are now using it.

tokumeino said:

Regarding video, beeing color blind (yes I am, unfortunately) and already relying a quite a number of automated policies, I'm unsure if displaying HDR would serve me that much, provided I can have HDR under the hood. My eyes probably don't see much more than 60% sRBG anyway ;-)

Following advices here, I've read many https://www.notebookcheck.net/ reviews and I'm currently hesitating between two decently rated laptops :

• Predator Helios 16 https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-...ming-laptop-with-many-strengths.734586.0.html (full DCI-P3 coverage, i7, RTX4060, 16GB) for 2000€ VAT in
• Legion 5 https://www.notebookcheck.net/Ryzen...on-Pro-5-16-Gen-8-laptop-review.717942.0.html (full sRGB coverage, Ryzen 7, RTX4070 32GB) for 1750€ VAT in

Be the screen, I would happily save 250€ and get 32GB RAM by buying the Lenovo.

Click to expand...

This one is tough.

The big difference I'm seeing that could impact the use of the system is that the Acer's screen brightness only goes to 325-350 nits while the Lenovo's is all the way at 485-515 which is a huge difference.

If you work with the blinds closed or it's just not that bright of an area of the apartment either will be fine. But if you have a lot of light coming in the Lenovo's screen would make it the better option.

Edit: The Lenovo also has much better contrast which will help.