Question Laptop suggestions for Video Editing and College.

Status
Not open for further replies.

jadenwoolworth

Reputable
Sep 24, 2017
67
8
4,565
I'm pretty handy with computers and have built my own, but I'm still pretty gray on what makes a pc good at editing video. I'm going to college soon, and have a kind of beast desktop, but I need something low profile to take to class. At the same time, I'm going for film and run my own youtube channel, so I need it to do some really good video editing. It also needs good battery life since I'll be in class all day. I've got my desktop so I don't need to game or render 3d on it much (maybe some small stuff). I know I need lots of ram, but otherwise I'm not sure what makes a good editing pc. Clock speeds or core count? Does GPU have a huge impact, or is a 1650 ti and a 2080 super going to do pretty much the same thing in premier?
Thanks in advance.

Edit: I am familiar with Dell XPS 15 and Razer Blade 15, but I might be able to spend a little more. Low profile isn't a huge issue, so if I can trade battery life for size I'll take it.
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
Yes, GPU's have an impact on the task you want to perform, provide the app can utilize the app in question. Discrete GPU's will always offload the brunt of the work from the CPU and help with rendering times. If you rely on a lower end GPU or an iGPU the rendering times are increased.

You forgot to mention the budget you have for your laptop purchase, your location and your preferred site for purchase. Essentially all the info that's asked of in this thread.
 
I'm pretty handy with computers and have built my own, but I'm still pretty gray on what makes a pc good at editing video. I'm going to college soon, and have a kind of beast desktop, but I need something low profile to take to class. At the same time, I'm going for film and run my own youtube channel, so I need it to do some really good video editing. It also needs good battery life since I'll be in class all day. I've got my desktop so I don't need to game or render 3d on it much (maybe some small stuff). I know I need lots of ram, but otherwise I'm not sure what makes a good editing pc. Clock speeds or core count? Does GPU have a huge impact, or is a 1650 ti and a 2080 super going to do pretty much the same thing in premier?
Thanks in advance.

Edit: I am familiar with Dell XPS 15 and Razer Blade 15, but I might be able to spend a little more. Low profile isn't a huge issue, so if I can trade battery life for size I'll take it.
Budget and software? Honestly my recommendation would be a M1 MacBook Air using final cut. 8GB of RAM would be fine, FCP is dead easy to edit on plus has compatibility with pretty much every other video editor if you want to transfer the files across to your PC to use say premiere or resolve. The M1 macs are rapido, plus the battery life is insane, the display is great and you have pages + keynote for free which just demolish Word and PowerPoint. Numbers can't beat Excel but that's just because I was taught on excel.
 

Johnson Mike

Honorable
May 4, 2016
113
3
10,765
If you are looking to save then AMD laptops are great value right now. Look at the ROG Zephyrus G14. You can get it with the Ryzen 9 + RTX 2060 (max-q) for around $1400 from best buy. The Ryzen 9 in there beats Intel i9 in benchmarks and for most editing jobs RTX 2060 should be more than enough. Moreover, it has great battery life as well (9+ hours on single charge with basic productivity tasks).
Also, if you don't need the new laptop absolutely now, then it might be worth waiting for few weeks. Lot of new laptops with improved AMD Ryzen 5000 chips and Nvidia's 3000 series GPUs are going to be announced in CES.
If you don't want AMD for some reason and want to get Intel laptop, then 11th Gen Intel H-series chips and its laptops are also expected in CES.
 

jadenwoolworth

Reputable
Sep 24, 2017
67
8
4,565
Yes, GPU's have an impact on the task you want to perform, provide the app can utilize the app in question. Discrete GPU's will always offload the brunt of the work from the CPU and help with rendering times. If you rely on a lower end GPU or an iGPU the rendering times are increased.

You forgot to mention the budget you have for your laptop purchase, your location and your preferred site for purchase. Essentially all the info that's asked of in this thread.
I have some budget. I'm looking at laptops under 1300 dollars as a goal, but it's likely I will be able to afford more if it's really worth it. I'm think I'm just wondering if I need to prioritize cpu over gpu, clock speed over cores, and what cpus are good for battery life when not at full power.
 

jadenwoolworth

Reputable
Sep 24, 2017
67
8
4,565
If you are looking to save then AMD laptops are great value right now. Look at the ROG Zephyrus G14. You can get it with the Ryzen 9 + RTX 2060 (max-q) for around $1400 from best buy. The Ryzen 9 in there beats Intel i9 in benchmarks and for most editing jobs RTX 2060 should be more than enough. Moreover, it has great battery life as well (9+ hours on single charge with basic productivity tasks).
Also, if you don't need the new laptop absolutely now, then it might be worth waiting for few weeks. Lot of new laptops with improved AMD Ryzen 5000 chips and Nvidia's 3000 series GPUs are going to be announced in CES.
If you don't want AMD for some reason and want to get Intel laptop, then 11th Gen Intel H-series chips and its laptops are also expected in CES.
Thanks for the suggestion. I really like the low profile case and it's got great specs. If you're right about the battery life that's a great option for me.
 

jadenwoolworth

Reputable
Sep 24, 2017
67
8
4,565
Budget and software? Honestly my recommendation would be a M1 MacBook Air using final cut. 8GB of RAM would be fine, FCP is dead easy to edit on plus has compatibility with pretty much every other video editor if you want to transfer the files across to your PC to use say premiere or resolve. The M1 macs are rapido, plus the battery life is insane, the display is great and you have pages + keynote for free which just demolish Word and PowerPoint. Numbers can't beat Excel but that's just because I was taught on excel.
I see what you're saying. I was raised on both mac and windows so I'm pretty familiar with both. While I do like the word processing on mac like you said, I don't know if it will be as capable with blender renders and I think I will be using Premiere Pro. I've done some testing with ram in my main rig and going from 8 to 16 was a really big deal for the kind of editing I was doing (maybe it's different depending on your end goal). on top of all that macs feel very limiting to me and I don't think I would be comfortable using one throughout all of college.
 
I see what you're saying. I was raised on both mac and windows so I'm pretty familiar with both. While I do like the word processing on mac like you said, I don't know if it will be as capable with blender renders and I think I will be using Premiere Pro. I've done some testing with ram in my main rig and going from 8 to 16 was a really big deal for the kind of editing I was doing (maybe it's different depending on your end goal). on top of all that macs feel very limiting to me and I don't think I would be comfortable using one throughout all of college.
You’ll learn that a laptop just won’t be worth doing real work on vs a desktop. I tried doing molecular modelling on a laptop and it didn’t go well :) You’re so much better off just using a desktop for all the heavy lifting.

8GB is fine if you use FCP, the software is better optimised than any other editor.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.